How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
44/400
- Publication/creation
- London : George Routledge, 1932.
- Physical description
- xiv, 374 pages ; 22 cm
- Contributors
- Wolfe, W. Béran 1900-1935.
- Notes
-
This edition was reprinted in 1933, 1934, 1935, 1937, 1942, 1944, 1945, 1946 and 1948.
Copy 1 Note: 1937 reprint. X158203
- Attribution and usage
-
Wellcome Collection
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to continue their studies in the correlated fields of human
culture.
In 1907, Dr. Alfred Adler, a Viennese physician,
published a small book called A Study of Organ Inferiority,
which demonstrated, for the first time in history, how
nature compensates for certain physical defects in an
organ of the body by increased activity or by changes in
structure which enable that damaged or inferior organ
to more than carry on its usual work. An example of this
compensatory activity may be seen in the formation of
callous bone at the site of a fracture, the new bone acting
as an additional supporting framework, or in the forma¬
tion of scar tissue which fills in the defect when skin or
muscle are cut. Adler also showed that when certain sense
organs, such as the eyes or ears, were defective or injured,
other sense organs occasionally became more active and
thus helped to restore the injured individual to a greater
measure of human efficiency.
This discovery led almost immediately to the realization
that nature was very much concerned in keeping any
organism, whether plant, animal, or man, at a high level
of efficiency, and made provision to nullify any existing
defects with a lavish hand. Further researches showed that
when nature compensated for a defect, either in structure,
such as a broken bone, or in function, such as in a
heart whose valves did not function correctly, the com¬
pensatory mechanism frequently more than filled in the
defect. In other words, where nature found a” minus ”
she was inclined to replace it with a “ double plus ”,
the healed bone being stronger than the original fractured
bone, the leaking heart, by virtue of an overgrowth of
muscular tissue, becoming in some instances a better and
larger pump than a normal heart.
From this discovery it was but a step for Adler to find
that compensations were not confined to the structure
and functions of single organs, but that the total organism
reacted in a compensatory fashion to the existence of a
defect. This discovery constitutes one of the most important
laws of modern psychology because it is the basis of the