OCR Text |
Show Dickens Great Artitt, Not Mental Specialist Mr. Mlcawber. Miss Klite and tin-numerous tin-numerous other queer characters win. populate the pages of Ctiurles Dickens books are correctly depleted from the viewpoint of" the layman who seet what he thinknie ought to see, but not when viewed bj specialist In mental diseases. This litouplnlon of Dr. Charles W. BurrnMtfor of psyclihitry In the University of Pennsylvania uiedieui school, who hus applied to tin-he fiction fic-tion characters the methods which he uses In diagnosing mental disorder ' when called into a criminal court as un ' alienist. "Dickens wns an artist," says Do? tor Burr, "and not a specialist in mental medicine. Just as the dying of a great actor on the stage Is altogether alto-gether unlike death as the physician sees It, so life seen with an artist's eyes Is unlike life seen by the professor pro-fessor trained In the learning of the schools. Death as It really happens, acted on the stage, would be flat, stale and uninteresting. Dickens describes a fulryland, not seldom a fairyland Into which devils have Intruded. This Is the secret of his wide appeal spreading spread-ing through space and lasting through time." Science Service. |