Brains and Drunks

Last week in sunny Atlantic City the clubby little Psychopathological Society met to discuss the latest wrinkles in the brain business, the best methods of treating morbid housewives, drunken drivers, sex criminals. Highlights of the meeting:

Jews and Alcohol. Among U. S. Jews,, said Boston's famed Dr. Abraham Myerson, alcoholism is practically nonexistent. Reason: social tradition. "[The Jew] had to live by his wits in an environment where he had to maintain the full potency and coherency of his personality. Alcoholism became dangerous to the group and received severe punishment."

Concrete v. Abstract. Few men in the world know more about the workings of the human brain than grey-locked Neurologist Kurt Goldstein, formerly of the University of Berlin, now at New York City's vast Montefiore Hospital.

Contrary to popular opinion, said Dr. Goldstein to his colleagues last week, the brain does not grasp simple, single objects first, but understands things only as parts of larger patterns. Many patients suffering from injuries of the cortex (most highly complex section of the brain) cannot use or understand any isolated words, symbols or objects. For example, certain patients who have brain injuries, but who appear normal in their behavior, when handed a knife, are unable to give it a name. But when handed a knife with a potato, they promptly cry: "That's a potato peeler."

Other patients, when shown a square and a triangle and asked to draw them, reply that they do not know what these abstract symbols are. But instead of a separate square and triangle they draw with facility a crude house, with a square body and a triangular roof.

By sharp observation of such behavior, Dr. Goldstein not only learns how the human brain works, but is able to recognize many symptoms which might otherwise be easily overlooked.

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