changing, and therefore he contended it was not based on scientific principles. It was interesting and suggestive, but he considered the evidence on which it was attempted to prove a connection between the Greeks and the English was unsatisfactory and delusive.

"Dr. Beigel agreed with Mr. Heath in thinking that it was not a scientific paper. The author attempted to show that the English were an admirable people, and that there was a connection between them and the ancient Greeks in mental qualities and in the beauty of their persons. It was not necessary to write a book to prove that the English were a great nation. But if any person were to institute a comparison between the beauty of two nations, he would be sure to arrive at the conclusion of giving preference to the nation to which he belonged; for the comparison between the Germans and the English, he thought the author of this paper had adopted the opinions of Mr. Mayhew, who had written a libel on the German people, founded on observations of the lower classes, for he had not had access to good society in Germany. Persons not familiar with the German language were liable to commit many errors in construing the meaning of words, and to that cause he attributed the inference drawn by the author of the paper from the frequent occurrence of the word wonder. That word was not used in German in the sense assigned to it in the paper, and similar expressions were as much used in England. As to the word wundersam, on which much stress has been laid, it was an obsolete word not now used in the German language. He hoped that the paper would not appear in any publication connected with the Anthropological Society, for he should be ashamed to see it printed in their proceedings.

He

"The President entirely dissented from the opinion that the paper was not of a scientific character. It treated of one of the most difficult subjects of anthropological science. thought the author of the paper had dealt with it in a fairly scientific spirit, and the Society were much indebted to him for making this first attempt to grasp such a difficult subject. He trusted it would be followed by others of a similar character. The paper he hoped would be printed, and if it contained any errors that they would be corrected, and that the subject would be discussed more in detail on some future occasion.

"Mr. Pike, in replying to the remarks on the paper, said he had explained at the beginning that it was only a portion of a larger work, in which a great mass of evidence was given in support of the opinions expressed, and that he had laid it before the Society in that form with great diffidence. There had,

indeed, been less said against the paper than he expected. In answer to the objection raised by Dr. Charnock, that only a small number of Celtic words can be found in the English language, he referred to the present state of the language of the Negroes in Jamaica. They speak English not mixed with any African words, and it might on that account as well be said that they have no African blood in their veins, as that the English are not descended from the pre-Roman Britons because there are few Celtic words in their language. He would not then enter farther into the philological question, which he had discussed elsewhere. With respect to the objection that the English could not be remarkably modest, or they would not get on so well in the world, he thought it must be obvious to every one except Dr. Charnock that he used the word modesty as a synonym not for bashfulness, but for the sense of decency. Mr. Charnock's list of inventions had been almost entirely taken from Mr. Pike's own list of the inventions produced by various countries. Clock-making was an exception; but its origin was uncertain, and no one could say that the English clock and watch makers were inferior to others. There might be two hundred or twenty thousand German playwrights, but no number of attempts necessarily implied success. In fact, the greater the number of its dramatic failures the less could a nation claim dramatic ability. Mr. Pike repudiated the notion that he had intended to disparage the Germans. His only object was to draw a distinction between them and the English. Dr. Seemann and Dr. Beigel asserted that the Germans did not think anything wonderful when they said it was wonderful; but Mr. Pike had anticipated and answered that objection in his paper. The Germans displayed the physical signs of wonder when they used the word. Then, again, as to the Germans having colonized Australia and the United States, he said it had always been, and still was, his impression that the Germans had emigrated thither after the English had founded the colonies. In reference to the objection of Mr. Heath, that the paper was not of a scientific character, and that no scientific paper could be written on the subject of national characteristics because there were no national characteristics to be compared, he observed that he had understood it to be one of the aims of that Society to discover the differences between the different races inhabiting the globe. It seemed to him that Mr. Heath, as an officer of the Society, committed self-stultification in raising such an objection. The characteristics of the strongest element in any nation might fairly be considered the national characteristics. He thought it most prob

able that he had made mistakes in treating a subject of such magnitude, but he contended that no real errors had yet been pointed out, that the plan he had adopted was scientific, and that the subject could be scientifically treated only by that or some similar method. He had taken a great deal of trouble to arrive at the truth, and he had not, as Mr. Heath appeared to have done, taken for granted the first statement he had met with on the subject of the Pelasgians or Phoenicians, and believed it to be history. With regard to Mr. Mayhew's book, on which it had been said he had founded his opinions of the Germans, he had indeed read that among many other works; but his opinions of German character had been formed partly from his own slight acquaintance with the Germans and their literature, but principally from the writings of authors popular among the Germans themselves. He had only further to remark that no one had even attempted to controvert his two leading propositions, the first of which was that the English were psychically very like the ancient Greeks; the second, that the English were psychically very unlike the modern Germans." —Journal of the Anthropological Society.

Hysterical Vagaries." We have had examples enough of medical practitioners being brought into peril and vexatious trouble by the accusations of hysterical or designing women; but the most preposterous specimen of this we ever recollect to have met with has just occurred in Italy. Indeed, so absurd is the story from beginning to end, that we should hesitate troubling our readers with any account of it had not a respectable physician been placed on his trial, first at Brescia and then at Milan; and though he was ultimately acquitted triumphantly, this could only have been after great delay, considerable expense, and great mental torment and anxiety. An hysterical servant girl, only fourteen years of age, whose menses, after appearing during a year, had become arrested, was charged with attempting the lives of her master's four children, and thrown into prison. While there she gave most contradictory accounts of herself, but at last settled down by admitting the truth of the accusation, and declaring that she had been instigated to the commission of the crime by Dr. Feltrinelli, who, as the reward for their perpetration and her own prostitution, promised her a sum of about thirty shillings, and an article of dress. The children were all to be disposed of in different modes. To the young infant broken needles and pins were to be administered, an elder child was to be thrown into the lake, blows were to be inflicted on the epigastrium of another while its mouth was closed, and poison was

added to the soup of the fourth. All these crimes she declared that she attempted, though without results, for at the trials all the children were alive and well. One would have expected that before putting a well-known physician, 56 years of age, on trial for so preposterous a charge, the previous character and present mental condition of his accuser would have been thoroughly investigated; but it was not until the second trial had far advanced that the authorities began to entertain the suspicion that they might be pursuing the vagaries of an hysterical girl or of a lunatic. We need not enter into any of the multitudinous details of the case, which, in fact, quite broke down. An elaborate account of its medico-legal bearings has been published in the last number of the Gazetta Medica Lombardia by one of the witnesses for the defence. The impossibility of the broken needles having been administered is set forth with needless prolixity, seeing that there was no proof whatever of this having been the case, save the testimony of the girl, who was contradicting herself-in fact, the feeling the case leaves is utter amazement that any one could have been put on his trial on such grounds."-Medical Times and Gazette.

Was Luther Mad?-In a letter to the Medical Times and Gazette, Dr. W. Domett Stone, discusses this question as follows:

"To be brief, I will at once affirm that in my opinion, Luther was of unsound mind. This assertion I base on various extracts gleaned from the different works, the veracity of which, I believe, has never been impugned. In order to prove that the illusions from which Luther suffered were not transient, nor momentary and fugitive eccentricities,' as has been asserted by Dr. Forbes Winslow, but fixed and abiding impressions,' I adduce the following illustrations, which appear to me to prove conclusively that the dogma propounded by Dr. Wood and Dr. Williams is far from unphilosophical. I would, by way of preface, remark that Luther, in referring to his illness, wrote in January, 1532, My malady, which consists of a series of headaches, vertigoes, and so on, is decidedly not natural; nothing I take remedies it in the slightest degree, though I implicitly obey my physician's directions.' In the month of May, 1530, he remarked:-'When I try to work, my head becomes filled with all sorts of whizzing, buzzing, thundering noises, and if I did not leave off on the instant, I should faint away. For the last three days I have not been able even to look at a letter. My head has lessened down to

a very short chapter, soon it will be only a paragraph, then only a syllable, then nothing at all. The day your letter came from Nuremberg, I had another visit from the devil. I was alone, Vicus and Cyriacus having gone out, and this time the evil one got the better of me, drove me out of my bed, and compelled me to seek the face of man.' On another occasion he wrote: When I was at Coburg, in 1530, I was tormented with a noise and buzzing in my ears, just as though there was some wind tearing through my head. The devil had something to do with it.' For nearly three months,' he writes on October 8, 1527, I have been languishing, not so much in body as in mind, so that I have scarce been able in that whole time to pen as many lines. These are the persecutions of Satan.' On February 9, 1543, he writes: My head is so weak, so unsteady, that I can neither read nor write, especially when fasting.' On March 14, same year, he says: 'I am feeble and weary of life; I would fain bid adien to the world, which is now given over to the Evil One.' To Amsdorff he says, on August 18, in the same year: -I write this to thee after supper, for when fasting I cannot, without great danger, even look at a book or a paper. I don't understand this wretched malady at all-whether it is one of Satan's blows at me or the effect of nature's decay.' In November, 1543, he says:-'I take it that my malady is made up, first, of the ordinary weakness of advanced age; secondly, of the results of my long labors and habitual tension of thought; thirdly, above all, of the blows of Satan; if this be so, there is no medicine in the world that will cure me.'

"In order that I may not be misunderstood in what I wish to convey, I would have the profession comprehend distinctly that I do not assert that the existence of any one of these symptoms indicates aberration of intellect, but I do submit that if they are taken collectively. they are not unfrequenlly symptomatic of incipient insanity.

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"Now for facts denoting unsoundness of mind, described by the great Reformer' in propria persona. Once in my monastery at Wittemberg,' he writes, I distinctly heard the devil make a noise. I was beginning to read the Psalms, after having celebrated matins, when, interrupting my studies, the devil came into my cell, and thrice made a noise behind the stove, just as though he were dragging some wooden measure along the floor. As I found he was going to begin again, I gathered together my books, and got into bed.

Another time, in the night, I heard him above my cell, walking in the cloister; but, as I knew it was the devil, I paid no attention to him, and went to sleep.'