Like Minds

To the Editors:

Your issue of May 4 contains a letter by Toby E. Huff in which he refers to my book Madness in Society (1968). He states that my discussion of witchcraft was influenced by the work of H. Trevor-Roper. This assertion is totally incorrect. The chapter to which Huff refers was originally published in 1960 in the Journal of Health and Human Behavior, a fact explicitly stated in my book on page 329. The publication precedes the book by Trevor-Roper by about seven years. Indeed, I was quite surprised when I read the publication by Trevor-Roper that it seemed to follow my interpretation. I doubt, however, that an English historian would have been conversant in an American publication in sociology.

George Rosen

Professor of the History of Medicine,

& Epidemiology & Public Health

Yale University

New Haven, Connecticut