to the evidence of his medical attendant, had, for some time been suffering from unsound mind,' suddenly and without provocation took the life of a fellow-workman in presence of his companions, and then mutilated the body.

"In August following, a farmer in good circumstances, who had been insane nine years, and had twice attempted suicide, fatally assaulted the man who was engaged to attend him.

"In the following November a seaman who had been several times in an asylum, and had twice attempted suicide, was placed on trial for killing his grandmother, which he did 'in a paroxysm of mania, in the belief that he was destroying a man who was attempting his capture.'

"In the same month, a commercial traveller, proved to have been for some time a raving madman,' nearly severed the head of a sick friend with whom he was on good terms.

"In the next month, a wool-sorter, who for some years back had shown a gloomy tendency of mind,' which had increased, killed his wife by ripping open her abdomen with a razor, and immediately committed suicide by cutting his own throat.

"In the same month, a working silversmith, 'under medical treatment for a nervous complaint, was suddenly seized with a violent frenzy,' and furiously attacked his wife with a poker, and then committed suicide by nearly severing his head from his body with a razor.

"H. B-, an agricultural labourer, first exhibited symptoms of insanity in the early part of 1856. In the month of June, in the same year, he became violent and uncontrollable, was tied to his bed with ropes, handcuffed by the constable, and taken to the Macclesfield Workhouse as a lunatic. After remaining in the workhouse a month he made his escape and returned home. He continued to be manifestly insane, the money earned by him was entrusted to his wife; and in a journal kept by the patient frequent allusion is made to the temptations of the devil. On the 20th of April, 1858, he went to a relation in Stockport, who noticing him to be much worse,' procured an order for his admission into the Stockport Workhouse; on the same day the patient returned home and dashed his wife's brains out with a cleaver, saying, 'I've killed the devil.'

"Early in May, 1858, A. L-, a married weak-minded' L—, woman, living in Nottingham, who for a considerable time 'had suffered much from depression of spirits,' killed her infant, to whom she was much attached, and then attempted suicide. At the trial, the jury, without any hesitation,' acquitted her on the ground of insanity, and she is now a patient in Fisherton Asylum.

"G. R-, who, in the year 1857, was of unsound mind when he attempted suicide,' cut his wife's throat in September, 1858, was acquitted at the Hants Assizes, on account of insanity, and is now a patient in Bethlem Hospital.

"Towards the end of October, 1858, W. G—, who had only recently been discharged from the Suffolk County Asylum, assaulted and killed his aunt and sister, and subsequently became a patient in the Hoxton Asylum.

"The foregoing are merely a few instances of undoubted insanity which have been accidentally noticed in the newspapershow many more have been recorded and have passed unnoticed it is not easy to say-many such must have appeared; and a multitude of like cases have undoubtedly occurred, the particulars of which have never been published, nor ever told, beyond the family threshold."

LECTURE VI.

Argument. States of mental weakness: (1) existing from normal cause; in infancy and age; irregularities in the development and decline of mental power. (2.) The abnormal varieties, as (a) the result of disease; (b) original or early defects, or idiocy-Varieties of idiocy-The idiot and cretin-Anatomical characters of idiocy.

WHILE speaking of the variations that occur in the progress of mental disease in its chronic condition, I told you that though the patients frequently showed at one time an increase of their symptoms, at another time a decrease, yet in nearly all the cases there was a perceptible decline in mental power-a gradually increasing imbecility taking place. I proceed to-day to consider this state; and in speaking of imbecility, it will be convenient to include all forms of weakness of mind.

The imbecile form a large proportion of the cases in all our public asylums, and as a class they are apt to be looked upon, I think, with less interest than the rest. I hope to be able to show you that this is an error. The want of interest in these cases is, I think, because they are considered to be incurable, and hence the student is prone to despair of obtaining that legitimate guerdon of applause from the exercise of his art which he hopes to gain from other kinds of cases. I would remind you that it is as much the aim and the privilege of medicine to ameliorate as to cure—that actual cure in any disease is rarely accorded to our art; and I scarcely know of any kind of patient for whom more good can be predicated than for the incurable lunatic.

Mental weakness or imbecility is of all degrees of severity or gravity; the lighter kinds are called imbecility, the graver cases dementia or amentia. In other words, we meet with individuals in asylums who are merely simple-making childish remarks and amusing themselves with puerile toys; and others who do not know their own name, are not able to recognise

their own features in the looking-glass, are unable to dress, or feed themselves, and who are void of all ideas of cleanliness or decency. The latter form the class commonly called in asylums the wet and dirty. The intelligence of some of these is at zero; and between the extremes there are innumerable gradations.

Mental imbecility or mental weakness is either natural or normal, morbid or acquired.

In the former category is the imbecility of the infant and that of the aged. In the latter may be included the mental deficiency from congenital defects or true idiocy, and imbecility induced by cerebral diseases.

The imbecility of infancy may be called normal, since every infant is born in that condition, and the mind is gradually developed. It is almost as natural for the mind to decline in old age; indeed it may be assumed that, the rest of the bodily organs being free from disease, there would be an epoch in a man's existence, when the mind would naturally become enfeebled, and second childhood come on. In the normal state of things the primary development and the subsequent decline would be gradual, but the normal progress is interfered with in both periods occasionally, and the advice of the physician may be sought in consequence.

Firstly, with respect to the anomalies in the development of the mind in the infant and child, the gradual and normal increase and addition of mental power sometimes, instead of progressing as it were universally, appears to take place unevenly; one or more series of faculties obtain strength, while others do not keep pace; or some propensity or several become developed to a greater degree than others. In watching very closely the unfolding of the intellectual faculties, as a parent is apt to do in his own children, one is able to trace many little peculiarities or anomalies, which fade one after the other as the child grows. I have known distinct delusion to occupy a child's mind for a considerable period. In one case, the child talked and alluded frequently to another home situated in an imaginary street, and peopled with imaginary parents and playmates; and he would describe both the place and its locality, and the conversation that occurred there daily, and all in a manner that did not seem like pure invention, but had the character of a child's descrip

tion of an actual occurrence. You are more likely to be consulted where a bad propensity is the prominent feature of this irregular development. Children show, at different ages, sometimes a strong vicious propensity, as of wanton cruelty-they torture insects, or animals; or the propensity may be some act of dreadful indecency or vice; very often there is no want of intelligence in such children, and, what is perhaps of equal importance to ascertain, no deformity or disease present. The patient is not a true idiot, or at all events not a confirmed one; the fault is one in regularity of the normal growth of the cerebral organs. The treatment of these cases is sometimes simple enough; in some cases it requires great judgment and care. In the first place, I attach much importance to the treatment applied to the child's general health. Ascertain if faulty nutrition, dependent upon actual tangible disease, as rickets, scrofula, syphilitic taint, or a faulty state of the digestive organs— itself induced by the injudicious dietary of some over-fond mother -is present; the best chance of improving the child's mind is to improve the nutrition-processes, which is to be done, as you know, by exercise, good air, and proper feeding; and the child must not have his brain crammed with book-knowledge. I need scarcely enter more into detail, as your general professional and physiological knowledge will best suggest the course to be pursued; but I will remind you to guard against what is very apt to be applied as a radical cure, namely, the birch and cane. We can all remember an advertisement frequently issued by a clergyman, who undertook to cure these cases, and his remedy was at last brought to light by the criminal trial of this person for flogging a poor boy to death. The lighter cases disappear with the growth of the child almost without treatment; but still the state is really one of a light kind of idiocy, and it merges by imperceptible stages to real idiocy, as I shall show presently. When the case is neglected or mismanaged, and the degenerating causes are not removed, when the bodily health becomes impaired by rickets and scrofula, a true idiotic condition is induced which is permanent, to which I shall recur presently. Before doing so, I will speak of the imbecility of old age.

The natural decline of mental powers is like the natural growth, universal and gradual, but irregularities in the declination also occur. Naturally the first indication of senile imbecility is