draws the practical conclusion that in old persons these sudden lightings up of the memory should excite grave attention, as indicative of approaching fatal apoplexy. the very action of the muscles arising out of it, has been retained in the mind like a fly in amber. Thus a young girl of six, whilst catching playthings thrown by a We have yet to refer to a very extra- companion seated on the pavement, fell ordinary condition of brain which exists in and received a cerebral concussion, which consequence of accidents producing con- rendered her insensible for ten hours. cussion, in which memory, consciousness, When she opened her eyes she jumped to and volition suffer for a time a complete the head of the bed, and asking "Where annihilation, to be revived again at the did you throw it?" immediately comexact stage at which they left off. A menced throwing little articles of her British captain, whilst giving orders at dress from the bed, exclaiming, “Catch the battle of the Nile, was struck on the these!" and from that moment was perhead and rendered senseless, in which con- fectly restored. The exactitude with dition he was taken home and remained which the fractured ends of the severed at Greenwich Hospital for fifteen months, idea fit-severed as we have seen somewhen the operation of trephining was times for years-is very remarkable, and performed, and the portion of the skull goes to prove that there must be in such which pressed upon the brain was raised. cases an instantaneous arrest of the action Immediately consciousness returned, and of the nerve vesicles, without morbid he rose in his bed, and, without recogniz- change however, otherwise they could not ing where he was, finished giving orders at a moment's notice resume their operahe had commenced issuing amid the din tion at the exact point at which they left of battle fifteen months before. Extraor- off. We can only liken this extraordidinary as this case may appear, it is far nary phenomenon of arrest of mind to from being an isolated one. Prichard re- some accident which has suddenly stopped lates an instance in which the mind stood a machine-the driving-band has perhaps still for years instead of months, and yet suddenly slipped off-and in this instance took up the train of thought exactly at the driving-band in all probability was the point at which it had been dropped. the circulation of the blood through the A New-England farmer, whilst laboring brain. The motive power nestored, the under some dissatisfaction at having dis- machine went on as before. That meposed of his farm at a rate he believed chanical pressure upon the surface of the below its worth, was engaged by a neigh-brain-which means an exercise of control bor to inclose a piece of land with a over its circulation, according to the defence. In order to split the timber he gree in which it is exercised-will produce was obliged to use a beetle and wedges. different mental conditions, from perfect These, on finishing the labors of the day, coma to perfect sensibility-is well known. he put into the hollow of a tree, intending A man in Paris once made a living by alto direct his son to bring them home. lowing curious physiologists to make exThat night he was seized with delirium; periments of this nature upon him. He in this condition he remained for several had suffered the operation of trephining, years, when his mental power was sud- and his brain was covered by a thin denly restored. The first question he membrane only, by applying graduated asked was whether his sons had brought pressure upon which the man's relations in the beetle. Apprehensive of bringing with the whole external world could be on a return of the disease by entering cut off and restored by the mere action of into explanations, they replied that they the finger. At the will of the operator could not find them; whereupon the old he lived alternately the life of the highest man rose from his bed, went straight to order of animal, or that of a mere vegethe hollow tree, and found the wedges table. There is a very remarkable conand the ring of the beetle, the beetle it- dition of brain, in which the mind of the self having mouldered away. Thus the individual is possessed with a double condelicate, unused nerve vesicle, which re-sciousness. Alternate states arise as distained the recollection of where the tools had been placed, remained intact whilst the solid wood had perished. Sometimes the memory, not only of the idea upon which the mind was last occupied. but VOL. LI.-No. 1. tinct in themselves as though they belonged to two individuals. Doctor Mitchell relates a case of this kind which is so extraordinary that we must be pardoned for quoting it entire : 3 "Miss R, possessing naturally a very There is no circumstance with regard good constitution, arrived at adult age without to the human economy more remarkable having it impaired by disease. She possessed than the tolerance sometimes exhibited by an excellent capacity, and enjoyed fair opportu- the brain of grave lesions and disorders nities of acquiring knowledge. Besides the domes within its substance. The popular idea tic arts and social attainments, she had improved that to touch the sensorium is tantamount her mind by reading and conversation, and was to annihilating the life, is a monstrous well versed in penmanship. Her memory was capacious, and stored with a copious stock of ideas. fallacy. Soldiers have been known to Unexpectedly and without any forewarning she carry bullets in their brains without any fell into a profound sleep, which continued seve- serious inconvenience, and heroic operaral hours beyond the ordinary time. On wak- tions are often performed upon the cereing she was discovered to have lost every trace bral mass without injury to the patient. of acquired knowledge. Her memory was a A surgeon lately informed us that he had tabula rasa; all vestiges, both of words and things, were obliterated and gone. It was found a young stable-boy lately under his care, necessary for her to learn every thing again. whose skull had been fractured by the She even acquired, by new efforts, the art of kick of a horse and forced in upon the spelling, reading, writing, and calculating, and cerebral mass, so crushing it that a porgradually became acquainted with the persons tion had to be removed; nevertheless the and objects around, like a being for the first patient recovered, and it was remarkable time brought into the world. In these exercises that whereas before the accident he had she made considerable progress. But after a few months another fit of somnolency invaded been subject to fits, and was rather a dull her. On rousing from it she found herself re- boy, after the accident he became much stored to the state she was in before the first pa- brighter, and continues so to this day. In roxysm; but she was totally ignorant of every all probability these fits were of an epilepevent and occurrence that had befallen her af- tiform character, owing to the pressure of terwards. The former condition of her exist a specula of bone upon the surface of the ence she called the old state, and the latter the brain, and when this was removed by the new state; and she was as unconscious of her double character as two distinct persons are of operation, the cause that led to his dulltheir respective natures. For example: in her ness no longer existed. The kick of the old state she possessed all her original know-horse was in fact the most fortunate thing ledge; in her new state only what she acquired that could have happened to him. since. If a gentleman or lady were introduced to her in the old state, and vice versa, (and so of all matters,) to know them satisfactorily she tried to learn them in both states. In the old state she possessed fine powers of penmanship, while in the new state she wrote a poor awkward hand, having not time or means to become expert. During four years and upwards she underwent periodical transitions from one of these states to the other. The alternations were always consequent upon a sound sleep. Both the lady and her family were capable of conducting the affair without embarrassment. By simply knowing whether she was in the old or new state, they regulated the intercourse and governed themselves accordingly." If there is any truth in our hypothesis of the memory of impressions lying in layers, superimposed one upon another on the surface of the brain, the alternation of the child-like and the adult state of intelligence would be accounted for by supposing that the level of the power that vivified the nerve vesicles stamped with the mental impression, stood at different periods at different heights, retreating in the child-like state to the lowest ebb, and again remounting to its full intellectual height in the adult period. Doctor Ferrior relates the case of a man who retained all his faculties entire until the moment of his death, yet one half of whose brain was on examination discovered to have been destroyed by suppuration. Doctor Heberden tells us of a man who performed the ordinary duties of life with half a pound of water resting on his brain; and a still more remarkable case is mentioned by Doctor O'Halloran in which a man suffered an injury upon the head which caused the suppuration of the skull, through which nearly one half of the brain was discharged, mixed with matter, yet this man preserved his intellectual faculties until the moment of his death. Nevertheless, we are inclined to agree with Doctor Winslow that even in these anomalous cases there must have been some disturbance of the mental powers observable, had the attention of a competent observer been directed to them, and that as a rule it will be found logically true, that wherever there has been found the trace of organic cerebral change, there also must have been manifestations of mental disturbance. It is not often that fracturing the skull proves a curative operation, but there can be little doubt that mere accidental shocks to the sick brain have proved far more effective than even the skill of the physician. "I have been informed," says Doctor Prichard, "on good authority, that there was, some time since, a family consisting of three boys, who were all considered as idiots. One of them received a severe injury on the head; from that time his faculties began to brighten, and he is now a man of good talents, and practices as a barrister; his brothers are still idiotic and imbecile." We have it on the authority of Petrarch, that a slight concussion of the brain wonderfully strengthened the memory of Pope Clement VI. It is equally certain that tumors have gone on slowly increasing within the substance of the brain itself without for a long time disturbing the mental power of the individual. The case of Doctor Wollaston is remarkably illustrative of this. His death was occasioned by a cerebral growth of this nature, which in all probability existed there from early youth, without perceptibly to ordinary observers affecting his intellect. At last it attained to such a large size that it encroached upon the cavities of the brain, and produced paralysis on one side of the body. Notwithstanding this his brain remained quite clear, and the last moments of his life were engaged in writing some figures in arithmetic progression, in order to convince his friends that, although his tongue was mute for ever, his brain was clear. has shown that the nervous substance of the brain is distinguished from all other tissues (the bones excepted) by the very large proportions of phosphorus which it contains, amounting to no less than 1.5 per cent in 100, and if we speak of the solid matter alone, the important position held by this chemical agent in the brain is still more apparent, no less than one tenth of the whole being composed of phosphorus. It is a well-known fact that any laborious mental exercise, indeed any protracted exertion of the nervous system, results in a discharge of large quantities of the phosphatic salts by means of the kidneys; this circumstance, taken together with the remarkable fact that in the brain of the adult idiot there is a very small amount of phosphorus-not more than in that of a child-points to the conclusion that it plays a very important part in the substance of the mental powers. That in the large majority of cases of insanity the blood is mainly in fault, there can be little doubt; but when we remember how slight an alteration in the constitution of the vital fluid will produce cerebral symptons of a very marked character, we no longer wonder at the pertinacity with which these changes have eluded our observation. There are certain moments before dinner when most men suffer what the late Doctor Marshal Hall called the temper disease; the amiable become suddenly unamiable, and the best of us snappish; the morale of the individual is entirely altered. Want of rest, again, will so exhaust the mind that people positively are subject In the great majority of cases, however, at such times to delusions, imagining their post-mortem examinations present but best friends are slighting them, and exhibitfaint signs of any lesion of substance, ing in various ways quasi symptoms of insaneven where the mind during life has ity. We very much question, however, if been thoroughly disordered. The physi- chemists yet possess skill enough to detect cian but too often seeks in vain in the the temporary errors of the blood, which lunatic's brain for any trace of disorgan- we know must have given rise to this conization. He knows, nevertheless, that al-dition of things. Let us ask again: In terations of some kind must exist, and attributes his failure to the coarseness of the methods of examination at present employed. The scalpel alone will never find it out, and even the microscope as yet fails to detect departures from normal structure of so delicate a kind as those which are sufficient to overturn noble minds; and we entirely agree with Doctor Winslow in believing that, in order to detect the more subtle lesions of the brain, we must call in the labors of the Chemico-Cerebral pathologist. Sir B. Brodie what particular does the blood differ during sleep from that which it presents in the waking state? It contains, we know, a trifle more carbonic acid; but surely this addition will not account for the act of dreaming, in which we rehearse, as it were, in the inner world of the brain, the wildest thoughts of the insane. If the pathologist is so often baffled in detecting actual disorganization of the instrument through which mind is manifested, the alienist physician is rarely at a loss to read the symptoms that during life are sure to present themselves. Doctor Winslow has cultivated a new field of research in those chapters of his work in which he treats of the incipent stages of brain disease. The public are apt to date the amount of mental disturbances from some overt act, which has startled and compelled the attention of friends. Alas! the first overt act, in too many cases, has also been the last, and the verdict of suicide committed in a fit of temporary insanity is considered sufficient to exonerate all parties from any blame; but in every case the first overt act has been preceded by signs and potents of the patient's state of mind, which the experienced eye could not fail to detect. The ink is scarcely dry which recorded the suicide of a very able chancellor of a western diocese. On the inquest it was stated that he had been troubled in his mind for several days previous to the catastrophe by an error of 2s. 7d. which he had made in his diocesan accounts. This symptom of a departure from the well-known ordinary masculine tone of his mind would have suggested to any skillful physician the necessity for having him placed under surveillance; had such a step been taken, his friends probably would not have had to lament his loss. It may be urged, we know, that if we refine too much in this direction, the merest effects of temper and exhibitions of eccentricity which constitute character will at last be looked upon and watched with suspicion, as indicating a tendency to mental disease, and that those only will be considered to be sane who possess ordinary level minds without sufficient originality to go out of the beaten track. Such an error in reasoning no well-educated physician would be guilty of; but he would note with extreme suspicion any sudden change of a man's settled habits or revolution in his mode of thought. As Doctor Andrew Combe remarks: "It is the prolonged departure, without any adequate external cause, from the state of feeling and mode of thinking usual to the individual when in health, that is the true feature of disorder in mind; and the degree in which this disorder ought to be held as constituting insanity, is a question of another kind, and which we can scarcely hope for unanimity of sentiment upon." There very many cases, however, in which insanity shows itself by a simple exaggeration of usually healthy conditions. In these cases the physician finds the greatest difficulty in saying where the line shall be drawn which shall bring the patient under the eye of the law. The naturally passionate man becomes outrageous; the religious person becomes fanatical; the vain exceedingly boastful; the liberal extravagant; the only departure from the ordinary mental condition in these cases is an extraordinary exaltation of the passions and emotions. It is cases such as these which produce so much misery in the domestic circles, inasmuch as the present state of the lunacy law does not justify their being placed under control. A person thus affected may with impunity squander his whole substance and bring his family to ruin; he may render them miserable for years by the most unfounded suspicions; he may bring disgrace upon his name by exercising that excess of the secretive power which finds its climax in meaningless petty thefts. The conditions of sanity and insanity in such cases graduate so imperceptibly into each other, that the physician scarcely dares to give a verdict of insanity; and many families are forced to stand idly by whilst they see themselves irretrievably devoted to ruin, merely because the rigid rules of the lunacy law can not be made flexible enough to meet the ever-varying phenomena of diseased mind. The difficulty of discovering the physical cause of many forms of insanity is easily accounted for, if Doctor Winslow is right in his hypothesis that there is such a thing as a coordinating mental power, the disease of which is liable to produce the strongest psychological eccentricities. The later physiologists hold that the physical actions are governed, as it were, by a special power, which is believed to reside in the cerebellum, or lesser brain; and the disease popularly known as St. Vitus's Dance is supposed on very good grounds to arise in consequence of a derangement of that power. The patient can not conduct the food to his mouth; his legs go every way but the right one when he attempts to walk; he makes the oddest grimaces when asked to look you in the face; and in short, is so incapable of performing one act of volition as he should do, that the disease is aptly called "the insanity of the muscles." The extraordinary physical exertion performed by persons so affected is almost beyond belief. Doctor Abercrombie relates the case of a lady who would sometimes throw her whole body into a lusion." What the nature of this mental regulative force may be we know no more than we do of the muscular coördinating power. Physical methods of inquiry tell us nothing, and can not be expected to do so. kind of convulsive spring, by which she | most depraved of human beings. This phase would leap, as a fish may do, from the of mental aberration is often seen unassociated floor on to the top of a wardrobe full five with any form of delusion, hallucination, or ilfeet high; at other times she would rotate her head for several weeks together. Others have been known to rapidly rotate the whole body for a month continuously; one extraordinary case is on record in which a young girl became possessed with the idea of standing upon her head, with her feet perpendicularly upwards; as It has been said by Cicero, that if it soon as she had accomplished this position had been so ordered by nature that we she fell, as if paralyzed, and then com- should do in sleep all we dream of doing, menced the same action again, continuing every man would have to be bound down it fifteen times in a minute for fifteen hours before going to bed. It does seem rein the day! Insanity of the muscles is markable that during one third of our indeed an appropriate name to give to lives we should be liable to a derangement such an affection. Having contemplated of the mental power (for such is dreamthe frightful effect of disease of the co-ing) which in our waking state would ordinating power, let us for a moment render us liable to be placed in a lunatic consider the exquisite nicety with which asylum. The very intimate connection that power, when in health, adjusts the undoubtedly existing between dreaming muscles to perform any specific act. Let and insanity has in all times attracted the us take for example the muscles of the attention of psychologists, and of late arm of Paganini in drawing forth the ex- physiologists have directed their attention quisite tones of his violin. It is almost to the physical conditions which give rise impossible to conceive the precision and to the former very remarkable state. Docaplomb with which different groups of tor Marshall Hall believed that sleep is promuscles must have been directed to pro- duced either by some constriction of the duce the delicate shades of music he called great vessels of the neck, or by a slugforth by a simple act of volition, yet this gishness of the respiratory organs, either accuracy, however often repeated, never cause leading to a venous condition of the failed him. Let us grant that there is blood calculated to produce somnolency. some coordinating power-some executive We know that every degree of insensibilpresiding over the just association of ourity, up to complete coma, can be produced ideas and there is no incoherence for which its disease may not be held respon sible. "There is no fixed or even transient delu by simply allowing the neck to rest with the weight of the trunk against a tightened cord. Nature has, therefore, only to contract the great vessels periodically to sion," says Doctor Winslow in the case of Psychi-bring about the state of things we so cal Chorea. "In these cases the insanity appears to depend upon a disordered state of the coordinating power (eliminated in all proability in the cerebrum) and paralysis of what may be designated the executive, or, to adopt the phraseology of Sir William Hamilton, regulative, or legislative faculties of the mind. The patient so affected deals in the most inexplicable and absurd combinations of ideas. Filthy ejaculations, terrible oaths, blasphemous expressions, wild denunciations of hatred, revenge, and contempt, allusions the most obscene, are often singularly mingled with the most exalted sentiments of love, affection, virtue, purity, and religion .. I have often known patients while suffering from the choreic type of insanity, alternately to spit, bite, caress, kiss, vilify, and praise those near them, and to utter one moment sentiments that would do honor to the most orthodox divines, and immediately afterwards to use language only expected to proceed from the mouths of the readily do artificially; but sleeping is not dreaming, says the reader. Certainly not; but it is the dark background on which the pattern of our dreams is woven, and in all probability the condition of the circulation through the brain which produces it is also answerable for the diversified pattern itself. The absence of volition, says Doctor Darwin, distinguishes the state of sleep from the waking state. This proposition is, however, rather too sweeping, for in all probability there is no such thing as perfect sleep or absence of volition, any more than there is in any position in which every muscle of the body is totally at rest; at all events in dreaming there are many reasons which lead us to conclude that the different portions of the brain sleep unequally, and |