Correspondenz-Blatt der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychiatrie, &c.—The numbers of this monthly periodical from April to October, 1863, are now before us, and among their contents are several articles of interest.

‘American Journal of Insanity.’—The July number of this Journal has the unusual quality in American literary productions of being made up of original articles by Americans. This is a proper subject of congratulation, for it must be more gratifying to both editors and subscribers that its original articles should be home-grown, and not mere reprints from British periodicals. To ourselves also it is much more satisfactory, on opening this ‘Journal of Insanity,’ to find it occupied with the results of American thought and observation, than with borrowed articles from contemporaneous literature. The very large number of public and private asylums in North America afford a most ample field for study and research, and the numerous learned and skilful physicians who superintend those asylums have no apology for neglecting its cultivation and failing to contribute the fruits of their labour for the benefit of their colleagues practising in the same department, through the medium of the Journal which is supposed to represent the state of psychological medicine in their native land. It is far from our purpose to imply that it is an evil to reproduce in the journals of any one country articles or memoirs appearing in those of other lands; indeed, this section of our own publication proves how far such an idea is from our minds; but it is a very different matter, and attains the magnitude of an evil, when it becomes a custom to occupy the bulk of a periodical with reprints of papers taken bodily from other journals, and not merely in abstract, to the exclusion of original communications. It is an evil long since noticed in many American publications, and has tended, and will tend so long as carried on, to blight original thought and arrest research.

To make our retrospect more complete, we propose to give the titles of such essays and papers on insanity and cerebral disease as appear in the foreign journals exchanged with us or purchased, but winch, from want of space and other reasons, we are unable to present to our readers in summary. By so doing we shall increase the value of these quarterly reports on the progress of psychological medicine, particularly to those who desire to make reference to the opinions and practice of Continental and American physicians. In other words, our retrospect will serve as a more complete index to the labours of our contemporaries in other countries.

We are always glad to meet (even though elsewhere) with the writings of our distinguished honorary member, Professor Laycock, the only university professor in the realm who deems the study of mental disease worthy of his systematic teaching. In this and recent numbers of the ‘Journal of Mental Science’ Professor Laycock, and our readers, will find in the interesting original communications by Dr. Crichton Browne and Dr. McLeod practical evidence that the Edinburgh University teaching of psychology has already borne fruit of great promise. In this paper Dr. Laycock has made a most valuable contribution to practical medicine. Any effort to check the practice of masking the symptoms of disease by opium, and calling the plan medical treatment, must be of advantage, and when such protest comes from so distinguished a quarter, will command an attention which our warnings and admonitions fail to receive. Dr. Laycock introduces his present remarks on the treatment of delirium tremens, a disease allied to and complicated with mental disease, properly so called, with the following just comment on the heroic treatment of the disease by opium:—

“In 1847 (says Dr. Peacock), I published a series of weights of the human brain, collected at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, together with tables prepared from these observations, together with the much larger number of weights previously recorded by the late Professor John Reid. The observations which follow have been obtained since that time, and though comparatively few in number, yet, as they are not likely to be materially increased and may furnish a useful comparison with the former, I have thought them worthy of being placed on record. The observations on the specific gravity of the brain are entirely new. They were obtained by a different mode from that followed by Dr. Sankey, in his observations of the specific gravity of the healthy brain, and by Dr. Bucknill in his investigation of the density of the brain of insane persons. The former of these observers ascertained the specific gravity of the different portions of the brain, by placing pieces in solution of common salt of different densities; the latter adopted a similar plan, except that he employed solutions of Epsom salts. My own observations were made by first weighing the brain and its several portions in air, and then in distilled water, and calculating the specific gravity by the common formula, viz., as the weight lost by the brain in water is to the weight in air, so is the specific gravity of distilled water (1000) to the weight required.”

Dr. James Duncan, a member of this Association, in this suggestive essay, reminds us how recent our knowledge is of the diseased states of the nervous system consequent on the presence in the blood of the venereal poison.

“The subject (says Dr. Stiff) of sanguineous cyst of the ear in the insane is of importance in a medico-legal point of view. Some writers allege that these hæmatic cysts are the result of injuries, either self-inflicted or from the employment of violence on the part of attendants and nurses. The statement of Gudden, in support of the latter view, has been most extensively circulated. He maintains that these swellings are entirely owing to mal-treatment, and points out that ears closely resembling those of the insane are not unfrequently met with amongst sculptures depicting pugilistic athletæ. Singularly enough, in his efforts to bring this home to the attendants, he avers that he has never met with an instance in which the injury could be traced to the patient himself, or to other patients. How this can be reconciled with the fact that patients frequently fall on the ear in fits, and are struck on it by their own associates, I am at a loss to imagine. Again, in the lately published work of Dr. Kramer, ‘On the Aural Surgery of the Present Day,’ the observations of that author are calculated to encourage the theory of the physical origin of the disease. He says—‘The causes of these bloody tumours on the cartilage of the ear are unknown, though we must admit that they are especially likely to be produced by violence (blows on the ear), which, perhaps, explains their more frequent occurrence on the left ear.’ (New Sydenham Society's edition, page 41.) In the ‘British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review’ for January, 1858, I published a short memoir on this peculiar disease, illustrated by engravings after photographs of the altered ears; and I therein advocated the contrary opinion, based upon observation and inquiry, that the lesion is not occasioned by physical injury, but that it is the result of a spontaneous hæmorrhage arising out of a pre-existing diseased condition of the vessels of the pinna of thee a r.