EFINITIONS in psychiatry are always difficult, so that agreement as to D general concepts and diagnostic classifications is seldom attained. In spite 260
N EARLIER papers ( I , 2 and 3 ) emphasis was laid on the concept of enuresis I as a reflection (individuation) of an ill-balanced personality (faulty integration of the different levels) and an important indicator of so-called "nervous instability." If such a concept be demonstrable in "normals," then individuals clinically known to have ill-balanced personalities should be expected to evidence it in even greater measure. The present study is founded on just such a groupa series of roo delinquents and roo controls, the basis of a recent Healy and Bronner (4) contribution.' Their survey consisted of 153 families, from which were selected 105 delinquents and 105 controls. For each delinquent was chosen a sibling control as nearly of the same age, and of the same sex, as possible. I t may be somewhat confusing to use the terms "controls" and "normals" as having different connotations; the former refer to the siblings of the delinquents in this study and the latter refer to an entirely separate group of individuals ( I ) . This is not the place to enter into a discussion as to whether these should be considered as similar or not. For practical purposes in the presentation of the data, this differentiation shall be maintained.Our attention here shall be concentrated on enuresis and related clinical phenomena with no attempt to review the quantity of data described so adequately by Healy and Bronner. In their book, they considered enuresis to be present only if it occurred past the age of eight years. However, as their original files contained information relative to the presence of enuresis after the age of five, this age limit was used instead as the standard in the present report, which explains the higher incidence of enuresis found-20.0 per cent among the delinquents and 10.0 per cent among the controls as compared with their findings of 21.0 per cent and 3.9 per cent respectively. Table I compares the incidence of enuresis and other factors in normals ( I ) , psychotics ( 5 ) , and the delinquents and controls of the current series. As rhe original studies on the normals and psychotics accepted the age of three years as the limit for normal sphincter control, to standardize the data, age five years was adhered to, appropriate revisions being made. The nature of the material and methods used in these two groups have already been described. In the Healy-Bronner material, the presence of the traits under investigation was recorded.
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