Neurological and pathological evidence, together with recent experimental work, show that in the early stages of the insanities there is a profound nutritive and dynamical failure in the nerve elements of the brain, which finds ex pression in the insomnias, the melan cholias, and the commencing loss of memory, with easily-induced mental fatigue which their subjects experience, and that the pathological facts ascer tained, in so far as they afford us any light, force on us the conviction that we are dealing with serious nutritive and dynamical changes in the central nervous organ. W. Lloyd Andriezen (Quarterly Jour. of Inebriety, Jan., '96).
During four years, of 2169 patients re ceived into the lunatic asylum at Rome, 340 (15.7 per cent.) owed their psy chopathy to alcohol: 23 per cent. of the males, 4.6 of the females. Every form of mental disease to which alcohol may give rise is included in these 340 cases, all doubtful cases being carefully ex cluded. Tables showing that, as the pro duction and consumption of alcoholic liquors in Italy generally have increased, the number of insane patients admitted to the Roman asylum for alcoholic dis eases has grown. A. Volpini (II Poli elinico, '96).
Alcoholism contributed to the popula tion of the asylums of France, in 1894, 775 patients: 624 males and 151 females. The forms in the males comprised 2S2 eases of alcoholic delirium, 332 of chronic alcoholism, and 10 of absinthism. The females included 90 cases of alcoholic de lirium, GO of chronic alcoholism, and 1 of absinthism. Besides these, if we take account of the cases in which excesses in drink caused the entry into the asylum of patients who, without this cause, would have been able to get on outside, we find further 166 males and 63 females. The two groups—simple alcoholic eases and the insane with alcoholic causation, a total of 1004 patients—give a percent age of 38.42 of the males and 12.82 of the females admitted. Thus, on the average, one-third of the insanity of the Depart ment of the Seine is due to alcohol. Magnan (Progr6s Med., May 23, '97).
Out of 1900 male insane patients treated in the Municipal Asylum of Dresden during the last five years, 500 were clearly traceable to alcoholism. Luhrmann (Archives de Iceurol., No. 15, '97).
In England drunkenness is increasing, not only among the poor, but also among the upper classes, and especially among women of all classes. Out of 442 male inebriates treated at the Dalrymple Home and discharged as cured, 101 were university men, and 316 of the remainder were well educated; 235 were married, and the others were widowers or bach elors. In 22S cases sociability was said
to be the cause, ill health caused the downfall in 36 cases, and overwork was given as the excuse for taking to drink in 32 cases. In 55 per cent, of the eases the excess was traceable to predisposing hereditary causes. About one-third of the cases treated are permanently cured. Out of the 442 patients discharged from the Dalrymple Home, 372 were kept trace of, and of these 149 were said to be en tirely cured, 24 had improved, 164 had relapsed, 31 were dead, and 4 were in sane. Editorial (Med. Record, Sept. 25, '97).
There are three types of cell-degenera tion, viz.: (1) intense pigmentation of the larger cells, chiefly with degeneration of the cytoplasm; (2) a general cell atrophy of the body and nucleus; (3) a great deal of change in the cell-body, with many neurogliar nuclei in the peri cellular spaces. In the cases of alco holism and alcoholic meningitis it was not possible to make out a distinct type of cell-degeneration, nor could this be ex pected, as these patients die, not so much from the alcohol, as from autotoxmmias and from the febrile process. Charles L. Dana (Med. News, May 1, '97).
Manner in which the pathological le sions and the symptoms correspond with one another: the sensory disorders. the exaggeration of the sensibility of the skin, the anesthetic troubles, and the ocular and auditory disorders would cor respond to the beginning of the vascular disorders, when the nerve-cells, irritated by an insufficient supply of proper nutri ment, and excited by the presence of a poisonous stimulus, overact for the time; then, as nutriment is still withheld from them, altered metabolism results. The beginning swelling of the dendrites of the sensorimotor region, is marked by parmsthetic symptoms, those of the purer sensory region by visual and ocular troubles, and some amnesia-, especially for recent events; or, in other words, cells that have the function of evolving and thought cannot work properly, and defective memory results. Later, as the motor cells are more and more inrolred and nuclear changes begin, continuous tremor becomes apparent, the muscles no longer co-ordinate perfectly, unless for a moment under the direct influence of the will. Still later, when a portion of the ecll-strvetvres hare be come highly degenerated and the altered cells hare become more numerons, the already tottering will-power becomes more and more deadened, memory and judgment fail, and, when the degenera tive process is far advanced. an incom plete dementia is the final result. Henry J. Berkley (Johns Hopkins Hos. Reports, vol. vi, '97).