The florist takes them and makes new surroundings for them, puts them in flower houses and waters and cultures them, making their surroundings those of spring time, and they flourish and attain to all the characteristics of the beautiful spring flower. This they could not do perfectly if the seed, too, were of a faulty kind. In that case he would not expect perfect plants, knowing that by proper nurture and care their growth and beauty can be greatly improved, but not made perfect. The degenerate is a specimen of humanity out of season, and is also of inferior stock. He is incapable of attaining to that beauty and splendor of normal, robust, mental and physical development, but through proper care, training and nurture, by skillful hands, his natural trend can be greatly improved upon and his kind, if permitted to be perpetuated at all, should be placed in good soil and healthful atmosphere. This, together with skillful care and direction, may finally eliminate all blemishes.

Certain stocks of common range horses are of certain known fixed standard in size and speed. Take their colts and starve them and allow them no exercise, and they will be small ponies, clumsy and awkward. On the other hand, feed them well and train them from the time they are very young and they will grow larger; continue feeding and training this stock for a few generations and the natural type becomes far superior to the original type, both in size and speed.

By an early individual observation and study of each child, and a familiarity with the attributes of its ancestors, it can be so nurtured, developed and trained as to reach great improvement during its lifetime. Continue these efforts through a few generations and its type becomes a permanently superior one. Finding a child to be subject to convulsions from trivial causes, or suffering from night terrors, somnambulism, enuresis, strabismus, chorea, hysteria, scrofulous tendencies, etc., it is our imperative duty to obtain its personal and family history as early and as completely as possible and institute vigorous measures-corrective, nutritional and developmental remembering at the same time that if proper nutrition

will help an unhealthy child, it will also help healthy ones, and make their future possibilities still greater.

DISCUSSION.

DR. J. M. NICKS, Stone City: I want to say that I am very glad the doctor presented these cases to us. I have long made observations on this subject, and I am glad that my attention has been called to them. This is a very interesting paper.

DR. W. W. MACGREGOR, Laredo: I am very much pleased with the doctor for showing us these cases, which illustrate a long felt want—that is, the education of the public, especially the general educational part of the State in matters of this kind, and I would like to see this paper published and given wide distribution and circulated among all the school trustees of the State at the expense of the society.

I think it is a very important matter that people should be educated in regard to the care of children. We have our public schools with all their facilities and everything, but oftentimes negligence in regard to those matters which contribute to the welfare of the child when it grows up. The long hours that they have; the child can not spend long hours in recitations and then spend half the night in preparing recitations for the next day. Not that they intend to injure the growing child, but they do not understand that the physical culture of the child and the intellectual culture should go together. The old saying, "Mena sana in corpora sano-if you have not a sound body you have not a sound mind," and the care of the physical nature of the child is just as important as the educational qualifications, because if they have not a sound body and a sound physical frame they are not able to carry out their function in life and not able to use their brain, because the brain is just as much a physical organ as the stomach, and it is as important to take care of the brain as it is to take care of the liver or the same as they care for their bowels or anything else.

THE PLEA OF INSANITY BEFORE OUR COURTS.

R. B. SELLERS, M. D.,

COMANCHE, TEXAS.

A perfectly normal mind seldom exists; in fact the statement has been made by scientists that such a condition as mental perfection is never reached-that notwithstanding the great heights of mentality which men attain, there is an unbalanced mental condition in every one.

Such conditions we see when we are brought into daily companionship with people; when we notice more clearly their mental imperfections shown by their violent outbreaks of temper, their peculiar views on subjects which give them the name of cranks, their mulish obstinacy when their position can readily be shown incorrect, their oddities in personal appearance and other things we call peculiar.

The idiosyncracies are not generally termed insanity, and we pass them without any serious thought of them being mentally abnormal.

Just where sanity ends and insanity begins is a matter of deep concern. That insanity is as much of a disease as is typhoid fever, pneumonia or smallpox, we all know. The delirium, the raving and the irresponsibility of a person suffering from any of the acute fevers, could not be termed insanity, for such conditions are only temporary. While "insanity is a prolonged departure from the normal, in the way of acting, thinking and feeling," and when such is the state of an individual, the law does not hold him responsible for any act or crime he may commit.

There is a feeling of horror in the minds of all, when an insane man suffers capital punishment, yet there are some very prominent cases in the history of our country where such has been done. Let me call your attention to two, the first being that of Guiteau, the

assassin of President Garfield. From the press reports of testimony taken in the case, and subsequent facts that have developed, I believe that we must acknowledge that Guiteau's actions were those of a man' suffering from delusional insanity. He had always been considered queer by his friends he had been in the employment of the government for years, and for some cause he lost his position.

Though the President was entirely ignorant of such conditions, and probably had never heard of the man till after his discharge, yet this Guiteau had formed the opinion that it was a personal injury and insult which the President was inflicting on him, and under this fixed delusion he shot Mr. Garfield.

The second case is that of Czolgosz, the murderer of President McKinley.

In both of these cases the plea of insanity was entered at their trials, but both were declared sane, and executed.

Let us look for a moment at the last case. In a very able article written by an Eastern physician, and published some months ago in the Arena, it was clearly shown from letters and interviews gathered after his execution that he was suffering from organized delusions, a form of insanity that is incurable and very dangerous. This history shows him to have always been a peculiar boy-shunning the company of people, especially that of girls. He had worked hard for years till his health had broken down; he then became suspicious of his family and friends; he was morose and secretive, had delusions and hallucinations, and would always take his meals alone, especially when certain members of the family were at home. When he went to Chicago, a short time before he killed Mr. McKinley, he became an anarchist, but they were always suspicious of him, and while there he kept to his old habit of eating alone. He then became impressed that it was his duty to kill the President, and thus save his country. He was examined by some of the leading alienists in this country and pronounced sane, yet we must acknowledge that the trial was hasty, the hour a trying one, and that public sentiment was against the man. And still I fully

believe if he were living today and could undergo a careful examination by the same men, that after a more thorough investigation of his former life and habits, he would be declared insane. I speak of these two cases to show you wherein the law was too hastily executed, through what I believe to be mistakes made by the examining physicians.

At the present time, the plea of insanity is entered in our courts by many who try to use it as a cloak to shield them from the extreme penalty of the law-claiming through their counsel that the crime was committed while temporarily insane or under the influence of alcohol.

There are two points of our present law in the defendant's favor -one is that a man can not be punished for a crime committed while insane, and his counsel can usually prove that that was the condition of the prisoner at the time of committing the deed. Again, the law supposes a man is innocent till his guilt is established beyond a shadow of a doubt by twelve of his fellow men.

As the court and jury have no way of judging of the sanity or insanity of the defendant except by his actions, and through the testimony of physicians and other witnesses, it is very difficult to get a conviction in a case where insanity is the plea, even if we feel confident that the fellow is a fraud.

Illustrating very forcibly the thoughts of this paper, is a very interesting case recently tried in Bexar county. In this case, styled "State of Texas vs. Gallagher," tried in Bexar county, on a change of venue from Galveston county, the defendant was accused of killing his mother, and a plea of insanity was entered by the counsel of the defendant, claiming that while under the influence of intoxicants or perhaps drugs administered in the drinks, he had become temporarily insane and committed the crime; also that the defendant had delusions of persecutions.

In rebuttal of this testimony, the State showed that his mind had always been good, that he had intelligence enough while drunk to go back to his mother's home for the purpose of stealing money from her, and while in the act of taking it, his mother