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tenable, because there is no such thing as a sound and un-sound mind coexisting in the same individual, and becauseit is impossible to determine the limits of disturbance whichmay be occasioned by what we term a localised or partialailment."

All these arguments are undoubtedly logical and conclu-sive. The only doubt that arises in our mind is, whetherthe last argument might not, with almost equal force, bepushed still further; and since, as Dr. Reynolds says, 11 weof the medical profession regard insanity of mind as theoutcome of a diseased state of the body," and since, ac-cording to modern doctrines, the mens sana and the corpussanum are one and indivisible, we do not run some dangerin allowing that a MMMS sana can ever be present in a corpusinsanum. In short, modern doctrines as to insanity havegone so far that we can well imagine a counsel using suchan argument as the one we have just suggested, and if itwere urged that the legal tests of insanity had no scientificvalue, he might, we think, reply with almost equal forcethat the legal value of the scientific tests was nil also. In

making these remarks we must not be understood to speak-slightingly of Dr. Reynolds’s very valuable paper, whichno one can read without considerable profit. Our only regretis, that it stops short with the arguments that show thelegal criteria to be valueless, and offers no practical sug-gestion, no definite propositions such as might be discussedby the conference which he proposes. We sincerely advo-cate the holding of such a conference, but we feel certainthat a discussion between the two professions, if it is to befollowed by practical results, must be conducted on bothsides with an entire absence of bigotry, and that greatconcessions must be made on the part of scientific theoriststo the exact requirements of the law. In conclusion, westrongly advise all who are interested in this importantsubject, be they lawyers or doctors, to read Dr. Reynolds’sthoughtful and interesting essay.

OUR LIBRARY TABLE.

Preces Veterum, pluribus cuiii hymnis cocsms. Collegit etdidit JoANNES F. FRANCE. Londini: Sampson Low andCo. 1872.-Mr. France, some time ophthalmic surgeon andlecturer at Guy’s, has beguiled the evening of an activeprofessional life by selecting from the devotional writingsof Jerome, Augustine, Bede, Alcuin, Anselm, Bernard, andother saints, as well as from the liturgies of the earlychurch, a number of prayers, ordinary and eucharistic, inprove and verse. To these he has also added specimens ofthe mediaeval Latin devotional writers and hymnologists,such as Kempis and Celano. The compilation, evidentlya. labour of love, is executed with judgment, taste, and

scholarship, and, apart from its devotional uses, will be

found valuable as an introduction to the Latin idiom and

style of early and mediseval authorship, whether theologicalor lay. Mr. France, though his imagination is evidently-filled by the grandeur and solemnity of the Roman Catholicritual, is still Protestant enough to excise from his selectionall allusions to the Virgin, even to mutilating the " StabatPlater," a proceeding in which Sir Walter Scott, himself aProtestant and an enthusiastic admirer of the hymn, wouldcertainly not have followed him.

Grotesque Animals. Invented, Drawn, and Described byE. W. Coox, R.A., F.R.S. London: Longmans and Green.-The great wave of comic and amusing literature whichat this season of the year annually breaks over us surelycarried nothing cleverer on its crest than the book undernotice. Mr. Cook, in giving his work its designation, showedwhat is now getting a rare accomplishment in bibliography--viz., the art of giving a title which shall thoroughlyexplain the contents of the. book. "Grotesque Animals"

consists of a series of humorous and well-executed plates ofimpossible animals, the crustacean predominating. Mr.Cook is a painter of eminence with a penchant, if we re-member aright, for the Dutch school. His present produc-tion will certainly not detract from his fame as an artist, andwill enhance any reputation he may possess as a naturalist.

Memoirs of Baron Stockmar. By his Son, Baron E. vonSTOCKMAR. Translated from the German by G. A. M.Edited by E. MAX MULLER. In 2 vols. London: Longmans,Green, and Co. 1872.-These Memoirs are among the mostinteresting, if not the most interesting, that we have readfor a long time. In a late annotation we set forth, as suc-cinctly as practicable, the late Baron’s medical trainingand the influence which this had upon his future career.For an account of that career, and of the great part heplayed in what may be termed making history, our readersmust refer to the volumes themselves.

THE SANITARY STATE OF THE POTTERIES.

A SERIES of reports containing the results of a systematicinspection of the Staffordshire pottery district, made in thecourse of the present year by Dr. Ballard, of the MedicalDepartment of the Local Government Board, has justappeared. The reports are in two parts, one referring tothe registration district of Wolstanton, the other to theregistration district of Stoke-upon-Trent. The first-named

registration district contains the towns of Burslem, Tun-stall, Kidsgrove, and their respective districts, and thetownships of Wolstanton, Chesterton, Knutton, and Chat-terley, and the different villages and hamlets therein. Thelast-named registration district contains the towns of

Hanley, Longton, Stoke-upon-Trent, and their respectivedistricts, and the townships of Fenton (Little and Great),of Botteslow and Seabridge. The aggregate population ofthe various localities here mentioned at the census of 1871was 158,156. Dr. Ballard has arranged his reports, follow-ing apparently the order of his inspection in accordancewith the registration sub-districts of the localities inspected,and he deals with each sub-district and its towns andvillages separately. The inquiry is not treated as a whole,with this exception, that the reports for each of the two re-gistration districts have stitched up with them two ap-

pendices, one containing certain summary statistical tablesof mortality from certain causes, and the other containingan examination of the pottery industry in its relation to thedeath-rate from pulmonary affections. It is almost super-fluous to say that the different reports on the severallocalities enumerated are patterns of their kind, and theymust prove of the highest value to the places to which theyrefer. But it is to be regretted that no attempt has beenmade to bring together the principal results of the inquiryin one general view. From the want of such a summarythe important teachings of the inquiry which most concernthe public at large must, it is to be feared, be in somemeasure lost. The reports, however, are all arranged on asimilar plan, and to this extent comparison is facilitated.We cannot attempt to follow Dr. Ballard from report to

report, and we must content ourselves with culling a fewillustrations here and there of sanitary matters in the pot-teries. Burslem, under the rule of a local board, has beenmuch improved during the last twenty-three years. Betweenits condition now and its condition in 1849, " no comparisoncan be made, the one condition contrasts so forcibly with theother." But how much yet remains to be done is indicatedby the following statement :-" I visited every house inwhich a death from enteric fever had occurred since thecommencement of 1870, and aleo several of the localities inwhich scarlatina had chiefly prevailed. With respect tothe former there was only one home in which foul local con-ditions were not found amply sufficient to account for theoccurrence of enteric fever-privy cesspools, which wereoverfull or leaking in a narrow yard close to the back door,or so situated that when emptied their contents have to becarried through a dwelling-room ; untrapped or broken-in

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drains, dilapidated yards with pools of slops and accumula-lations of filth and refuse, panned privies from which thewater-supply had been cut off, and which had consequentlybecome choked with excrement, or the near vicinity of afoul open ditch or sewer, or of offensive undrained pigsties."This in a much improved and improving place ! Of the un-improved and deteriorating places, the imagination maywell be left to supply the picture. Tunstall, in additionto various marked sanitary shortcomings, has a spe-ciality in unqualified practitioners. Of 196 deaths regis-tered in this district in 1870, 1871, and the first quarter of1872, from "fever," small-pox, and scarlatina, 86 had beenattended by unqualified and unlicensed practitioners whogave certificates of the cause of death. As an illustrationof local administration, the following is a sample. 11 Tun-stall has a medical officer of health who is paid a salary of.820 a year, but who is not aware that any particular func-tions devolve upon him by statute. Tunstall also has aninspector of nuisances, who is paid =830 a year, but who, al-though an intelligent man, is not even acquainted with thestatutes under which he acts." This is the kind of matteiwhich abounds in these reports.We shall postpone a consideration of Dr. Ballard’s obser.

vations on the pottery industry in its relations to the death-rate from pulmonary affections, as well as some generalcomments on the reports, until a future number.

THE APOTHECARIES’ SOCIETY AND THECONJOINT EXAMINATION SCHEME.

A LETTER has been addressed by the Master of theApothecaries’ Company to the President of the GeneralMedical Council, the object of which is "to remove fromthe minds of some of the most eminent members of theCouncil an impression which seems to have existed that theSociety had seceded from, and refused to co-operate with,the other medical authorities in the formation of a ConjointBoard, and to show that such impression was entirely with-out foundation." It appears that shortly after the close ofthe session of the General Medical Council, in March last,a communication was made by the late Master of the

Apothecaries to the Lord President, expressing a wish thatthe Government should introduce a Bill to remove the re-strictions which appeared to prevent the Society of Apothe-caries from concurring with the Colleges of Physicians andSurgeons in their proposed scheme for constituting a Con-joint Examining Board for England. Mr. Simon, inacknowledging, on behalf of the Lord President, thereceipt of this communication, stated that he was directedby his lordship to say that Her Majesty’s Governmentwould not undertake themselves to introduce the Bill whichthe Society had in view, but that, if privately introduced,they would be quite ready to express approval of its generalpurposes. The Lord President further suggested that theBill should be introduced in the House of Lords, where,assuming the details to be such as he could approve, hewould himself give the Bill his best support.In consequence of this communication the Society pre-

pared a Bill to be introduced in the House of Lords to effectthe purposes referred to in the communications which hadpassed between the Privy Council and the late Master, anda draft of such Bill was submitted for the consideration ofthe Lord President. Upon the Society subsequently for-warding, through their clerk, the draft of an additionalclause proposed to be added to the Bill, enabling them tostrike off from the list of licentiates the names of personsguilty of infamous conduct, he was informed by Mr. Simon,on behalf of the Lord President, that an application hadbeen made to the Government with reference to a generalmeasure, having for its object to enable the medicalcolleges and bodies to agree to a Conjoint Scheme ofMedical Examinations, and that the subject was thenunder consideration. Mr. Simon, on behalf of the LordPresident, further suggested that should such a measure beintroduced it would probably be unnecessary for one to bebrought in solely referring to the Society of Apothecaries.The Society of Apothecaries now consider it their duty

not to proceed with the Bill which they themselves hadproposed to introduce.

Foreign Cleanings.CASE OF ACUTE ARTICULAR RHEUMATISM SUCCESSFULLYTREATED BY THE APPLICATION OF STATIC ELECTRICITY.

THIS case is recorded by Dr. Poggioli, in La TribuneMédicale. The patient, aged twenty-nine, was taken ill inOctober, 1872, with an attack of acute articular rheumatism(a second one). Valerianate of quinine, nitrate of potash,applications of chloroform liniments, &c., were used to noeffect. On October 31st the condition of pain had reachedits paroxysm; besides the joints, the intercostal muscleswere affected, and breathing was almost impossible ; move-ments quite impossible; no appetite; fever; general rest-lessness ; no sleep for eight days. Electricity was appliedto all the painful situations by means of a conductor endingin metallic points, and the sensation of an agreeable,soothing breeze communicated to the patient. When ageneral electric subtraction was made during five minutes,by placing the conducting wire at the negative pole of themachine, the relief was immediate and most striking. FromNovember lst to November 8th eight séances were effected,the sittings being double during the first three days. Painrapidly disappeared on the third day, respiration was quiteeasy, movements possible, and sleep and appetite had re-turned. The patient is now completely well.DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT OF EFFUSIONS OF THE PERI-

CARDIUM BY MEANS OF ASPIRATION.

From experiments made on the dead body, Dr. Dieulafoyhas come to the conclusion that the maximum of distensionof the heart’s investing membrane takes place in and coin-cides with the fourth intercostal space on the left side.Furthermore, in the same situation, the lung is the seat of £a marked échancrure or slope, which extends as far as thefifth intercostal space; so that the author fixes upon thefifth intercostal space, at two centimetres from the leftedge of the sternum, as the suitable situation for per-forming aspirating puncture.-France Midicate, Dec. 17th,1872.

TREATMENT OF INFANTILE CHOLERA.

Dr. Peltier recommends in the above disease a doubleplan of treatment, consisting simultaneously of tonics andabsorbents. He uses the subnitrate of bismuth internally(seven grains to half a drachm in a mixture) and in enemata,beaten up with the yelk of an egg. At the same time heoccasionally employs enemata with starch or krameria.The tonics consist of the juice of beef, raw meat (one ounceto an ounce and a half twice daily), and syrup of pepsine(half an ounce to an ounce daily, in teaspoonfuls). Healso advocates the simultaneous use of collodion paintingsover the abdomen.-Mouvement Médicale, Dec. 7th, 1872.DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS OF FIBROUS POLYPI OF THE UTERUS

AND PARTIAL INVERSION OF THE UTERUS BY MEANS OF

ACUPUNCTURE.

Several means have been pointed out, such as digitalexamination through the rectum, abdominal palpation, in-troduction of a sound into the bladder, &c. In cases wheredoubts may yet exist, Dr. Gueniot recommends the use ofacupuncture. When the tumour is voluminous and ofrecent formation, a long needle affords two distinct cha-racters of myomali-baldness and insensibility,-whereas,if the uterus were met with, there would be little resistanceon pressure with the needle, and the patient would expe-rience pain.-Transactions of the Société de Chirurgie.

CASE OF RHEUMATIC CYSTITIS.

The inflammation of the bladder was obviously linkedwith rheumatism. It was brought on by dampness, in arheumatic patient. There was no disease of the prostateor of any other part of the urinary apparatus, and thecystitis rapidly gave way on the employment of hot injec-tions into the bladder, and the application of thick layersof cotton-wool to the abdomen.-Bordeaux Médicale, No. 42.

ACID SMELL OF THE BREATH IN DIABETIC PATIENTS.

M. Duboue, of Pau, has observed a peculiar acid smell ofthe breath in four patients affected with diabetes. Thesymptom may be of use in certain cases where the existenceof diabetes had not been previously suspected.-Transactionsof the &bgr;ociété de Chirurgie of Paris.