This paper is an English version of an address read at the Vienna Congress against Alcohol.

In this very interesting paper Fété reports a further series of experiments supporting his theory of the nature of the stimulant action of alcohol and tobacco.

This is really a valuable ætiological study, and is important in that it contains the author's views regarding some recent pronouncements by what one might call the newer pathological school. Otherwise the paper is a reiteration of Dr. Clouston's well-known teachings on melancholia, a position as strong to-day as when first taken up some years ago, and strengthened, if anything, by the opposing and divergent character of present-day views.

Dr. Näcke has here supplemented his valuable and elaborate study of the external stigmata of degeneration in general paralytics by a study of the internal somatic stigmata. The investigation covered the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, and spleen. The subjects included 104 general paralytics and 108 normal subjects. The inquiry has been carried out with the care and thoroughness which always mark this investigator's work. He admits, however, the existence of an Achilles heel in his investigation. He was unable to carry out the inquiry on the normal subjects himself from lack of material, and this part of the work was undertaken by Professor Nauwerck, of Chemnitz. The material was so far as possible identical in racial and other respects, and everything was done to ensure, so far as possible, identity of method, but it is admitted that a small margin must be allowed for the varying personal idiosyncrasies of the two workers. It may be added that it seems fairly clear that such allowance cannot vitiate the main results reached.

The author comments upon the rarity in general paralysis of spontaneous fractures, i. e. fractures arising from some slight cause, and out of all proportion to that cause,—when it is a known fact that in most maladies of the nervous system these fractures are comparatively common. When one remembers the deep and varied changes produced in the organism by general paralysis this is all the more remarkable.