The Cornell Medical Index-Health Questionnaire (abbreviated C. M. I.) is a four page letter size sheet on which are printed 195 questions corresponding closely to those usually asked in a detailed and comprehensive medical interview including many on the psychological aspects of illness. Patients answer questions on the C. M. I as accurately and as honestly as they do t o physicians in oral interview (I). Interpretation of the C. M. I. yields correct psychiatric ( 2 ) and comprchcnsive medicalc3) appraisals of the patient. This paper describes the use of these data in appraising the severity of emotional disturbances ranging from minor and transient disturbances of mood or feeling pattern to more serious neuroses, psychoses and character disorders.
Subjects. Five samples were examined. The New York Hospital sample (5,121) consists of all patients newly admitted during the yearbeginning July 1, 1948 t o the medical and surgical out-patient departments, and who completed C. M. I.'s. The New York Hospital is a teaching general hospital for Cornell University Medical College students. The "neurotic" New York Hospital sample (526) are thosc patients of the above sample who were diagnosed as emotionally disturbed during hospital examination.
The New York City "normals" (610) are random New York City men and women, ostensibly healthy, who completed C. M. 1.'~. collected by several hundred college students in 1949. It is not known how many "normals" are emotionally