This was published as An Essay on the Physiology of Mind (Philadelphia: Saunders, 1922). There is also an accompanying manuscript version in French, "Physiologie de la pensée" (167 pages).

This is a biographical sketch of Dercum, who was a specialist in neurology and president of the American Philosophical Society (1927-1981). Dercum practiced medicine in Philadelphia and made the first contribution to understanding adiposis dolorosa, or Dercum's disease. This essay was presented before the Section on Nervous and Mental Diseases of the American Medical Association, in Cleaveland, June 4, 1941.