Some perpetually alert Harvard critics have been quick to point to Harvard's propensity to admit neurotics, but the reasons for the increase were apparent solved with some case; "usually live to ten interviews spaced at weekly intervals served to resolve their immediate difficulties or at least to modify them favorably." Techniques used by the psychiatric service are presumably the same as in private practice, despite the attempt to keep the number of visits per person down. "Always with scrupulous regard for privacy and confidentiality," reports the annual summary, "all staff members spend much time consulting with parents, roommates, friends, Faculty members, tutors, deans, and others who are involved in the quandries of any particular person."

Particularly because of the increased attention to mental and emotional health, the University Health Services has come to play a crucial role in all areas of University life. Regular conferences are held between the members of the Administrative Board of deans and the psychiatric service. Dr. Farnsworth sits as a member of the College Admissions Committee, reading the application folders of candidates who seem to have emotional problems, as well as some who do not. If a person appears to have "no chance of succeeding" at Harvard as a result of his health problem, Dr. Farnsworth advises against admitting him. If, on the contrary, "he has handled his problem intelligently, he is generally accepted; very few are rejected on grounds of mental health, according to Dr. Farnsworth.

Even if psychiatry has been accepted as an important part of the college health routine, some of the old complaints recur. Despite persistent rumors to the contrary, Health Services officials insist that information about student visits to a psychiatrist does not become the property of the deans and other officials. Psychiatric records are reportedly kept separate from ordinary medical records, and only the fact that a student has visited the psychiatry section is entered on the medical forms. But if a case becomes serious or if psychiatric information is relevant to deliberations of the Administrative Board, for example, the necessary information will be furnished, and the student will be told. One doctor at the Health Center reports that the senior tutors would like to have considerably more information than they now get from the psychiatric service, but the criticism is usually in the other direction. Faculty members have charged that psychiatrists have broken patient's confidence by revealing illegitmate pregnancies or homosexual experiences to the authorities; Health Service officials absolutely deny all such stories.

One issue during the past year which involved the psychiatric services, as well as the medical section of the Health Services, was the running controversy over drugs and their use at Harvard. While estimates of the percentage of Harvard students who take drugs--and specifically who smoke marijuana--ran as high as 50 per cent and as low as one or two in the newspapers, most members of the Administration belittled the extent of the problem.

In an interview with the CRIMSON, Dr. Graham B. Blaine Jr. '40, newly appointed Chief of Psychiatry (whose article on collegiate mores had touched off the 1963 "Harvard sex scandal" in the press), said that "we at the Health Services take a fairly casual attitude toward pot. We know that some Harvard students are using marijuana. We know they get it from townies. But it isn't harmful, and there's no evidence to show it's even as addictive as cigarettes." While he warned of the possibility that smoking marijuana could lead to involvement with more serious drugs, such as heroin, Dr. Blaine asserted that there is no evidence that marijuana itself is addictive. He indicated that the Administration took a more disapproving view than the medical officials, because of a responsibility to law enforcement officials, and that the doctors were often urged to provide information.

But within a week, Dr. Blaine had apparently changed his mind. In a letter to the CRIMSON, he said that he "did not mean to imply . . . that there is a difference in attitude toward drug taking on the part of the University Health Services, the Administration and the law enforcing agencies. . . . I feel that the fact that we do not have a drug problem here at Harvard now is largely due to the fact that there has been excellent co-operation within the limits of confidentiality between individuals from these quarters. Everything that can be done to discourage the use of drugs is being carried out and in my opinion effectively."

The sharpest reply to Dr. Blaine's earlier assertion of "a fairly casual view toward pot" came from Dr.

There are Complaints About its Clinic and Confusion About its Position on Drugs, but Harvard's Health Service is Considered One of the Best.... Farnsworth two months later. After sentencing a local 19-year-old for selling drugs in Harvard Square, Midlesex Superior Court Judge Frank W. Tomasello charged that there was a serious drug problem here and urged an investigation to "clean out Harvard Square;" the Cambridge City Council responded in kind, citing evidence of narcotics transactions in Square cafeterias.

While Dr. Farnsworth charged that "the crisis in drug traffic has been greatly exaggerated by people without accurate information," he strongly discouraged the use of any sort of drugs by students and pointed to a continual concern at the Health Center about their effects. He characterized marijuana as a harmful drug, which should be avoided for its own effects as well as the more serious drugs may exaggerate and complicate he said, is "a way-station on the road to a life different from that for which students come to a university. He warned of the serious danger that drugs may exaggerate and complicate the problems one has when he begins to take them. Dr. Farnsworth intends a thorough discussion of the drug problem in colleges in a forth-coming book.

A persistently interesting issue is the matter of communications between the Administration and Health Services in drug cases. Dr. Farnsworth urged an attempt to help students find "medical solutions" before they are implicated in legal or disciplinary action; no "spy system" would be set up to inform the authorities, he promised. Later in the spring, when the Administrative Board ousted a freshman for giving and selling marijuana to his friends, the Health Services were involved only after the case went to the Police--and then only in an attempt to assist the victims medically.

One of the more volatile subjects for the Health Services' attention has been the question of just how concerned the college should be about its students' sex lives. In a New York speech in March Dr. Farnsworth said that colleges should think about this matter, but that they should not attempt to force a particular point of view upon their students. The basic solution for the dilemma, he suggested, is honest, uncommitted education "full and frank discussion in families, in groups, between couples, and between older and younger collegeagues in the college." But he cautioned his audience of physicians that "until we resolve our own confusions we will not be in a favorable position to help our younger colleagues thread their way through the devious paths of development to sexual maturity."

The ubiquitous Dr. Blaine, writing in Mosaic, the magazine of the Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel Society, urged in March that information on birth control be made part of the curricula of high schools and colleges, suggesting that such a move would reduce the number of illegitimate births in this country.

Dr. Farnsworth is more cautious, however, and points to the difficulties involved in any active role in the matter of contraception. The official policy of the UHS is straightforward:Members of a college health services staff may discuss with students any aspect of their private lives about which there is any concern. However, supervision of contraceptive practices of unmarried students is not an appropriate function for a college health service. To do so would suggest approval to many, implies that the college assumes responsibility which does not properly belong to it, and runs counter to the sincere wishes of the great majority of parents (and the law as well as in Massachusetts).

The nature of doctors' decisions on these matters is almost impossible to determine