Over fifteen years ago Dr. Adolf Meyer, then Director of the Psychiatric Institute, prepared a set of clinical guides or outlines for use in the New York State Hospitals. These were furnished the physicians in typewritten form. Their practical value was quickly recognized with the result that they were adopted as the standard method of clinical study, not only in the New York State Hospitals, but in many other institutions throughout the country. A number of changes and additions to the guides have been made with the passage of time and the advance of psychiatric knowledge, but there has been no departure from the general plan originally formulated by Dr. Meyer for history taking and clinical examination of mental cases.<br><br>There has long been a demand that the guides be made available for use in permanent printed form. The decision of the State Hospital Commission to publish the guides gave the editor an opportunity to revise and amplify them in several directions and to add considerable new material which has been accumulated as the result of the experience of recent years.<br><br>The guide for the study of the personality make-up is based on the well known work of Hoch and Amsden and follows in a general way the outline prepared by Dr. Hoch for use in the State Hospitals while he was Director of the Institute.<br><br>Dr. Clarence 0. Cheney, Assistant Director of the Institute helped materially in the revision, and the guide for the study of body development and the endocrine glands is almost entirely his work. Dr. Charles E. Gibbs of the Institute Staff assisted in revising the anamesis guide.<br><br>From various physicians in the New York State service helpful suggestions have been received. The Editor wishes to acknowledge particularly the assistance rendered by Dr. George W. Mills, Clinical Director of the Central Islip State Hospital, and Dr. Mortimer W. Raynor, Clinical Director of the Manhattan State Hospital.