An Italian Psychologist

Abstract

THIS book might well have been entitled “The Work of Agustino Gemelli”, founder of the Catholic University of Milan and director of its Department of Psychology. As the following sketch of his life indicates, Prof. Gemelli is a remarkable man; in Dr. Manoil he has found a devoted and competent Boswell. After obtaining his doctorate at Pavia both in medicine and in science, he served for five years from 1898 as assistant to the histologist Golgi, carrying out research during this period on the hypophysis of the brain. But in 1903 he turned aside to theological studies and for four years led the life of a Franciscan monk. Then he resumed his scientific work, visiting between 1907 and 1911 the biological and neurological laboratories of Nussbaum and Verworn at Bonn and of Edinger at Frankfort. In 1909 he promoted in Italy the neo-scholastic movement, which had also been introduced into the Catholic University of Louvain, the home of his distinguished colleague in experimental psychology, Prof. A. Michotte. In 1912 he obtained his doctorate In philosophy. Thereupon he began his career as an experimentalist psychologist, working in Ger-mariy at the psychological laboratories of Kulpe arid Krapelin and carrying out research at the laboratory of Turin under Kiesow. In 1916 he was at Munich studying ‘psychological profiles’ with reference to occupational selection. On the entry of Italy into the Great War, he joined her army first as doctor and priest, later establishing the first psycho-physiological laboratory of the Italian army, for the study of aviation and the selection of airmen.

La psychologic expérimentale en italic (École de Milan)

Par Dr. A. Manoil. (Bibliothèque de philosophie contemporaine.) Pp. viii + 490 + 16 plates. (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1938.) 80 francs.