The Irish Blue-book for 1873—the twenty-third Report of the Inspectors and Commissioners of Control of Irish Asylums for the Insane—fonns the first of what bids fair to be a much improved series of these interesting annual records. The improvement consists in the more systematic arrangement of the information regarding each of the twenty-two district Asylums, as well as the Central Asylum for Criminal Lunatics at Dundrum near Dublin. The history and present condition of each of the twenty-three public institutions is given, with commendable fulness, and we have no doubt that future reports—when the Inspectors get accustomed to the new style—will contain information as compelete as could be wished for.

This great subject is treated by Dr. “Vedie by giving very shortly:—

1. 1.— A resumé of those psychological facts which bear most upon the subject.

2. 2.— An examination of physiological phenomena connected with the former. Then shall become evident the laws which govern all psychological and physiological phenomena.

3. 3.— The application of these laws to pathology and therapeutics; or, what is equivalent, an examination of the pathological and therapeutical phenomena produced by mental causes. The question of miracles naturally falls to be discussed in connection with this part of the subject.

4. 4.— The reasons why some educated people and even physicians err in their views concerning miracles, and misunderstand the natural laws which regulate these phenomena.

Are marriages of consanguinity always followed by a tendency to degeneration in the offspring ? or are they only so when contracted by unhealthy individuals ? These questions, important as they are, are yet unanswered; it is, therefore, well that all cases bearing on the subject should be investigated and published.

The Archivio for 1873 and 1874 contains fewer original papers than usual, though some of them are of particular interest and importance. Professor Verga continues his very detailed and careful account of General Paralysis, from which I can only find space to extract the following points. He remarks that inequality of the pupils is not peculiar to that disease, but occurs in all other varieties of insanity connected with organic affection of the brain. Some stress is laid upon the occasional loss of power over other involuntary muscles, of the bladder and intestine, causing ischuria and constipation, which are often relieved by the use of strychnia. It is singular to observe that some paralytics in Italian Asylums cease to open their mouths freely when they speak, as is the custom of their countrymen; but “speak between their teeth, like the English.” In other cases, Dr. Verga has noticed that these patients always shout, as if they were speaking to deaf persons, either from not being able to regulate, or from not observing the loudness of their voice. He has also observed that, in the early stage of the disease there is occasionally genital excitement with persistent priapism. He sums up all the causes of general paralysis under the head of abuse of the moral and intellectual powers, or of the cerebral functions.

American Journal of Insanity (July).—Dr. John P. Gray gives a condensed account of his pathological and microscopical investigations of 52 cases of insanity. He states that the vessels, nerve cells, and neuroglia undergo changes before marked impairment of the nerve conducting element can be detected. Increase of interstitial matter, multiplication of connective fibres, and diminution of connective nuclei, are prominent features of change. In chronic cases the increase of neuroglia takes place more in the gray matter than in the white, and is more marked in the anterior regions of the brain. This increase may be in connection with the capillaries, or more generally it occurs in localised regions, and circumscribed in walls formed by condensed minute connective fibres.