Of recent years hysteria has received little scientific study in England, although it was an Englishman—Sydenham—who first placed it on a truly sound and secure basis. It was nearly two hundred years before Sydenham's work on this subject was fully recognized, and then the recognition came from France. With the exception of Brodie's notable contributions—which are fully appreciated in the work before us—no further advance has come from England. The school of the Salpêtrière—Charcot and a very large body of distinguished pupils—at present holds the field, and it is difficult to point to any worker not associated with this school who has lately done anything to advance our scientific knowledge of hysteria. The work, however, which has been done by Charcot and his disciples is now very considerable, and the time had arrived for some authoritative summary. This has been undertaken by Dr. Gilles de la Tourette, who has himself made important contributions to the question, and who possesses many qualifications for the task he has undertaken. His knowledge is wide, his tone is always moderate and judicial, and he is entirely free from that tendency to vague eloquence which has done so much in the past to render difficult a clear conception of hysteria. In this first volume of his work he deals with “Hystérie Normale” or interparoxysmal hysteria.

Max Nordau is best known as the author of an attack on the shams of civilization, which has been translated into many languages. For the preparation of the present book he seems to have saturated himself with the methods and results of modern morbid psychologists from Morel to Lombroso, and has thus been led to the conclusion that the literature and art of the present day may be summed up in the one word which gives the title to his book—degeneration. Not a single recent artist or writer (not being an alienist) is alluded to in this book except to be dismissed as a victim of mental derangement. The works of Millais, Rossetti (who belongs to the group of imbeciles), Swinburne (Magnan's dégénéré supérieur), Verlaine (folie circulaire), Tolstoi, Whitman (moral insanity), Wagner, etc., have all “psychic stigmata” of degeneration as understood by Morel. At the outset the author remarks that his results may be proved by physical examination of the writers and artists in question, and the study of their personal history, but he renounces this interesting task for the easier one of investigating the “psychic stigmata.” This is certainly done with remarkable acuteness, but the author entirely fails to see that the presence in a work of genius of some mental characteristic also to be found in persons of weak or perverted intellect by no means negatives the genius. Max Nordau insists on the presence of serious punning and the collocation of assonant words in various modern writers as evidence of feeble mental power because the same characteristics are found in the literature of the insane. He is not apparently aware that such verbal tricks are specially frequent in Shakespeare, whom he regards as entirely sane.

The author of this book is well known as a psychologist of the modern school, more concerned with facts than with theories. He has collected and summarized most of what may be gathered as to the special psychology of artists, at the same time adding fresh material, the fruit of his own observations. He deals with the anatomical and physiological characters of artists, with the quality of their vision and their memory; with their heredity; while the concluding section is devoted to the pathology of the painter. The book altogether forms a readable chapter in psychology, but, as may be anticipated in the first attempt to deal comprehensively with a new subject, the conclusions reached are not usually very definite.

We had the pleasure of recommending the first edition of this little book to the readers of the “Journal of Mental Science,” and we hope in time to see a third edition. We know that the work has been found a useful text-book for students in the Edinburgh Medical School, and no doubt also in other places. Any medical man who wishes to refresh his knowledge of the spinal cord and brain will find a timely help in Mr. Whitaker's clear descriptions and well-planned illustrations and diagrams. In the present edition the page is larger, and there are now 178 pages instead of 135. The chapter on the methods of ascertaining the location of the different sulci and gyri in relation to the skull and scalp is a useful addition at present, when surgery is busy with new operations on the cranial contents. The principal improvement is, however, in the lithographic plates, of which we have now 40 instead of 22. They are also more elaborate in outline, and the effect of the diagrams has been more carefully studied. The labour in designing these illustrations must have been fully equal to that of writing the text. Mr. Whitaker does not claim to teach any new views in his book, but for a clear and concise description of the nervous centres it has not been surpassed.

There are many unsavoury subjects which have to be considered in medical practice, especially when that is carried on among the insane. The lower animal nature in some patients shows itself often in all its simple beastliness. Yet we do not think, in England, at least, that it is well that such subjects should be fully considered in books which may be bought of any bookseller. Perhaps we are prudish, but we think that the production of this book by Ebing will not add to his reputation, nor will it do any possible good to the medical or the psychological world.