The psychiatrical works published in Italy during the year just ended have been numerous and in some cases very voluminous. Some are well compiled, some arrive also at interesting conclusions, but nearly all either deal with questions too special or too minute, or leave the latter aside and occupy themselves with neurological questions only. The former, the clinical works, concern themselves in general with special symptoms which have no importance in assisting the knowledge of the nosography and psycho-pathology of the different diseases, or else illustrate clinical cases which are remarkable by their rarity. In any case they represent rather contributions to current ideas amongst the leading men. It is, then, impossible to give a resumé of these works; we should only be able to quote their titles, which would be objectless. I have no better news to give regarding the progress of pathological anatomy. Dr. Perusini, of the Psychiatrical Clinic of Rome, proclaims, in a powerful article, the necessity of propagating the anatomico-pathological ideas of the school of Kraepelin; but up to now the histo-pathological study of the nervous system has been pursued without uniformity of method, as also without precision of aim. Only in Rome, thanks especially to Drs. Cerletti and Perusini, they have organised an anatomico-pathological section in the Clinic of Tamburini, and there they are trying to put new life into this highly important branch of psychiatry. But the greater portion of Italian psychiatrical works relates to neurology, a branch which promises easier and more brilliant success. In my last contribution I drew attention to the tendency amongst Italian psychiatrists to direct themselves rather to neurological studies. This tendency had its culminating point and its official sanction in the foundation of the Society of Neurology, which gathers around it all the personnel of the psychiatrical clinics.

The Minister of War has done for psychiatry what no Secretary for Public Instruction has ever done. In the Spanish universities psychiatry is not taught at all. Now it has become compulsory for army doctors to take up some special branch of medical work, and psychiatry is included. It is sad that such an important subject should be optional, but it is better than being ignored altogether. Dr. Fernandez Victorio, a well-known military alienist, who has distinguished himself by publishing a book on Insanity in the Spanish Army, has been appointed to give a psychiatrical course at St. Bandilius Lunatic Asylum at Barcelona, where he is instructing some military students. As in former years a few students of forensic medicine, during their ordinary medical curriculum, have attended some lectures at the same asylum. This is all the psychiatrical equipment they are provided with for their practice. No remedy for this reprehensible state of things is being suggested.

This paper presents clearly and briefly the main principles enunciated by Freud as to the psychology of dreams.

The contents of dreams, instead of being the product of accidental and senseless associations, or founded entirely on somatic sensations during sleep, are actually definite products of mental activity and acces sible to a systematic analysis. The organic sensations are not the cause of the dream but only play a secondary rôle, and merely furnish the material for the psychic experience. The dream has its antecedent chains of associations and its own significance like every complex psychic product or volitional act. The apparently obscure and confused images of the dream are the curtains behind which is the essential idea or latent content of the experience. The dream has, therefore, something in dividual conforming to the psychological disposition of the subject, such disposition being itself the result of the previous psychic life.