In the first volume of the ‘Asylum Journal,’ (p. 45 and p. 107) we translated a valuable memoir on this subject by Dr. Fischer, presenting a very complete account of the pathology of sanguineous tumours of the ear, and a critical inquiry respecting their cause. With the statements and opinions there made, Dr. Gudden mainly agrees. At the same time, he considers Dr. Fischer to have mis-interpreted several facts he noticed. He ignores the presumed existence of a special dyscrasia, pointing out, as we also did, in some notes on Dr. Fischer's paper, that these tumours of the ear are not restricted to the insane, and, furthermore, that they are produced even in those in perfect health.

Mental Science, in the forms under which it usually exhibits itself, is a subject of extreme generality. It deals with the phenomena of consciousness, as these are common to the whole human race. It hardly takes into account those peculiarities of the mind, from which individual character is formed; nevertheless, in the practical application of mental science, it is with individual character that we are for the most part engaged. Shall we, then, conclude that the prevailing systems of mental science afford no insight into the practical uses of that science ? Certainly not—and for this very sufficient reason, that the peculiarities of individual minds bear but a very small proportion to the operations which arise in obedience to laws affecting all the sound-minded members of our race. Hence, in the study of the practical uses of mental science, while it is incumbent upon us to fix a strict attention on the general laws of thought, means must at the same time be sought to bring to light the limits of the range, within which these laws, in particular minds, suffer modification.

General paresis, paresifying mental Disease, or in Latin paresis generalis, that is, paresis of mind and body, insania paresans, are terms applied to the form of mental disease generally known under the French denomination of paralysie générale.

The system of exchange with other journals has enabled us to increase the number of periodicals from which we may cull matter for these excerpta, and may hope to maintain and to increase their interest and usefulness among our readers. Moreover, we shall not restrict our choice of extracts to the contents of foreign journals only, but extend it also to essays, brief memoirs, and to the summaries of the contents of works of more considerable magnitude which come before us, with the intention of more fully representing the state of opinion and practice prevailing on the Continent and in America, with regard to whatever concerns the pathology and treatment of insanity and the management of asylums. And it is another portion of our design, when detailing the opinions and labours of our fellow-workers in psychiatry in other countries, as far as practicable, to form an estimate of them by the light of, and in comparison with, those of our own countrymen; in other words, to attempt a critical examination of their value and importance.

The answer to Shakespeare's question, “What's in a name?” as conveyed in Juliet's subsequent remarks, is, at least in some points of view, unsatisfactory; for placing aside all regard to beauty or euphony of sound, there is yet much either of good or evil connected with every name that rises to our lips or is silently repeated in our minds. There is, to a sensitive being, a pleasure or a pain connected with it, in which memory, experience, and association have wrapped it round. True, the pleasure or the pain may be of infinite and almost imperceptible minuteness, but it is nevertheless an atom in our emotional existence, and is added to the sum of our mental experiences. This is the case with the words used to designate the objects which surround us, but is more obvious with those applied to places which we have visited or known, and to persons whom we have encountered, or with whom we have been familiar. But the importance and significance of a name are most clearly appreciated and understood, when viewed with reference to the articulate sound by which we ourselves are called by our fellow men. This we will find, upon reflection, to be a very important part of ourselves, to be intimately united to our “dear perfection,” and to adhere to us with wonderful tenacity, so that it is difficult to throw it aside. At the same time it is well known that a man may be legally stripped of his name, that on a sufficient payment, he may be permitted to denude himself of a beggarly appellation and to clothe himself in one of aristrocratic splendour. Yet even after this has been formally accomplished, the savour of his rags will still, we opine, hang about him. The memory of his discarded title will still, ever and anon, come back upon him like vestiges of a state of former existence, and will probably produce a mental confusion bordering upon double consciousness. Nor does it seem wonderful that a man's name should stick very closely to him and be difficult of divorce, when it is remembered how intimately it has been connected with all his conscious states from his very baptism, and how he has come to associate it almost indissolubly with the first person singular, the Ego, simple and concrete. Firmly grafted, as a man's name is upon his belief in his own personal identity, and being almost the sole expression of personal identity, as it certainly is, to many of the uneducated masses of mankind; it is not wonderful that it should be a permanent and persistent fact, difficult to be got rid of. For amongst the most fundamental principles of mind, is the conviction, out of which all names have arisen, that a man continues to be always himself; that he is at any given moment the same person that he was the moment before, and that he has always been, since he came into existence. This belief is, in fact, the very essence of mind, and arises necessarily out of the succession of momentary conscious states; just as corporeal identity springs out of a succession of material atoms endowed with certain vital functions.

From this acceptable contribution to medical literature, the faithful record of good work, communicated in a style as lucid as the matter is replete with careful observation and philosophic reflection, we shall venture to pillage a long extract, which will prove that the specialist also may refer to it with satisfaction and profit:—

The introduction of this important measure so soon after the interminable and wearisome Windham case, has led to the too hasty supposition that the Lord Chancellor has been induced to prepare his Bill mainly in consequence of what occurred in that case, which was indeed a fine exemplar of the evils of the system which are sought to be remedied.

The injudicious defence of two lady thieves on the plea that they were subject to that form of mental unsoundness to which Mathey and Marc have given the sounding title of kleptomania, has attracted public attention to this form of mental disease, and has given rise to a considerable amount of written and spoken nonsense upon the subject. Even “our facetious contemporary” has had his jests and his caricatures thereupon, and in the slang of the day a burglar has become a kleptomaniac, and a prison a kleptomaniac hospital. Alienist physicians have of course received their full share of sarcastic remarks, as theorisers not over-wise nor over-useful to society, who would willingly provide for every crime a decent veil, by referring it to some strange form of mental disease. Now there is such a tiling as theft which is the result of mental disease; and also, let us boldly avow our conviction, though we write within the precincts of a madhouse, that there is such a thing as theft which is simply a crime, an attack made by the selfishness of one individual upon the rights of another. Let us even take the broader ground, and avow our profound conviction that insanity and crime are distinct and separate entities, wide as the poles asunder in all instances where their distinctive characters are well marked; although undoubtedly there are instances which are divided by partitions as thin as those which Dryden places between wit and madness, or rather instances in which the qualities of crime and insanity are so intimately combined that the task of analysing the nature of the act becomes no easy one either to jurist or physician.

In our last abstract from German and French works, we noticed the appearance of two new French journals devoted to psychological medicine, and made some general observations upon the character and purpose of each as set forth by their respective editors. We have now collected the numbers for the whole of the past year, and will attempt to cull from them what appears likely to interest our readers; and as the subject matter before us is on the present occasion to a large extent of a clinical character, our excerpta must largely partake of the same, a circumstance which we trust will not render them the less interesting.

In passing through an asylum I saw five odd and apparently aged men, seated together around a table and apart from the other patients. They smiled; spoke a few words; gabbled or jargonised. My companion said, “They like to dine together.” On complimenting him for his attention to their wishes, he answered, “Oh, they are all brothers.” On going to the department for females, I observed two quiet, elderly women, indulged in the same way. “These,” said my guide, “are sisters, and sisters of the five brothers. They were the children of poor but industrious and self-supporting parents, who were somewhat eccentric, and believed to be cousins, or related. They are all, in different degrees, imbecile, ineducable, irresponsible, and incapable of guiding or maintaining themselves. They had, besides, a brother who disappeared, and was supposed to have been drowned in a quarry; another imbecile sister still alive; and two brothers and one sister, who were healthy.”