To the Editor. — In their article entitled "Measuring Nonspecific Psychological Distress and Other Dimensions of Psychopathology" (Archives1981;38:1239-1247), Vernon and Roberts appropriately stated, "Available anthropological data illustrate the varied pattern of recognition of mental disorders, especially for the less severe psychoneurotic and psychophysiologic conditions" (p 1246). However, a corollary is also valid: available anthropological data also illustrate similar patterns of recognition of mental disorders, especially of the more severe disorders. In her analysis of diverse non-Western groups-the Eskimos of northwestern Alaska and Yorubas of rural, tropical Nigeria-Murphy noted that "in widely different cultural and environmental situations sanity appears to be distinguished from insanity by cues that are very similar to those used in the Western world." 1 This attitude is implicitly assumed, if not explicitly stated, by the many efforts at cross-cultural psychiatric epidemiology, including those of the World Health Organization 2 and others cited by Vernon and Roberts. Notwithstanding the