progress of such affections have been limited, and circumscribed.

A man, apparently in vigorous health, mixing daily with his family, going to his counting-house, engaging in the active pursuits of commerce, or occupying his attention in professional or literary duties, whilst stepping into his carriage, or when entertaining his friends. at the festive board, falls down either at his door in a state of unconsciousness, or quietly bows his head on his plate at the dinner table and dies, surrounded by his family, in a fit of cerebral hemorrhage!

A midwife, whilst sitting by the bed of a patient whom she is attending, suddenly exclaims, "I am gone," and immediately falls down in a state of apoplectic coma!

A gentleman during dinner, complains suddenly of giddiness and sickness. He retires to another room, where he is found a minute afterwards supporting him. self by a bed-post, confused and pale. Being put to bed, he soon becomes comatose, and dies.

A person in good health, after using rather violent exercise in the forenoon, returns home to dinner, and whilst sitting near the fire, without any warning starts up, pushes his chair backwards with violence, exclaiming, "Oh, my head!" Immediately afterwards he falls on the floor in a state of apoplectic insensibility.

A literary man, whilst speaking at a public meeting, is suddenly seized with an uneasy sensation in his head. He says it feels "as if it would burst, "as if the brain was too big for the skull." He returns home, becomes apoplectic, and dies on the evening of that day.

A clergyman, whilst preaching, is observed to stop, and put his hand to his head. He then attempts to proceed with his sermon, but talks indistinctly, and has evidently lost his recollection. He keeps himself from

falling by grasping the side of the pulpit. He is immediately removed from the church, and is found cold, pale, speechless, and paralytic. He dies in a few days after the attack.*

A young lad who had not previously complained of ill health, or of any uneasy head symptoms, suddenly awakes from an apparent state of profound slumber, and begins screaming, "Oh, my head! my head! my head!" Before his parents could be summoned into the room, he becomes insensible, and dies without being restored to a state of consciousness !†

A lady, apparently in excellent health, is riding with her brother in Rotten Row. Whilst engaged in active and cheerful conversation, she suddenly complains of giddiness and sickness, and becomes deadly pale. A few minutes afterwards it is found that she could not articulate. She is carried home, soon becomes unconscious, and dies on the following day!

A gentleman who had formerly been in Parliament, and who had been for many years engaged in electioneering contests, is in the act of getting into a railway carriage. He complains of vertigo, mental confusion, and defective power of articulation. He, however, takes his seat apparently restored to his usual health. Once, during a three hours' journey, he has a slight recurrence of these symptoms, but they again pass away. On his arrival home, he complains of nausea, and an indisposition to take food. He has no headache, and can speak

After death there was found in this case extensive extravasation of blood in the left ventricle, which had passed partly into the right, by laceration of the septum. All the arteries of the brain were extensively ossified.—

АВЕВСВОМВІЕ.

All the ventricles were completely filled with coagulated blood. In the substance of the left hemisphere, there was a cavity formed by laceration of the cerebral substance, filled also by the coagulum, and communicating with the ventricle. There was no other morbid appearance.ABERCROMBIE.

clearly and distinctly. As he resides some distance from a medical man, and as the symptoms are not such as to create any grave apprehension as to his state of health, nothing is done medically for the case. The gentleman, after partaking of a light dinner, retires in a cheerful state of mind to bed. About two o'clock in the morning, his wife is suddenly roused from sleep by her husband's loud stertorous breathing. She finds him in a state of profound coma. He dies before the surgeon, who is immediately summoned, could arrive. The brain exhibits symptoms, of what was assumed to be, organic disease of long existence.

A medical gentleman of known reputation, and great personal worth, having been to one of her Majesty's levees, visits on the evening of that day the home of a friend in the environs of town. He appears, during dinner and afterwards, in excellent health and spirits. After playing a rubber of whist, he retires, with his wife, to bed, complaining only of general lassitude, but exhibiting no other sign of bodily indisposition. In the middle of the night he is found by his wife in a state of apoplectic coma. In the attempt made by her to place him on his back, he heaves a deep sigh, and instantly expires!

The history of these sad cases is carefully investigated, without, it is alleged, affording satisfactory evidence of any decided precursory symptoms, that would have justified the suspicion of the presence of any latent and dormant mischief within the head. It is possible there may have been headache, defective articulation, dimness and loss of vision, giddiness, cerebral lassitude, and evanescent attacks of mental depression and confusion, but of so trivial and unimportant a character, as not to awaken apprehension, or excite attention.

In many instances of this kind it is affirmed, that no

appreciable precursory stage could be discovered. The attack, whether it be one of apoplexy, acute softening, paralysis, epilepsy, meningitis, cerebritis, or mania, had all the characteristics of a sudden seizure, which no prudence could have anticipated or foresight prevented, had the patient's state of brain and general health been made the subject of careful and anxious analysis.

It occasionally happens, that in some cases, what à priori would be considered, as the most important symptoms of serious brain disorder, are represented to be altogether absent. For example: attacks of apoplexy and paralysis are alleged to occur without being preceded by any observable cerebral symptoms! There have been no headache, alienation of mind, lesion of the sensorial or motor power, to warn the unhappy patient or his friends. of the approach of the enemy. The fatal, obscure, and insidious disease has crept quietly and stealthily on its victim, giving no sign of its advent, no indication of its advance; no notice of its presence, until it has surprised the sentinels, boldly seized upon the outposts, effected a breach in, or scaled, the ramparts, and by an act of pathological coup de main, taken possession of the citadel!

It is generally an object of physiological, as well as of practical importance, for the physician, when consulted in a case of suddenly-developed brain disease, to make himself acquainted with the past condition of his patient. With this view, he institutes diligent inquiries into the invalid's pathological antecedents. To the often repeated interrogatories, "Have there been observed any previously manifested symptoms of disorder of the encephalon and nervous system ?" how commonly is the response, "No, none whatever; the patient has not known a day's illness, his brain has never shown the slightest indication of any kind of disorder!" It is singular, in some cases, how pertinaciously and obsti

nately all idea of past, and even existing cerebral indisposition, is emphatically ignored, and zealously repudiated by the relations of the patient! But how often does the physician detect, before he concludes his investigation of the history of the case, that his patient has exhibited, it may be, in the far distant horizon, some time previously to his attack, evidences of the threatening and approaching storm, which, if seen, had not been made matter of observation, reflection, anxiety, or treatment! The headache has been attributed to derangement of the stomach, or to bilious disorder; the vacillation of temper,-feebleness of purpose,-flightiness of manner, -paroxysms of irritability or passion,-inaptitude for business, depression, or exaltation of spirits,-the loss of sensibility, even manifest lesion of motility, have all (if made the subject of comment) been attributed to some trifling and transient bodily ailment, connected with the digestive, hepatic, or renal organs. Epileptic vertigo, cerebral headache, and disordered conditions of vision, caused by the pressure of a tumour in the immediate neighbourhood of the optic thalami, have existed for some time without exciting a suspicion as to the presence of serious disease affecting the brain! The attacks of epileptic vertigo have occurred, unobserved, at night, and with little or no convulsive movement, or loss of consciousness; the headache has been considered to be of a bilious, rheumatic, or nervous character; the impairment of visual power has been treated as an affection of the eye, unconnected with disease in the neighbourhood of the thalami optici, for the relief of which the optician, instead of the physician, has been consulted, and thus have all the salient, important, and significant symptoms of encephalic organic mischief been permitted to undermine the bodily health, damage and impair the intellect, even threaten the extinction of reason, and destruction