Dr. Janet is unrivalled in the delicate and elaborate psychological analysis of hysterical and neurasthenic mental states on the borderland of insanity. In the present paper he presents a well documented study of classes of obsession (which would by some be classed under folie du doute), marked by an excess of scrupulosity, more especially an excessively scrupulous body-consciousness or modesty, obsessions of crime and sacrilege, and hypochondriacal tendencies. Under this head he introduces an interesting discussion of hysterical anorexia. True hysterical anorexia, he states, is rare, and should not be diagnosed unless there is more or less complete suppression of hunger, and also an exaggerated tendency to physical exercise—both these symptoms resting on anæsthetic conditions. He then narrates the case of a young girl, Nadia, whose symptoms had been falsely diagnosed as those of hysterical anorexia, but were really what Janet would call an obsession of scruple. She refused to eat, but remained hungry, sometimes very hungry, so that she would sometimes devour greedily everything she could put her hands on, especially in private. But eating always causes horrible remorse. There is no suppression of hunger, nor is there any tendency to exaggerated movement; she takes exercise, but with an effort. Regarded superficially, the idea that animates her is the fear of becoming fat, like her mother. But that idea is not isolated, but really connected with a whole system of complex ideas. It is not a mere matter of coquetry; she looks on being fat as something almost immoral, something so shameful that it would prevent her from showing herself in public. She will not eat in the presence of others, nor can she even bear that others should hear her eating; she feels about eating (as she herself admits) as others feel about urinating. Nor is her feeling of shame confined to eating; from an early age she has been ashamed of her face, her hands, her legs, her feet, and regards them as ugly and badly made. But deeper, perhaps, than any other idea, is the desire to remain a little child, and be loved as a child. Such a case Janet regards as typical of this class of obsessions, very interesting from a clinical point of view, since they give rise to all sorts of symptoms—anorexia, chorea, writers' cramp, incontinence of urine, impotence, etc. Altogether they constitute a great neurosis, analogous in many respects to hysteria, but not to be confounded with it, the distinction being important both as regards prognosis and treatment. While such cases might be regarded as victims of a phobia, Janet thinks it better to regard them as primarily the victims of scruple—emphasising their troubles of will, and the ideas which they form of these troubles—and he regards the phobia as secondary. Janet considers John Bunyan as a fine type of obsession of scruple. He believes that suggestibility plays a very small part in such cases; they are endogenous, as he expresses it, rather than exogenous, and their obsessions are an index of the things that are most sacred to them.

Attention may be drawn to this elaborate and systematic study by Professor Grasset, who is also publishing (in the Bibliothèque Scientifique Internationale) a volume entitled Maladies de l'Orientation et d'équilibre. The author, who shows a wide knowledge of the work on this subject done in other countries, considers it important to remember that vertigo is constituted of two sensations: (a) a sensation of displacement of the body in relation to surrounding objects; (b) a sensation of loss of equilibrium. He defines it (“synthetically and schematically”) as a “subjective psychic phenomenon constituted by the transmission to the cerebral centre of a double sensation: a false sensation coming from the apparatus of orientation, and a sensation of the inadequacy of the polygon (by which he means the ensemble of the automatic centre of orientation and equilibrium) to ensure equilibrium.’’ Physiological vertigos are taken into consideration, though the study is chiefly devoted to the pathological varieties, and the symptoms are classed as anæsthetical, hyperæsthetical, and paræsthetical. A full schematic table of the objective and subjective symptoms is presented.

In continuing his investigations into this subject, Davis has confirmed his earlier result as to the marked influence of exercise on one side or the body in increasing power on the unexercised side, while bringing out many new results in matters or detail. The experiments were made with the dynamometer and the ergograph. The influence of the factors of length of hand, length of fore-arm, previous muscular development, and temperament are taken into account, and the sexual differences also noted. As regards temperament, Davis finds it most convenient, from this point of view, to recognise three temperaments: the nervous, the motor, and the phlegmatic. The influence of this factor of type is found to be very important. Persons of the nervous type tend to be quick in muscular and mental reaction, short as regards height, and light in weight. Persons of the phlegmatic temperament are found to be slow in muscular and mental reaction, tall as regards height, and heavy in weight. Persons of the motor type are in all respects medium. There are, of course, many cases of mixed type. On the whole, however, they require different degrees of exercise to produce the full effects of cross-education, the phlegmatic, as a rule, considerably more than the motor. Exercise that is too slight, or too severe and fatiguing for the individual, will fail to produce proper development. “If the work is just right in intensity and amount the anabolism provoked is greater than the katabolism, and there is development of the part used. An almost endless variation of conditions would be necessary to make the adjustment of exercise suitable to all individuals. Exercise must be prescribed per order just as a dress must be fitted to the individual.’’ Davis emphasises the conclusion to which his experiments point: that the mental factor is of much more importance than the muscular factor. Cross-education is mainly a matter of nervous centres and nervous channels. These researches are of considerable interest, both theoretical and practical.

These experiments were carried out on school children at Madison at the suggestion of Professor Jastrow, with the object of testing the results of Porter at St. Louis. Porter found a marked tendency to a direct relation between weight and mental precocity; weight, he then argued, stood for motor ability, and hence a child increases in mental efficiency directly as he increases in motor ability. These conclusions have been seriously criticised.

Verson, in 1868, discovered in the epiglottis nerve-endings, which he regarded as essentially resembling those which Schwalbe and Lovén had then recently discovered in the tongue of man and other mammals, and regarded as the primary organs of taste. Michelson, in 1891, brought forward experimental evidence to show that they really were capable of conveying sensations of taste. In the present paper Kiesow and Hahn, after setting forth the present state of the question, describe their own experiments, carried out at the Physiological Institute of Turin. They tested the inner surface of the epiglottis, as well as the interior of the larynx, with reference to reaction to the ordinary taste stimuli—sweet, bitter, acid, salt. Only three subjects were available for complete investigation, one of these being Kiesow himself. Schroetter's laryngeal sound was used in applying the test solutions, and various precautions were adopted in order to eliminate the obvious sources of error, while all doubtful trials were left out of account. In all three subjects the majority of experiments revealed the existence of sensibility on the laryngeal surface of the epiglottis to all four orders of test substances, although the sensations were of less intensity than when the same stimuli were applied to the tongue. All the subjects declared that they had never experienced taste sensations at such a depth, and were able to indicate on the external surface of the neck the spot at which the sensations were localised. Sweet and bitter sensations were always easily recognised. Kiesow, however, was unable to identify acid stimuli, which he felt as salt, possibly because the end organs for acid in his case were lacking, and their place taken by those reacting to salt. The experiments within the larynx, made on Kiesow alone, also revealed the presence of taste sensations.

How it is that we obtain voluntary muscular control is a problem of great interest and importance, for it helps to explain the origin and nature of the will. Bair has investigated the conditions and processes by which such control is gained in the case of a particular muscle. He selected the retrahens aurem because of its complete isolation from other muscles, the inability of most people to contract it, the comparative ease with which control can be learnt, and the definite movements attending contraction; moreover, this muscle is adequately supplied with motor and sensory nerves, and there is every reason to suppose that control over it is acquired in the same way as over any other muscle. Of the fourteen subjects on whom the experiments were made only two could move their ears at the beginning of the investigation, and then only by vigorously raising the brows.