This subject was chosen by Professor Cunningham for the third Huxley Memorial Lecture of the Anthropological Institute. He deals with it in a thorough manner and with wide knowledge of the extensive literature. He regards right-handedness as an organic acquirement of early man, due to natural selection. There is no good reason to show that monkeys are right-handed, and evidence obtained from Dr. Taylor, at the Darenth Asylum, showed that microcephalic idiots tend to be ambidextrous (five right-handed, four ambidextrous, one left-handed) The functional pre-eminence of the brain is the cause, and not the result, of right-handedness. Left-handedness may be regarded as due “probably to a transposition of the two cerebral hemispheres in the same way that transposition, either partial or complete, of the thoracic and abdominal viscera occurs.” It is noteworthy that there is a large proportion of left-handedness in those showing transposition of the viscera.

Autoscopy is an abnormal power of observing and representing the anatomical and functional state of the subjects own internal organs. If the representation is external, in a hallucinatory form, it is termed external autoscopy; if the observation is direct, it is termed internal autoscopy. The phenomenon, which occurs most clearly in the hypnotic state, is analogous, Sollier suggests, to the power shown in premonitory dreams, by which the disturbance of internal organs becomes definitely clear to sleeping consciousness before it is perceived by waking consciousness. Autoscopy was vaguely known to the ancient magnetisers; more recently attention was called to it by Féré; it has been most thoroughly studied by Sollier and Comar.

In this paper, originally communicated to the Congress of French Alienists held at Grenoble in 1902, the authors record the result of an inquiry into the value of cytological examination of the cerebro-spinal fluid in general paralysis.

In 1887 Korsakoff described polyneuritic psychosis as a special morbid entity, particularly characterised by amnesic disorders. Another name which he gave to this condition was toxæmic (psychical) cerebropathy. He recognised two varieties—one slight, characterised by amnesia affecting recent events; another severe, with marked amnesia accompanied by false reminiscences and delusions. This view has since been severely criticised by Babinski, Chaslin, Séglas, Ballet, etc., who maintain that practically this psychosis of Korsakoff is only a form of mental confusion, and in the two conditions one finds identical amnesic disorders.

B. F—, female, æt. 33, admitted January 18th, 1903. Married in 1896; in January, 1900, miscarried at the third month and developed severe streptococcic infection with fever and delirium, which lasted fourteen days and nearly proved fatal. During her convalescence, one month after the miscarriage, she had a convulsive seizure with temporary paralysis of the tongue and right arm (for a few hours). These attacks recurred at intervals of three days to fourteen days, and were followed by various transitory paralyses. Her speech became difficult, her ideas confused. Later she had auditory hallucinations and delusions of persecution, and was sent to St. Jean Asylum on January 19th, 1902. On October 12th she returned home improved, but weak intellectually. Five days later she lost consciousness, and on the following day became maniacal and incoherent, and dirty in her habits; her legs were contracted; reflexes exaggerated; light reflex feeble. No history and no evidence of syphilis could be obtained on careful inquiry and examination.

The authors restrict the denomination of post-operative psychoses to delusional disorders which occur in the sphere of ideation alone; so that neurasthenia, for example, following upon an operation, is excluded. They also exclude delusional states directly due to toxæmia, which are transitory and differ in their symptoms and treatment—just as puerperal insanity differs from the transitory puerperal delirium arising from septicaemia. They admit, however, that the line of demarcation between these two groups of cases may be hard to draw. Moreover, as has been pointed out by Magnan, we may have a febrile or toxæmic delirium superposed upon a true psychosis. Hereditary predisposition is a marked feature in post-operative insanity, so much so that one may deny the possibility of an operation alone causing a psychosis in a healthy subject; at the same time this is no argument for rejecting this class of cases. Gynæcological operations are not more likely to cause post operative insanity than other operations; the confusion with simple neurasthenia has led to this opinion. The symptoms of post-operative insanity are most variable, and have furnished some justification for denying its existence as a separate form; moreover, in cases where general paralysis and other well-defined psychoses have supervened (or appeared to) upon an operation, we must attribute the occurrence to a mere coincidence. The variation in symptoms, or in the character of the psychosis, arises from the variability in the mental conformation of the patient and the varying predisposition—the all-important factor. The nature of the operation itself is another factor to be considered. The prognosis varies considerably as well as the treatment.

This is a serious study of the claims advanced in favour of paraldehyde as a hypnotic since its introduction into medicine in 1882. The ideal soporific which shall with certainty and without delay secure an untroubled refreshing sleep, approaching natural sleep as nearly as possible; the soporific which shall neither lose its efficacy nor accumulate its effects, and which shall, moreover, be easily dispensed and agreeable to take;—such a drug, like the philosopher's stone, has yet to be discovered. Among soporifics, however, as things are, paraldehyde can claim many virtues, and further experience and better knowledge have only strengthened its position. In the Freiburg Asylum, Dr. Bumke says that paraldehyde has more than held its ground against sulphonal, trional, and hedonal, and that it and scopolamin are now alone employed.

The authors draw attention to the continuous arising of new remedies for and new methods of cure in epilepsy, and the as constant disappointment of our hopes which further trials of the new agents bring. In particular they make reference to the combined opium and bromide cure of Flechsig, which later developments and several recorded cases of death whilst under the treatment have brought into discredit. They point out that the epileptic seizures may, for various reasons, disappear for long periods—two to twenty-nine years, as the more recent statements of Sinkler make clear,—and the futility, therefore, of the attempts to demonstrate the curative value of drugs by observations extending over periods of three to four months, or at the most one year. In spite of these objections, however, they determined to make trial of the Toulouse-Richet method, so strongly had it been recommended.

The following are some of Dr. Browning's conclusions: 1. “In the young there occurs a class of cases characterised by recurrent attacks of heterogeneous type, and that may conveniently be called pseudo-epilepsy.”

This paper is one of the most notable contributions of recent years to the anthropological and psychological study of the juvenile criminal. It is based on careful observation of a series of twenty-two youthful assassins who were under the author's care for considerable periods of time in the Plötzensee Prison at Berlin. Full notes are given of each case, comprising a history of the crime, the personal and family antecedents of the criminal, his physical and mental condition, with anthropometric details, and, in most of the observations, with good photographs of the individual at different ages. The main facts brought out by the inquiry are then summarised, and their bearing on various problems of criminology is discussed with that union of thoroughness of method and breadth of view which invariably distinguishes Dr. Baer's work A paper of this scope and character cannot, of course, be adequately treated within the limits of a short notice, and the present résumé does not aim at more than indicating a few of its salient points.

Dr. de Moor, in his presidential address to the Belgian Society, in view of the well-known fact that insanity is often overlooked in the law courts, urges the importance of judges being able to acquire, as at Heidelberg University, some knowledge of the mental condition of criminals, and of diseases of the mind generally. Moreover, he would reserve the mental examination of accused persons or prisoners to medical men with special diplomas. The selection of a lunacy expert should always be granted to the defence in a trial. In important cases he is in favour of two experts giving evidence, one of whom should be chosen by the defence; in case of their disagreement, the magistrate, with the consent of the defence, could select a third expert, whose decision would be practically final. In some cases, it is highly desirable that the accused should be placed under observation in an asylum for a limited period (the German law fixes this limit to six weeks). Such a sojourn by a special enactment could be made without prejudice to the accused. In addition to giving correct information concerning the mental condition of the accused (detection of simulation, etc.), such a period of observation in an asylum would turn out to be of real benefit as regards the treatment of the really insane. In exceptional cases the six weeks of observation granted by German law might be extended by permission of the magistrate upon request of the defence. Dr. de Moor in this address does not pretend to deal fully with this question, but merely makes a few suggestions well worth consideration.

This is a most thoughtful paper, of the greatest interest, on the question of the prevention of the spread of venereal diseases, and well worth close study. It is only possible here to give some of the author's conclusions and suggestions. A careful examination of evidence (statistics, etc.) shows that prostitution is the cause of the spread of venereal diseases; that clandestine prostitution is answerable for quite two thirds of this; that in three quarters of the cases a woman prostitutes herself before her legal majority; that prostitutes are generally recruited among girls seduced and abandoned; etc. It therefore follows that the great source of venereal diseases arises from the clandestine prostitution of young women; moreover that man is particularly responsible for its spread. The protection of the young woman against seduction is of the first importance, and it is especially in this connection that the prophylaxis of venereal diseases becomes a social question. The error of those in favour of “regulations” is that they have dwelt particularly on the fact that the diseased prostitute is immediately much more dangerous than the diseased man, losing sight of the not less evident fact that the best means of avoiding the evil would have been to protect her against the man who contaminated her.

In three numbers of this weekly, Dr. Krayatsch, Director of the Asylum at Mauer-Oehling in Lower Austria, shows what has been already done, and what is farther proposed to be done, in Lower Austria for young idiots and imbeciles. By the census of 1890 there were returned, in a population of 2,800,000, 3000 idiots and cretins, of whom 400 were considered to be of a school-attending age. But Professor von Wagner, in his investigations on cretinism in Styria, has shown that in the year 1899 there were as many as 284 boys and 184 girls in institutions for the care and training of weak-minded children in Lower Austria.