A general survey is given of what an internist belonging to the staff of a psychiatric hospital may expect concerning more or less hidden somatic abnormalities and diseases. A number of examples illustrate this view. Emphasis is laid on the opinion that not only psychiatry, but also the psychiatrist has become alienated from somatic medicine and its basic sciences in general. Psychiatrie perse does not any more belong to the faculty of medicine but to the faculty of the 'human' sciences (psychology, sociology, andragogy). Therapy with psychopharmaca needs supervision of a physician (preferentially a neurologist) who has received a specific training.