In devoting to the foundation of a memorial lectureship a portion of Dr. Maudsley's bequest, the learned Society which I have this afternoon the honour to address made an indulgent concession to the laity in prescribing that the lecture to be delivered should in alternate years be of a scientific and of a popular character. This year it is the turn of the popular lecturer—a rôle which I have assumed with some trepidation. The distinction drawn is an ominous one. It seems to suggest that to be scientific you must be unpopular, and to be popular you must be unscientific. But is there necessarily so absolute a dividing line between the two domains? I hazard the view that it is possible to be at once both popular and scientific. No doubt there is still a tendency in learned circles to deride what is known as popular science, but that is an inheritance from the days of the cheap and inaccurate manuals which used to be written by imperfectly informed persons, pretentiously professing to enlighten the masses on the truths of science. Nowadays, science has become more condescending, indeed almost affable, to democracy. The approach has come from both sides, for democracy is now better educated, and science is now more expert in the art of exposition. The advent of the internal combustion engine, of wireless telegraphy and of many other practical applications of science to daily life has created a new and widespread interest and aptitude on the part of the general public in the acquisition of accurate scientific knowledge, particularly among the younger generation. At the same time the physicist, the chemist and the biologist have found it possible and worth while to impart much of their learning to wider audiences. Science is daily entering more and more into the lives of the people, with the consequence that its social, economic and political implications are being more and more realized by its professors. The President of the Royal Society has reminded us that we live in an age when the advance and development of scientific knowledge are continually creating new social and economic problems of the utmost importance, and has emphasized the necessity of bridging the gap between the scientist and the layman by every possible means. The British Science Guild, now doing such excellent work, was founded some thirty years ago by Sir Norman Lockyer for the express purpose of promoting the application of scientific method and results to social problems and public affairs. The market-place can doubtless never supersede the laboratory, but the scientist no longer disdains to take his wares to market.

In the psychological field, the two significant streams of thought are the Pavlovian and the Freudian, the physiological approach of Leningrad and the psycho-analytic approach of Vienna. It will be suggested here that they are not divergent streams as is often thought, but convergent, and that in the impact between them lies the more immediate future of psychology.

In 1920 Marinesco and Radovici (1) described a reflex contraction of the homolateral chin muscles in response to stimulation—pricking or pinching—of the thenar surface of the hand. They record a case of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis where such a stimulus evoked a slow contraction involving the triangularis and quadratus menti of the same side. In this particular case the reflex could be elicited not only from the palmar region, but also from the skin of the arms, thorax and abdomen, also by stimulation of the perinæum, effected by passing a urethral sound. The lowest threshold of reflex excitability was, however, obtained on the palm.

The use of inoculation malaria as a method of pyretotherapy still involves a relatively high figure of mortality and has other drawbacks. For example, there are the difficulties in propagating the culture, the loss of time entailed by the periods of incubation and removal of the fever, the uncertainty whether the inoculation will be successful, and the impossibility of a simultaneous administration of arsenical preparations; further, the fact that the treatment cannot be repeated satisfactorily, together with the occurrence of splenic and hepatic complications. A method of inducing pyrexia that promises freedom from these, at times, irksome conditions is therefore worthy of trial.

About a year ago I came to realize that my knowledge of the subject of treatment in epilepsy was far from being complete, and this paper is the outcome of efforts made to clear up some of the uncertainty which existed in my mind.

The following study was made for the Department of Psychological Medicine at Guy's Hospital in London in May, 1933. The purpose of the study was to investigate the present condition of the first hundred patients who attended the Department in 1931. Some of the findings will be compared with those from a similar study made in New York.

The following case appears to be sufficiently uncommon to warrant a detailed description.