In this university the study of medical psychology and mental diseases is wholly voluntary. None of the faculties require candidates for degrees to attend the course I deliver, or examine them in the subjects discussed. Doubtless the faculties of arts, theology, and law, might reasonably object to so great an encroachment upon vested interests and established traditions; but it is different with the faculty of medicine, because moral philosophy has only been added to the curriculum of medical studies since I commenced to deliver this course. I have therefore thought it would be expedient (and suggested it, indeed) to permit students of medicine going up for their degrees to choose between medical psychology and moral philosophy; nevertheless the course is still without even this modified recognition. Nor do any of the other medical boards of examiners of the United Kingdom require it. The Senate of the University of London has, however, very lately recommended the practical study of mental diseases to candidates for medical degrees; but valuable and important as this step is, yet, inasmuch as it excludes medical psychology, it falls very far short of what must ultimately be required in the interests of society of all students seeking general culture or to enter any of the learned professions. I entertain a deep-rooted conviction that mental science, in the modern and practical sense of the term, will sooner or later be forced on the attention of political economists and statesmen as one of the needs of the time; and I am equally convinced that no such science is possible except by the observation and study of morbid mental states. I therefore propose on this occasion to plead for the general study of medical psychology or mental science developed according to this method in this classroom, and although I may not hope to be successful in my pleading, I trust I shall at least encourage you who engage in the study voluntarily to pursue it ardently, as offering its own full reward for any labour you may bestow upon it.

The chemistry of the nervous system is a subject to which little attention has been given by British authors, but their place has been creditably supplied by several foreign chemists, conspicuous among whom are Couërbe, Fremy, Von Bibra, Hauff, Walther, and Schlossberger. These writers have effected something as regards the chemical pathology of the brain in persons dying sane, but with the exception of a few isolated analyses whose results are sadly in want of confirmation, by Lassaigne, Couërbe, and L'Héritier, it may be said that absolutely nothing has been done in the case of the insane. In fact, the field is a terra incognita of unknown extent. I purpose, therefore, to devote some attention to this subject, and to communicate to the profession from time to time the results of such chemical analyses of insane brains as it may be in my power to make. With this view I shall take my starting-point from the results obtained by Bibra and others; and in order to present a standard for comparison, I shall give an abstract of what has been effected by these chemists. I find that this has been so thoroughly done by Von Gorup-Besanez (‘Lehrbuch der Pathologischen Chemie’) that I shall not hesitate to make a free translation of his chapter on this subject, criticising and adding where I think it necessary.

The current number (April, 1866) of the ‘British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review’ contains an article on the “Lunacy Commissioners' Blue Books,” on which I wish to say a few words. The high character of that Review and of its editor (Dr. J. W. Ogle, physician to St. George's Hospital), gives a weight to the opinions of the writers of its articles, and almost compels on our part a notice of their statements when such are either inaccurate or unfair to members of the department of the profession which in these pages we represent.