The housing of the insane was doubtless one of the most interesting questions dealt with at the International Congress for Psychiatry in the year 1900.

The treatment of the insane without isolation in side rooms has received much attention in Germany (Kalmus, Zellenlose Behandlung; Halle, Marhold, Psychiat. Wochensch., No. 49, 1900; Bresler, ibid., No. 10, 1901; Hoppe, ibid., No. 30, 1901). The general conclusion is that such confinement is to be avoided as much as possible, but that it is quite the right treatment in some cases.

In this paper Dr. Audiffrent deals with the mental conditions that commonly prevail in cases of infanticide, and with the influence which such conditions should exert on the social and legal attitude towards infanticide. With special reference to a case in which a young woman escaped from an asylum and killed herself and her child, the author considers the peculiar psychological conditions of pregnancy and the puerperal period, and suggests that there are biological reasons why a woman in whom, from whatever cause, abnormal mental conditions are set up, should be impelled to destroy her child. This impulse is not confined to the human female, but is found throughout nature, and leads, for instance, a bird whose young have been confined in a cage to enter the cage and kill them, while many animals, if interfered with after parturition, will kill or eat their young. The author considers that this tendency is recognised outside civilisation, and that it lies at the basis of the wide-spread belief that the mother is the mistress of the child she has carried in her womb, that it belongs to her like any other object that she produces, and that no one has any right to contest her rights over her infant's life.

An important event in the year has been the meeting of an International Congress for Criminal Anthropology at Amsterdam. I leave the various discussions and papers to be dealt with in another part of this Journal. It is generally admitted that an efficient staff of attendants and nurses is indispensable in the treatment and care of the insane. This important point has been the subject of an exhaustive and lengthy report in our Journal. A number of questions were drawn up and sent to the medical superintendents of several asylums, and the answers received were cast into a very interesting report in which we find a large number of data relating to the training of attendants, their pay, leave of absence, amusements, working hours, board and lodging, etc. The conclusion drawn by the writer of the report is that very great progress has been made; “contrary to what occurred nine years ago, the care for the insane is now everywhere entrusted to a staff well trained for their task, or at least in receipt of thorough training for their onerous duties.” I can hardly believe that these words of the writer will be generally accepted. Undoubtedly great progress has been made, but there is still room for much improvement. The maid-of-all-work, who dons the dress of a nurse and is henceforth styled “Sister Sarah,” does not at the same time acquire the amount of knowledge and training required in a nurse; you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, and in a large number of cases the sow's bristles show through the silk envelope.

Aberdeen Royal Asylum.—We note that Dr. Reid has had fitted up an electric bath—in a position where it can be used for either sex.

Last year, in my epitome of the work accomplished in the fields of psychiatry and neurology, I endeavoured to give a general idea of the geographical distribution of the more important centres of study and work, showing their chief characteristics, their diverse tendencies, and the nature of their publications and journals. I thought that once having accomplished this, I would be enabled, in following years, to deal systematically with the work done, but I feared that in doing so my production would run the risk of being incomplete and not sufficiently precise. I am obliged, therefore, again to follow the plan I adopted last year, but in place of noting mere general tendencies and characteristics, I propose to note the real progress in these branches of science.

Since my last report (in 1898) to this Journal no important changes have taken place in the care and treatment of the lunatics in this country.