With

with stupor (d'une sorte de stupeur exaltique) approaches closely certain forms of mental alienation which occur after epileptic seizures, and in which the excitement is associated with obtuseness and hallucinations (obtusion hallucinatoire). respect to prognosis, the insanity of early life, according to the observations of Le Paulmier, ends in recovery; however, Delasiauve has made the remark, that a great susceptibility remains, a disposition to a return of the mental disease; and accordingly, that many patients may be found in the wards appropriated to adults, who had formerly been successfully treated in the division assigned to children.

M. Brierre du Boismont concludes his notice of M. le Paulmier's dissertation by giving the result of his own experience. He says, that in a list of forty-two young people in whom the mental disease commenced between fourteen and sixteen years of age, eighteen times was it inherited from their parents.

In by far the greater number of cases, the disease has manifested itself partly under the influence of hereditary predisposition, and partly under the influence of puberty or menstruation. On inquiring from the parents the character of the children, the answer has almost always been, that they were, without any cause, sometimes sad, and at other times wild and ungovernable; they could never apply themselves steadily to work; they had no talent, or if it existed, it only flared up brilliantly for a moment; they would submit themselves to no rules. Some were apathetic, and were not to be excited by emulation; others exhibited a volatility which could not be restrained; many had been subject to spasmodic attacks. The incubation period was often protracted. In eighteen instances recovery took place, but the persons were liable to relapse; there also remained a remarkable strangeness of character, and an inability to assume any fixed position in life. Some afforded insecure evidence of the recovery being permanent. The conclusion is, that though, in a certain number of cases, recovery takes place, the mental alienation of children and young people is a most serious disease-partly from their antecedents, and partly on account of the imperfect development of the organs. Adducing the foregoing facts in opposition to Le Paulmier's, M. Brierre du Boismont nevertheless accords to the dissertation the meed of his approbation, looking upon it as the production of a thinking mind, and as a proof that themes selected by authors themselves are more productive of fruit than those which are the subjects of prize essays.

REVIEWS.

The Human Mind in its relations with the Brain and Nervous System. By DANIEL NOBLE, M.D. London, 1858.

A GOOD handy-book on physiological psychology would be a boon to the public, but although the work now lying before us might in bulk, style, and in some respects intention, be considered as a handy-book, it could scarcely be denominated good; for the main object of the author is to set forth certain views on mental physiology which he entertains, but which have not met with general acceptation among physiologists.

Dr. Noble's special opinions on mental physiology are well known among English physiologists, and in a previous number of this Journal (No. XXVIII.) we had occasion to notice their merits as suggestive of inquiry; but now that these opinions are republished in a more elaborate guise, it behoves us rather to examine their demerits, more particularly as the present work is addressed to the amateur and general student as well as to the physiologist and psychologist.

We object to the views which Dr. Noble takes of the position of psychology in scientific research. He writes:

"In order that a system of analytical psychology should be attained, standing in true scientific relation with our knowledge of the brain, we ought to be able to appreciate the varying phases of consciousness, in watching their outward manifestation, with some of that readiness and accuracy wherewith we can estimate physical conditions. Were this within our power, considerable advances might be made towards a correct and detailed psychology, duly associated with our information concerning the structures within the head. But the inevitable absence of objective standards by which to measure the value of mental facts, materially reduces their comparability among themselves, and with other facts; on this account psychical phenomena do not admit of any natural or perfect system of classification, neither do they allow themselves to be linked-on to physical facts with anything like philosophical exactitude. Yet, of course, scientific induction demands very distinct recognition of the comparable worth of all the circumstances which lead to it."-(pp. 3, 4.)

In this paragraph neither the actual nor the probable position of psychology is, we believe, correctly stated. Recondite and difficult as researches into the nature of psychical phenomena may be, still it does not follow that they will ever stand without the pale of precise and systematic knowledge. Recent progress in psychological research has been such as to warrant the assertion that the conditions upon which it must be followed are becoming clearly known. This is a fundamental condition of scientific research, without which no positive and satisfactory advance can be made. "Psychology holds," as Morell observes, "its proper place in the logical co-ordination of the sciences at large, and will only be perfected when all the under-lying data shall have been duly explored and comprehended." Moreover,

notwithstanding Dr. Noble's opinion that psychical phenomena do not allow themselves to be linked on to physical facts with anything like philosophical exactitude, yet he subsequently proceeds to give a summary of what he deems to be "the probable, and the more than probable, physiology of the nervous system and the various portions of the encephalon, pointing out the correspondence in some detail between it and the more prominent facts of psychology."-(p. 34.)

Again, Dr. Noble writes:-

"In a very early stage of physiological inquiry, the seat of the Soul, or Conscious Principle, was a theme of elaborate and ingenious hypothesis. Hippocrates and Hierophylus place it in the fibres of the brain; Democritus, in the region of the temples; Strabo, in the space between the eyebrows; Epicurus allocated it in the breast; Diogenes, in the left ventricle of the heart; the Stoics, with Chrysippus, in the whole heart; Empedocles placed it in the blood; Plato and Aristotle, with the more elevated schools of philosophy, connected the soul with the whole body; and Galen suggested that each part of the body had its particular soul. In later times, however, conclusions have been attained with regard to the functions of the Encephalon-the structures within the headwhich leave no reasonable doubt that the conscious principle has its special seat in that region; conclusions abundantly sustained by evidence from all sources."-(pp. 5, 6.)

Here the soul is confounded with a mode of its manifestation, consciousness: a weighty error, we conceive, in psychology.

Common sensation, Dr. Noble defines to be " a sense consciousness not limited to any particular organ, but referring itself more or less to the whole frame. . . . This sense resides principally in the skin; it is especially acute at the mucous orifices; it exists, however, in the interior tissues, but in a degree less intense. It is best illustrated by the simple notion of existence."-(p. 48.) It would seem that under the designation of common sensation, Dr. Noble includes the special sense of touch, and the common sensibility of some authors and the canesthesis of others; but of this latter form of sensibility more hereafter. Dr. Noble conceives that it is through common sensation that we appreciate the state of the muscles, "experience the muscular sense." He then proceeds :—

"This fifth sense (common sensation) is, presumably, awakened through the vesicular extremities-the peripheral expansion-of fibrous filaments. Whether the grey substance and white fibres originating and conducting common sensation be the same as those which subserve the spinal reflex function is. uncertain. But this much may be admitted, the communicated impression ascends along the posterior columns of the spinal cord, and attaining gray vesicular centres, produces a consciousness of common sensation.

"Physiologists are not agreed as to the identity of these ganglionic structures ; they may be expected, however, like the other sensory ganglia, to be somewhere at the base of the encephalon; and I am, myself, disposed to think that the vesicular nuclei within the lateral lobes of the cerebellum-the corpora dentata -constitute the encephalic site of this sense. Many years ago, Foville assigned this function to the aggregate cerebellum; and others, with great plausibility, have advocated this opinion. Dr. Carpenter, however, in his Human Physiology, argues against it, on the ground that neither ablation of the organ by opera

tion, nor the destruction of it by disease, have been found to involve the loss of any sensorial capacity. But there may be considerable doubt as to whether, in recorded cases of this kind, the ganglionic extremities of the upper and posterior portion of the spinal cord-the cerebellic termination of the so-called restiform bodies-were actually lost, even though the lobes and their cortical vesicular investment should have disappeared. I doubt if the extension of disease or of experimental excision to structures so closely contiguous to the medulla oblongata as these corpora dentata, would be compatible with the maintenance of functions essential to life; although the removal or destruction of the bulk of the cerebellum, might suggest no such difficulty. Besides, it is notorious that, in the case of animals, movements purely reflex will sometimes be mistaken for those indicative of common sensation. But, probably, the cases already observed with respect to this point, are too few for any decisive conclusion."-(pp. 49-51.)

*

"The anatomical connexion which exists between the corpora dentata and the posterior columns of the spinal cord, through the corpora restiformia, favours the hypothesis which I have advanced; and various physiological and pathological facts would appear to strengthen it. The experiments of Magendie and Longet show that the slightest touch of the restiform bodies induces violent pain. Hutin relates a case in which the sense of touch was so exalted, that, upon the least contact, intolerable pain and restlessness ensued, with corresponding muscular contractions, resembling those produced by an electric discharge. The patient ultimately died in the most terrific convulsions, prostrate and exhausted. On examination after death, there was found, amongst other changes, atrophy of the cerebellum. Its medullary centre, as compared with that of another subject, was a third less in size in either hemisphere. The white substance, which in the normal condition occupies the centre of the corpus rhomboidale, had ceased to exist, so that the fimbriated margins of this portion approached the centre, and only formed a small pyriform, very hard, grayish brown body.'

Mr. Robert Dunn, of London, a very acute and reflecting practitioner, published a few years ago an interesting and instructive case of tubercle in the brain, wherein there was noticed, amongst other phenomena, imperfect paralysis of the right arm and leg, consisting in failure of common sensation. The patient was a little girl about two years old. She could move her arm about,' says Mr. Dunn, and could grasp anything firmly enough in her right hand, when her eyes and attention were directed to it; but if they were diverted to something else, and the volitional power withdrawn, she would let the object which she had been holding fall from her hands, and without being conscious of the fact Describing the post-mortem appearances, Mr. Dunn states, On making an incision through the lateral lobes of the cerebellum on the left side, I found I had cut through a tubercular deposit, a little to the outer side of the median line (the site of the corpus dentatum), in a state of softened degeneration.' -(pp. 52-54.)

The experiments of Dr. E. Brown-Séquard seem to afford conclusive evidence against the anatomical arguments of Dr. Noble in favour of the corpora dentata of the cerebellum being the ganglionic centres of common sensation. The former gentleman has satisfactorily shown that the posterior columns of the spinal cord are not channels by which sensitive impressions are transmitted to the encephalon. Neither division, nor removal of a portion of the posterior columns is followed by a diminution of sensibility, but, on the contrary, by a marked increase of sensibility in the parts below the portion of the columns incised or removed; and ablation of the restiform bodies is

followed by the same results, sensibility being in nowise diminished, but conspicuously increased in the parts below. The conclusions at which Dr. E. Brown-Séquard has arrived from experimental and pathological research, respecting the relations of the posterior columns to sensibility are as follows :

"The posterior columns of the spinal cord are not, as it has been imagined, a bundle of fibres, from the posterior roots of the spinal nerves going to the encephalon.

"The restiform bodies are not a collection of fibres, chiefly from the sensitive nerves of the various parts of the body, going up to the encephalon, and therefore the cerebellum is not the recipient, through the restiform bodies, of most of the sensitive fibres of the trunk and limbs.

"Deep injuries to the posterior columns of the spinal cord are always followed by a degree of hyperesthesia greater than after the laying bare of the nervous centres, hyperesthesia which appears in all parts of the body behind the place injured.

"All the parts of the encephalon which are situated in its posterior or superior side are like the posterior columns of the spinal cord in this respectthat a marked degree of hyperæsthesia always follows a transverse section upon any of them. If a complete transverse section is made upon any part of the restiform bodies, sensibility becomes very much increased in every part of the trunk and limbs. Hyperæsthesia is also, but at a less degree, one of the results of a transverse incision of the cerebellum, in the processus cerebelli ad testes, and in the tubercula quadrigemina.

"The posterior columns of the spinal cord are much less sensitive than they are said to be, and it even seems that the apparent sensibility depends upon the fact, that when they are irritated, the posterior roots, which are sensitive, are also more or less irritated.

"The restiform bodies seem to be deprived of sensibility to mechanical excitation."-(Lancet, August 7th, 1858, p. 137.)

Passing over the additional evidence, as well pathological as experimental, which might be adduced to show that the centre of common sensation, or the path of sensitive impressions to the sensorium cannot be in the cerebellum, we would merely add Dr. E. Brown-Séquard's remarks on the case related by Mr. Dunn, and quoted by Dr. Noble. "The case," writes Dr. Brown-Séquard, referring more particularly to the opinion expressed by Dr. Carpenter, that the cerebellum might be the seat of the so-called muscular sense, 66 certainly seems to be a valuable one; but what can it prove, when we know that movements have remained regular, and, consequently well guided, in many cases in which tubercles, or other morbid products, or various alterations, have existed at the same place where the deposit was found in Mr. Dunn's case."-(Lancet, August 28th, 1858, p. 220.)

Dr. Noble appears to regard the Canasthesis and Emotional Sensibility as one and the same phenomenon :—

"There is yet a sensibility more elevated in the psychical scale than either external sensation or the physical appetites; I refer to that all-pervading sense of substantive existence which German psychologists have named, in some of its phases, Canasthesis-general feeling, and sometimes self-feeling (SelbstGefühl). It connects itself, apparently, with the peripheral termination of