Dr. Moll's latest book, “Der Rapport in der Hypnose,” is published under the auspices of the German Society for Psychological Research. This Society, we might add, was formed in November, 1890, by the amalgamation of the “Psychological Society” of Munich, and the “Society for Experimental Psychology” of Berlin, and corresponds, in a more sceptical sense, to the “Society for Psychical Research” in this country. A knowledge of the above fact explains at once the standpoint from which the question is approached. It is well known that the purpose of the societies mentioned is to investigate impartially all kinds of phenomena brought under their notice, and not a priori to reject such phenomena as impossible. In the same way Dr. Moll has taken in hand the assertion of the so-called mesmerists, that in the hypnotic rapport there is at work some kind of unknown influence, which cannot be appreciated by our generally recognized senses, and which they call animal magnetism; and he has considered it worth the trouble of making a great number of experiments in order to test the influence of animal magnetism in and on the hypnotic condition, especially in producing the so-called rapport. The last number of this Journal contained a review of an article by Professor Wundt on hypnotism, in which the question of animal magnetism, telepathy, etc., is rejected without experimental investigation as a scientific impossibility. To this article Dr. Moll refers at the end of his book, saying that Professor Wundt was not quite correct in stating that only those give their time to experiments of the kind mentioned, who thoroughly believe in the phenomena they are going to investigate, for it is almost needless to say that Dr. Moll comes from his experiments to the same conclusions at which Professor Wundt arrives without experiments, through scientific reasoning. Professor Wundt's standpoint is very good for the limited number of those who are so well-informed in science as is the Leipzig Professor himself, and able absolutely to follow the course of his logic, but the standpoint adopted by the societies mentioned, and also by Dr. Moll, is certainly the more suitable and practical one for convincing the greater number of people of the erroneousness of the assertion that there is such an invisible and powerful factor at work in hypnotic suggestion as “animal magnetism.” The latter standpoint also avoids the objection of unfairness from the opposite side. It is almost superfluous to say that the number and variation of the experiments which Dr. Moll performed and describes is as complete and thorough as we have become accustomed to expect from Dr. Moll's former work. His knowledge of the subject and of the related branches is very wide, and to us it was especially interesting to read his remarks on the taming of wild beasts, and the conclusions he draws from the analogy of the influence of the dompteur on his animals and Of the hypnotizer on the person with whom he is en rapport. We doubt whether Dr. Moll's latest book will find so wide a circle of readers as his book on “Hypnotism” has found. Hypnotism in itself is so interesting that such an excellent book as the one mentioned could not fail to find a large circulation. It is, however, not everybody's liking to read about experiments which all prove to be failures, i.e., to find a record of negative results only. The greater number of people—and this is certainly true in the case of a large number of those who are interested in hypnotism, and to this latter class alone the remark of Professor Wundt applies—in performing or witnessing experiments, expect and want to see positive results, and are unable to appreciate that the failure of an experiment is quite as valuable from a scientific point of view as a successful experiment. Dr. Moll's “Rapport in der Hypnose” is a collection of negative results with regard to the proof of the existence of animal magnetism, and therefore of great scientific value, although not to medical hypnotizers, who knew them already.

The lectures of which this book is composed were delivered at the Paris “Faculté de Médecine” in 1891, and deal with some of the most important diseases of the spinal cord, especially with the chronic scleroses.

Aberdeen.—The directors have devoted much attention to the consideration of the best means to improve the character of the accommodation for the poorer class of patients, and they hope to be able to produce fully-matured plans and proposals at an early date. When it is remembered that the older buildings date from 1799 it can be easily believed that they are considerably behind the times and require numerous and extensive alterations to bring them up to modern requirements.

This is a welcome contribution to the diseases of the nervous system from the prolific pen of Prof. Charcot, and a worthy addition to his already numerous volumes on the subject. It is for the most part a record of clinical lectures delivered, and of cases observed, at the Salpêtrière between 1889 and 1891, and reported by M. Georges Guinon, chef de clinique, and other of Prof. Charcot's assistants.

Professor A. Pick, of Prague, has a paper of fifty pages on the so-called muscular consciousness of Duchenne (“Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnes-organe,” 8 October, 1892). This seems to consist of a knowledge of the position of the limb and of the force of the muscular contractions expended to produce a designed movement. There must also be in the mind a conception of the designed movement. When through anæsthesia a person is unaware of the position of his limbs, he cannot, without the use of his eyes, ascertain where his limbs were when the movement began, and what point they had reached in a given time. He thus must use his eyes to guide the motions of his limbs. This assistance of the visual sense is generally afforded more or less in all complicated movements, even where the cutaneous and muscular sensibility are intact. The visual and muscular senses act together and support one another. We may execute movements with the aid of the cutaneous and muscular sensibility alone as in the dark, and, on the other hand, we may execute movements guided by sight alone. In 1848 Dr. Duchenne made observations upon three patients in whom there was a complete loss of cutaneous sensibility. He found that, when these patients were hindered from seeing their own limbs, they had lost the capacity for voluntary motion. On the attention being diverted from the execution of the designed movement, even when the eyes were left open, the movements were arrested, or were performed in an embarrassed manner in proportion to the degree of distraction. Such extensive anæsthesia is a rare affection. It sometimes follows severe epileptic attacks, or it may supervene after chronic epilepsy, or alcoholism complicated with fits. Sometimes in addition to the loss of cutaneous sensibility there is the suppression of taste and smell, and concentric narrowing of the field of vision. Sometimes the anæsthesia is confined to one side, or to one region of the body, and in such cases the phenomena of transfer have been observed. It is thus a functional affection occasionally attending hysteria. Drs. Thomsen and Oppenheim have minutely described eighteen cases of sensory anæsthesia occurring amongst lunatics (“Ueber das Vorkommen und die Bedeutung der gemischten sensorisch sensibeln Anæsthesie bei Geisteskranken.” “Archiv für Psychiatrie,” xv. Band, 2 Heft, and xvii. Band, 2 Heft.)

This is a reprint of the Croonian Lecture (March 24th, 1892), published in “The Phil. Trans. R.S.,” t. clxxxiii., p. 299.

The deeply interesting and instructive Museum of Criminal Anthropology, founded by Lacassagne in the noble university on the banks of the Rhone, is well known to all medical visitors to Lyons. It is now proposed by the Faculty of Medicine at Turin to establish a museum somewhat similar in character, though of wider scope, at the university with which Lombroso has so long been connected. All the material, so far as it can be collected, for the study of the causes, symptoms, and therapeutics of insanity and criminality will here be brought together. The medical man, the lawyer, and the philosopher will be able to examine the “palimpsests” of the asylum and the prison, the data concerning the ætiology of crime and mental perturbations, the geography of crime, etc., and the skeletons and brains of the insane and criminal will demonstrate the close connection between mental aberrations and corporal abnormalities. Such a museum must form a most valuable source of instruction in psychiatry, and it is to be hoped that the initiative of France and Italy may before long be followed in England. I may add that a Museum of Psychology—not of morbid psychology especially—was founded a few years since at Florence by Professor Mantegazza.

We are obliged, in consequence of the press of matter, to postpone to the next number our review of this work, which we commend to readers interested in the insanity of the poet. The subject is one which has long engaged our attention, and we intend entering at some length upon the study of Cowper's mental affection.

Leicester and Rutland.—The rate of mortality was high—14 per cent. on the average number resident. There was an epidemic of diarrhóa, which caused four deaths. Forty cases of influenza occurred, and several deaths were due to the sequelæ. The cause of the outbreak of diarrhóa was not discovered, though Dr. Higgins was assisted in his examination by the Medical Officer of Health and a hospital physician. Such outbreaks are too common in asylums, and unfortunately efforts to discover their origin are frequently unsuccessful.