ful as coy maidens in particular states of ill-health. Mild, inoffensive, and humane men are driven to acts of desperation and cruelty under the influence of certain physical diseases disturbing and deranging the operations of thought. "Men (it has been observed) have their ebbs and flows of bravery, and some distempers bring a mechanical terror upon the imagination."

The celebrated General CUSTINE, possessing at the dreadful battle of Mayence, high health and vigour, could dauntlessly advance with heroic courage to the mouths of the Austrian cannon, yet after having suffered severely from bodily disease, and loss of nervous energy, he proved a dastardly poltroon and coward at the sight of the guillotine!*

A gentleman was, for many years, remarkable for great irascibility and violence of temper. He was constantly quarrelling with his relations, friends, and domestics; in fact, he became notorious for being an illconditioned man, with whom no person could for many days live, or associate on amicable terms. He suddenly became ill, complained of a feeling of great uneasiness in his head. This was followed by a violent attack of epilepsy. He recovered from the paroxysm, and, to the astonishment of all his relations and friends, his character had undergone a complete metamorphosis. He became a mild, good-tempered, and placid man, disposed to live, on the most friendly understanding, with everybody. This state of mind existed for eighteen months, when, in the act of getting out of a railway carriage, he had a second epileptic fit. This was succeeded by a return of his former violence of conduct. He again exhibited great irritability, with occasional paroxysms of ungovernable rage. This mental condition continued for six months, when he had a recurrence of the epileptic * Referred to by Dr. Thomas Beddoes in his " Hygeia."

fits, followed, singular to relate, by a condition of mental composure, great self-control, and astonishing equanimity, when exposed to extreme provocation. In a few weeks he had a succession of severe attacks of epilepsy associated with maniacal symptoms. It was considered necessary to place this gentleman under restraint, and he is now in confinement.

In some conditions of nervous disorder, the slightest meteorological changes give rise to singular alternations of despondency, despair, hope, and joy, so completely does the mind succumb to physical influences. I have known a person subject to attacks of suicidal melancholia during the prevalence of a cold, blighting, depressing east wind, who appeared happy, contented, and free from all desire to injure himself under other and more congenial conditions of the atmosphere!* An Italian artist never could reside a winter in England without the distressing idea of self-destruction repeatedly suggesting itself to his morbidly depressed mind. I have known natives of France, accustomed from early life to the buoyant air, and bright azure sky of that country, sink into profound states of mental despondency if compelled to reside many weeks in London during the earlier portion of the winter season. A military man, suffering from severe mental dejection, was in the habit of promenading backward and forward in a certain track, towards evening, on the ramparts of the town in which he resided. When he walked forwards, his face fronted the east, where the sky was hung with black, as was, alas! his poor soul. Then his grief pressed doubly and heavily upon him; he was hopeless

* "Could we penetrate into the secret foundation of human events, we should frequently find the misfortunes of one man caused by the intestines of another, whom the former endeavoured to inspire with sympathy in his fate, at a moment when the frame of mind of the latter was affected by impeded secretion. An hour later, and his fortune would have been made." -Feuchtersleben's "Medical Psychology."

and in deep despair; but when he turned with his countenance towards the west, where the setting sun left behind a halo of glory and beautiful evening's red, his happiness again returned. Thus he walked backward and forward, with and without hope, alternating between joy and melancholy, ecstasy and grief, in obedience to the baneful and benign influence of the eastern and western sky! To this sad extent are the functions of the nervous system and operations of the mind under the dominion of ordinary physical laws.

A young man, of proverbial gentleness, one evening formed one of a party (of young men of his own age) at billiards. Contrary to his wont, he played badly, and he quarrelled, and wrangled with, and in the end offended, everybody in the room. Two hours after, he was seized with nephritic pains, caused by the irritation of a calculus, which was expelled on the following day, from the kidney and bladder. A very nervous man, suffering from stone, underwent, occasionally, the operation of lithotrity. To spare him the pain and spasm inseparable from the introduction of the instrument into the bladder, he was placed under the influence of chloroform. Impressions were never completely extinguished, but they were blunted. Thus, at the moment when the lithotrite was introduced, the patient manifested the struggles of anguish; he resisted with energy, but when the pain reached its acme, he cried out, "You shall not conquer me! What means this violence? Peter! Antony! (said he, calling loudly to his domestics,) drive away these men!" and, he added, "You will have done well! You will obtain nothing, I shall not consent to an unequal division. My children are all equal in my affections!" Thus a general sentiment of anguish occasioned by physical pain, excited in him the idea of a moral constraint.*

These two illustrations are taken from Dr. Gratiolet's work, referred to in page 201.

In what respect do these phenomena differ from the state of the mind in insanity except in their temporary and transient character? Suppose a continuance of the nephritic irritation accompanied by the same psychical manifestation, and a loss of volitional power over the actions, and we observe that irritability, tendency to violent conduct, disposition to motiveless acts of violence, so often witnessed in the early as well as advanced stages of mental derangement. Again, if we could conceive the condition of mind which followed the administration of chloroform to be in existence for any length of time after the acute effect of the anesthetic agent had subsided, would not the state be one of insanity? These illustrations could be multiplied ad libitum.

There are many conditions of eccentric thought, transient states of intellect, temporary manifestations of irregular and erratic emotion, and evanescent phases of violent, ungovernable passion, which would constitute insanity, and insanity, too, of a formidable type, if such states of mind were of a persistent, and not of a fugitive and transient character.

Psychical phenomena, analogous to what has previously been referred to, are occasionally observed in patients suffering from temporary attacks of delirium caused by the absorption into the blood of some form of poison. There is upon record a remarkable, and deeply interesting illustration of the kind, which I offer no apology for quoting in detail. The case was one of hydrophobia, occurring in a female aged twenty-one. A few days after the attack she commenced raving, imagining that she had been accused of some crime, for which she was in prison. Under the influence of this delusion she sprang up to make her escape, and tried to throw herself out of the window, saying with great agitation, "I have done no harm." It was then deemed

necessary to confine her by means of a strait waistcoat.

About eight o'clock at night, upon Dr. Lister and Dr. Hamilton (the physicians of the hospital), entering the ward, they heard a female voice speaking thick and eagerly in the dark (for the other patients in the hospital had been removed). A candle was brought to the bed, and the curtains were undrawn. The young

woman was lying on her back, exerting all her force to get up; terror in her countenance, eyes glistening, pupils much dilated, whole face and neck uniformly red, steaming with perspiration; pulse incredibly swift and small. She became very restless. Her tongue was clear; and saliva was running from the corners of her mouth.

She was in a state of great terror, with fear in her looks, and struggling to get away, calling out, "Let me go! let me go!" By transitions, too quick to be marked, she seemed to fancy herself at the entrance of some horrid place, exclaiming, "now, do go in first; well, I will enter." Quick as her own thoughts, and as if exposed to the violence of ruffians, with alarm still in her look, and in an earnest imploring manner, she said, "as you are a gentleman, you will not leave a helpless girl to these. Her agony of terror increased, and she cried peremptorily and wildly, "don't leave me, sir; don't leave me, I beseech you." Her mind was in a moment hurried from this idea to an imaginary place, where she fancied she was going to be used cruelly by a woman. "She will tie me up! break my bones!" she cried, with terrified looks, exerting all her force to escape. She then sunk into a state of calmness for a minute, but soon her frightened looks, and averted head and neck expressed a renewed conflict with danger. Her mind became a little more tranquillized, but still unhappy from fancying herself detained by force from obeying some order of her