This book is an important contribution to a very difficult subject. It is carefully and clearly written, and every line in it gives evidence that the subject-matter has received deliberate attention. Amidst the much loose writing of the present day, it is a relief to turn to a piece of close reasoning so ably set forth.

In this work Dr. Bruce embodies the results of his researches on the pons and medulla, their various nuclei and tracts of fibres. The method employed was that of Weigert, or some of its modifications, and was applied to structures obtained from the human fótus from the fifth month up to the full time. It is well known that this method has already yielded most valuable information regarding the origin and course of many tracts in the cord and other parts of the nervous system, and in Dr. Bruce's hands, besides affording the material on which the illustrations are traced, it has been the means of his adding still further to our knowledge of these structures.

This work is the report of Bicêtre Asylum for 1890, and produced by Bourneville, with the assistance of his junior colleagues, Messrs. Camescasse, Isch-Wall, Morax, Raoult, Seglas, and P. Sollier.

The subjoined scheme, drawn up by the writer eighteen months since, has been put to practical test at the West Riding Asylum during that time, and found to answer its purpose. Several practical suggestions made by Dr. C. H. Bond, Pathologist at Banstead Asylum, have been incorporated with it, and are here acknowledged. The corresponding scheme for the spinal cord it is proposed to give in a later number.

The “Year Book” of the Elmira Reformatory for 1892 is an admirably produced volume; it contains, also, a very large number of process illustrations from photographs, as well as 100 woodcut portraits of inmates with accompanying histories. Like last year's “Year Book,” it is the product of the intelligence, skill, and industry of inmates engaged on the institutional journal, “The Summary.”

It is with much pleasure that we receive from time to time evidence of the spirit with which the Grahamstown Asylum is being administered by Dr. T. D. Greenlees, formerly assistant medical officer at the City of London Asylum. We regret that from pressure on our columns we have hitherto contented ourselves with feeling instead of expressing this pleasure in the pages of the Journal. The above Magazine is edited by Dr. Greenlees, and no doubt affords instruction and amusement to the inmates of the asylum.

This Journal shows no indication of waning vigour. In fact the present number contains a large amount of interesting matter. One note on “Nervous and Mental Derangement from Organic Sulphur Compounds” has reference to the instances of derangement of mind induced by exposure to inhalation of sulphuretted hydrogen related by Dr. Andrew Wilson on the observation of Dr. Wiglesworth. Dr. Richardson recalls his own observations presented to the British Association in 1870. He introduced the study of the effects produced by chemical substances modified by the introduction or abstraction of simple elementary parts, and insisted that it was necessary to commence with a base, and to follow the modifications of its actions through the varied compounds formed upon it. He indicated the peculiar action of the substance known as mercaptan or sulphur alcohol. It was shown that a person brought under its action was subjected to strange variations of mind and body, viz., a desire to sleep, a strange, unhappy, dreamy sensation as from some actual or impending trouble, succeeded by an easy but extreme sense of muscular fatigue, so that the limbs felt too heavy to be lifted, and with depression and slowness of pulse for several hours. Sulphur compounds were also shown by him to be readily constructable in the animal economy, and a new field of inquiry was opened as to their presence in the air of a sick room and in the excretions. When we know how minute a proportion of sulphur alcohol will produce mental depression bordering on suicidal propensity, we may infer that the formation of sulphur compounds within the body would account for many examples of excessive temporary prostration, for the cause of which we have as yet no explanation.

At a recent medical meeting in Budapesth, Oct. 22, 1892, Dr. Schreiber combats the view that electrotherapy is suggestion-therapy, though he is obliged to admit the latter to be a potent factor in the use of electricity. Amongst other differences, he states that electricity is able to remove inflammatory products, to cause their absorption, whilst suggestion is unable to effect the same. We should be inclined to doubt the possibility of stating so definitely what suggestion cannot do, but at the same time we should be more than prepared to allow that electricity is able to do something, for good or for evil, on its own account. To deny this would be to affirm that an agent with very definite physical powers, to which motor structures and sensory nerves respond very readily, is without effect upon the organism as a whole. Surely electricity is something more than the hospital mistura flava; at least, we must hope so.—” Therap. Monatsh.,” Jan., 1893, p. 32.