Dr. John Yerbury Dent's "The Human Machine" (1936)

New York City: Alfred A. Knopf (book), 1936.
8.375" x 5.75" x 1.375", 294 pages plus index, hardcover without dust jacket.

The Human Machine, an early text by Dr. John Yerbury Dent, who treated William S. Burroughs' heroin addiction in London, as published in hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf (New York City) in 1936 [though it notes 1937 on the second title page]. 

This materialist scientific text explains human behavior and conduct strictly through physiological mechanisms and neurological reflexes rather than psychology. Rejecting abstract notions of the mind or psyche, Dent breaks down complex experiences like emotion, willpower, and language into raw stimulus-response loops, concluding with a sharp critique of 1930s psychoanalysis. No Burroughs mentions, but it offers insight into Burroughs' later theories of control and addiction.

This copy contains a gift inscription dated 1949.

Contents:

• Preface
• I. The Evolution of Man and His Behaviour
• II. Development of Man and His Behaviour
• III. The Structural Basis of Behaviour
• IV. Reaction to the External Environment
• V. Reaction to Internal Environment
• VI. Reaction to Conversational Environment
• VII. Persistence and Decrease of Reaction — Memory, Habit, and Forgetfulness
• VIII. Conflicting Reactions
• IX. Therapeutic Alteration of Reaction
• X. Inhibition of Reaction (Sleep)
• XI. Hypnosis or Selected Inhibition to Reaction
• XII. Method of Producing Hypnosis
• XIII. The Subjective and Objective Viewpoints
• Appendix: Some Criticisms of Treatment by Psychoanalysis
• Index