Abstract
Many of the viewpoints, both in the past and at the\r present, about psychosomatic illnesses have been theoretical\r and speculative. In the interests of more factual and\r scientific validation, this paper will be concerned almost\r entirely with experimental work designed to scrutinize the\r existing theories under the harsh impartial light of the\r scientific method. It is beyond the scope of the paper to\r attempt to cover the whole topic of psychosomatic medicine;\r rather, it will deal with studies carried out in the past\r five years which focus on three prominent questions: 1)\r What type of persons most frequently develop psychosomatic\r diseases; 2) What are the determining factors involved in\r choice of illness site of a psychosomatic disorder; and 3)\r What is the relationship between emotional stress and the\r body's resistance to disease in general.\r The writer feels it worthwhile to first take a birds\r eye view of the whole field before descending for a closer\r look at these three areas of special interest. There:f'ore,\r in an attempt to place the recent experimental work in its\r historical setting, to see where psychosomatic medicine\r stands today in relation to its past, a brief panoramic\r survey of the emergence of various psychosomatic conceptions\r will be presented.