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erful, and perpetually harassed by the objects which surround him. His first step should be to remove him from these; and every means, the most powerful which can excite new impressions on the mind, should be adopted to overcome those which have caused, and are keeping up, the disease. The lively sports of the field, if the patient has any predilection for them; scenes of gaiety and animation; news of an agreeable kind; exhilarating conversation; and every exciting feeling of a pleasant description, must be courted and cherished." There is also, the reviewer thinks, sound observation in the following remarks; but he is not quite sure about the good dinner and the wine, which, although a temporary cure, might afterwards aggravate the disease. "A very frequent disease connected with mental depression is nervous cephalalgia. The pains are generally acute over one, sometimes over both eyes. brain in such a state is in an irritable, not an inflammatory, condition; hence stimulants are indicated, and we find that sometimes even those of a material kind, a good dinner and a glass of wine, will dissipate that which, to a careless observer, would have demanded cupping and other depleting measures. A much more immediate remedy, however, is any event which can cause pleasurable and cheerful feelings in the mind; under such the irritability and the headach will generally and instantly disappear."

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Article 7th is a review of the second edition of Flourens' "Experimental Researches on the Properties and Functions of the Nervous System in Vertebrated Animals." Speaking of the " unity of the cerebrum," M. Flourens thus sums up the results of his investigations:-" I. The unity of the cerebrum, or of the organ which is the seat of intelligence, is one of the most important results of this work. II. The organ, the seat of intelligence, is one. III. In fact, not only do all the perceptions, all the volitions, all the intellectual faculties, reside exclusively in this organ; but all these faculties occupy the same place in it. As soon as one of them disappears by lesion of a given part of the cerebrum, they all disappear. As soon as one of them returns by the cure of injury, all return. The faculty of perceiving and willing, constitutes, therefore, a faculty which is essentially one, and this single faculty resides in a single organ." We are amazed that any physiologist of the present day should endanger his reputation by making such assertions as those we have here printed in italics.

On the following page the reviewer says:-"That the cerebral ganglia are the instruments of perception, memory, the intellectual faculties, and the will, may be regarded as a position fixed by the researches of M. Flourens. That the motor

principle is immediately derived from the spinal cord and medulla oblongata, seems also to be a legitimate deduction from his experiments; and it was by him that the principle was first brought prominently forwards, that this motor principle may be excited to action, by an external impression that does not produce sensation. The determination of the functions of the cerebellum had been previously made, without the knowledge of M. Flourens, by Rolando; and the near coincidence of the two series of results is sufficient to shew that, even if neither precisely expresses the truth, neither is far from it. Similar experiments have been subsequently made by Hertwig, with corresponding results. All these experiments lead to the conclusion, that the cerebellum is the organ by which the simple motions of the several parts of the body are blended together, for the performance of the actions of locomotion, and for the balancing of the body when at rest; and this conclusion harmonises so well with the evidence supplied by comparative anatomy, as to the relative development of the cerebellum in groups of animals that are distinguished by differences in the number and variety of such combined actions, that we cannot but regard it as entitled to take rank as a physiological truth. Our phrenological readers need not imagine that the admission of this view necessarily militates against the doctrine of Gall, respecting the seat of the sexual impulse; since it is quite possible that the two functions may coexist in the cerebellum; and there are phrenologists of eminence, who have found themselves compelled by the weight of evidence to admit the truth of Flourens' views. It is not by any means a satisfactory mode of getting rid of such evidence, to say that no value can be attached to vivisections, since an animal that has undergone so severe a mutilation of its nervous centres cannot be expected to keep its balance, walk, fly, &c. For is not the removal of the cerebral hemispheres an operation of much greater severity? And yet after this, animals may live for months, standing, walking, flying, &c., but doing all as if in a perpetual sleep. M. Flourens relates that a cock from which nearly half the cerebellum had been removed, frequently attempted to have intercourse with hens in whose company he was left, shewing that the sexual appetite was not destroyed by this severe mutilation. But he could never succeed, for want of power to execute the necessary combined movements, and to retain his equilibrium." -P. 368.

Article 8th is an analysis of Vrolik's "Researches into the Comparative Anatomy of the Chimpansé" (Amsterdam, 1841). With respect to the brain, we are informed (p. 380) that, as

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that of the specimen dissected by Vrolik was unfortunately decomposed, he has given, by way of compensation, “an excellent sketch of a vertical section of the brain of an orang, by which he has completed the phrenological iconography' of that species, which the works of Sandifort and Tiedemann had, in this respect, left imperfect. His plate exhibits a character of difference from the human brain, which had not hitherto been pointed out; namely, that the corpus callosum, whose posterior border corresponds, in man, to the testes, does not, in the orang, reach even so far back as the nates."

Leaving for future notice the last Number of the British and Foreign Medical Review, and also of the Medico-Chirurgical, we shall now advert to some of the other journals.

2. The Medical Gazette.-In the Number for 3d June 1843, there is an article on "The Necessity for the Study of Mental Philosophy by Medical Men ;"-10th June," Points in Medical Jurisprudence; Homicidal Monomania, and Murder by Premeditation ;"-4th November, "Account of the Colony of Insane at Gheel, a village near Antwerp," by Mr Lee;-8th December, and subsequent dates, "On the Impunity of certain Attempts to Murder, and the grounds of that Impunity," by Dr T. Mayo. To these we can merely refer.

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3. In The Lancet of 6th January 1844, p. 490, will be found an extract from Dr Cormack on tendency to insanity at childbirth: He illustrates the subject by reference to the lower animals. On 27th January, p. 576, Mr E. J. Hytche, writing about "the impostors who are exhibited by the professors of Mesmerism," says," I have recently had an opportunity of testing three or four of these cases, but the experiments immediately failed when a non-mesmerist silently suggested them. These experiments demonstrated that the patients were wilful, though artful, deceivers." Having subsequently examined the heads of the mesmeric patients, he found the evidence of a low moral organization and an acute intellect, with large Imitation and Secretiveness. We presume he does not, however, mean it to be inferred that such is universally the case with the heads of mesmeric patients. Among mesmeric as among other exhibitors, both impostors and true men" are doubtless to be found. In the No. for 2d March, is published the following extract from the Physician's Journal of the Lincoln Lunatic Asylum. " One declaration I feel it but candid and manly to make before I close this book for ever. An observation of many months has convinced me that the defects I formerly thought inherent, necessarily inherent, in the non-restraint system, and

inseparable from it, are not so, and, with few exceptions, may be considered referrible to other and to extraneous sources. I do not mean to fly from one extreme to another, and to say that the system is perfect. I am convinced that much is to be discovered, and much will be discovered; but in a moment like this, which to me is not without its solemnity, I should consider the suppression of any change of opinion on a subject like this a sacrifice to self, and consequently unworthy. (Signed) W. D. COOKSON." This declaration is highly creditable to Dr Cookson.

4. The Medical Times of 6th and 13th January 1844, contains an interesting communication on Mesmerism from Mr Braid. He maintains, that the remarkable exaltation of the power of the senses which occurs in the mesmeric trance, and the tendency of mesmerised persons to imitate the actions of others, are sufficient to account for many phenomena which have been attributed to community of sensation, and to the operation of the mesmeriser's will upon that of the patient. He ascribes the muscular motions, attitudes, and rigidity, apparently resulting from physical operations by the mesmeriser, not to any magnetic influence, but purely to imagination. "I have thus," says he, "acted on patients myself at the first interview, and before numerous spectators; making the patient rigid, and the limbs involuntarily fixed, and feeling as if drawn in any direction I chose, simply by calling the muscles into strong action, and concentrating the nervous energy in that direction, by impressing the patients with the conviction that such would be the certain results. The moment the attention was directed in another course, the rigidity would spontaneously cease." He has performed so many experiments (one of which is detailed) leading to these conclusions, as to convince him of the fact, that the phenomena are entirely the result of imagination acting on susceptible subjects. He adds:" Almost all intelligent individuals who have witnessed these experiments, agree with me in this opinion."

We referred in last Number to an article in the Medical Times of 16th December, entitled "Mesmerism Unmasked;" and added, that it remained to be seen whether Mr Weekes of Sandwich, the accused, would acquiesce in the statements of the accuser, Dr Smethurst. On 10th February (p. 322), a reply is published by Mr Weekes, who characterizes the article in question as "one uniform tissue of the most gross and wilful falsehoods that has ever found its way to the world through the medium of any respectable publication, in opposition to the truths of animal magnetism." He says that not

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only were there applied (in addition to masks) thick velvet pads and bandages, fitting as tightly to the face as the very skin itself, but the boy's eyes, after being, as it were, sealed by magnetic manipulations, were covered to the extent of two inches around, and half an inch in thickness, with plaster of Paris, and other opaque cements; and yet did the patient receive " impressions enabling him to read, play at dominoes, and so forth." The substance of a rejoinder by Dr Smethurst may be seen in the Medical Times of 2d March, page 402.

IV. Our Library Table.

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1. The Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, vol. xxvi., contains a valuable paper, by Dr John Webster, entitled, "Statistics of Bethlem Hospital, with Remarks on Insanity." The author points out a uniformly increasing proportion of patients discharged cured, along with a diminished ratio of mortality, in cases of mental disease in that establishment, during the period which has elapsed since the middle of the last century. In the three years 1750-51-52, 461 patients were admitted 145, or 31 per cent. were cured; and 118, or 25 per cent. died;-while, in 1840-41-42, 897 were admitted; 492, or near 55 per cent. were cured; and 51, or 5g per cent. died. Such are the triumphs of improved treatment!-The common opinion, that in this country insanity is more prevalent among women than among men, is shewn by Dr Webster to be wellfounded; and it farther appears that mania is more curable in females than in males. During the twenty years ending 31st December 1842, the number of females admitted exceeded that of the males by 47 per cent. ; yet, while only 46 per cent. of males were cured, the rate of cure in the case of females was 554. The deaths were-males, 61 per cent. ; females, 41. And, as the same facilities regarding the admission of patients into the hospital prevail, without any reference to sex, provided the cases are recent, the above results must be pronounced conclusive. The statistics of St Luke's Hospital confirm them.-We learn also, that "instances of self-destruction are now much less frequently met with in public institutions for the insane than formerly; notwithstanding the fact that patients enjoy at present greater freedom, are more frequently engaged in varied occupations, and even sometimes are allowed to use dangerous tools in their respective handicrafts, than in the olden time, when restraint and coercion were more commonly employed." In the twenty years ending 1st January 1770, the number of suicides was, to

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