from Lincoln, her native town. It was E. W's native town and the mention of it raised the ghosts of a hundred dead events-of pleasant days of youth and love, perhaps― memories of home, with well-known faces about the hearth.

"A modern author has said, 'Home is the honey of this world-hive, which cures the stings the bees have given.' And if it is so, sweet memories are the mead that is made from it. Home! to whom is it not a magic word? All your 'prestos!' are frippery in comparison with that one word. It will bring tears into wanderers' eyes and smiles into dying faces, and so it brought smiles and health to the soulless woman. There was sunshine in her life from that moment: she is now energetic, industrious, and of sound mind."

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The statement of this case, although suited to popular exposition, is certainly excellent, and so admirable is the paper as a whole, and so closely connected are the cases there described to the subject in hand, that we feel entitled to make somewhat copious extracts.

"M. O, a man with a very prominent nose, with sunken eyes, and nervous twitching hands, was confined in a lunatic asylum. How many men kill themselves because they are afraid of death! M. O was in terror of being put to death; and an imagination, [100] probably in the leading strings of his trade associations, suggested that he was to be boil'd down.' He had a conscience, and he looked upon this frightful death as a recompense for those 'wild oats' he had sown in his youth. To sow wild oats, and yourself to be garnered into a cauldron! Inventive Nemesis! Naturally the poor man suffered; who can be comfortable when they stand by while the furnace is being heated seven times? His misery ran into motion, as most pain does, and he would walk up and down and press and wring his hands, repenting as hard as he could for his sins, thinking, perhaps, to appease that boiling-down Nemesis. He would moan and rock himself for hours, and crave assistance from all who would listen to him. There is not much sympathy amongst lunatics.

"Once he was taken to the laundry to assist in carrying some clean clothes. A sad day, that! He reached the door

The Gentleman's Magazine for March, 1871, No. 34, N. S.. p. 460

and there before him was a huge boiler, with its fire (like a mouth under its boiler brain) glowing underneath it. He shrieked and fled. Oh! great legs! the head cannot say, 'I have no need of thee.' More heads have been kept safe from blows by legs than by their next neighbours, arms. Well, he fled, naturally believing that his hour was come, and that the laundry was the place of execution, to which he had been unfairly decoyed. One day the medical man of the establishment noticed that this patient derived considerable comfort and satisfaction from assurances of protection, and that in consequence of these assurances he seemed to regard him as in some way connected with his fate. The assurance was an assertion to that effect. It was, however, not sufficiently definite; and so one day he announced with some formality to M. O that he was reprieved, and that his execution was postponed for two days. M. O had faith as well as conscience, and he believed, and was, during the continuance of those two days, comparatively happy and comfortable. Of course he could not be quite happy; but to be boiled down two days hence is an infinity of bliss in comparison with being boiled down at once. Time is always hope, and hope is heaven. But the sands of two days ran out, and he became restless and unhappy as the time of his immunity came to an end. His medical man again visited him, and assured him that he would be spared for three days. Tears ran down his cheeks on each side of his great water-shed nose, and his thanks were warm and earnest. The visible pleasure of the [101]man tempted his physician to be too kind; and when by various reprieves he had reached a week, making those dead reprieves a stair by which to rise to higher things, he generously lengthened the time to a fortnight. M. O's joy was great. A fortnight! Eternity! But it was too long. When ten days had sped he again began to fearhe could not realize it, so that he had to be reduced again to two days. From this beginning, however, he was conducted up to a fortnight, three weeks, a month, three months, with perfect success. One evening, however, the physician was sent for. M. O was in agony; there he was wringing his hands again, and piteously moaning. The time of the reprieve had run out, and the superintendent had neglected

to renew it. Soon, however, he began to smile at the reprieves, but still asserted that he could not be comfortable without them. Subsequently their term of duration was much increased, and they ultimately became unnecessary. The man now works in the laundry beside the cauldron. He stokes its devouring maw!"

66

"B— was fed by means of the stomach-pump three times a day for as many weeks; for he was brave enough in his fury to meet that snail-death, hunger. What a grand enthusiasm for death he had! Once he inflicted a blow upon his head by means of a plumber's hammer. It was so severe as to take him near to death's door, and for some weeks he was confined to bed. During his illness and tedious recovery, another patient was admitted into the asylum. This man's name was F, and he was one of those who longed to get anywhere out of the world. This man was associated with B under the care of a special attendant. It occurred to his physician to put Funder the care of B. B was made responsible for F's safety! Strange! It seems almost a joke to keep two people out of the grave by the struggle which each makes to get in first. A weird safety to be jostled away from death's door! Strange as it may seem however, this expedient had the desired effect. B took F by the arm and walked him off, and since that time. has devoted himself exclusively to the care of this much less dangerous patient. F has more than once endeavoured to shuffle off this mortal coil, and his attempts have always been frustrated by B, who has never, since he has become the guardian of another's life, seemed to entertain any hostile intentions with regard to his own. In this case, interest in the life and welfare of another has reared anew an interest in his own. His own life has [102] been saved, in all probability, by his endeavours to save that of another. Is not reward the contre coup of a good action? There is a great, deep, pathetic humour about this guardianship. B—, the most dangerous, most pertinacious, suicidal patient in the institution, watching F-! There is a detestable meanness in a thief catching a thief; but there is pathos in one suicide frustrating the attempts of another! If F-only lifted his hands to his throat, B put them down. If he approached

the fireplace, B― intercepted him. If he cast his eye on a dinner-knife, B, ever watchful, winked, and laid hold of him. When he refuses his food, B- if necessary, insists upon his taking it, or assists in its forcible administration by means of a stomach-pump.

"They sleep in adjoining beds in the dormitory set apart for patients who are believed to labour under suicidal tendencies; and often in the course of the night B- rises, and on his bare feet on the cold floor will go noiselessly to see that F is all right. In all his watchings he is kind, yet firm. It is a great thing to assist a neighbour to do right, and in that way make the home temptations to do wrong less urgent. Such acts are twice blessed.""

127. General Remarks.-There is certainly much interest in these cases, as they not only indicate the forms that monomania may assume, but also point out the true uses of moral treatment. Although in most cases of simple monomania the intellectual powers seem unaffected, except in so far as the single delusion or illusion is concerned, and the individual seems to reason as accurately as he would do in a state of normal health, still in many cases the disorder is not so limited, and the morbid ideas are not confined to a single subject. It is scarcely possible that such a mental parasite as a delusion could coexist with complete mental health. Upou most subjects a man can scarcely reason fully or well without making use of almost all his knowledge. When, therefore, a large portion of that garnered experience is rendered useless by the existence of a false and persistent mental impression, the deductions of reason are likely to be the less trustworthy. The reasoning of a half man is never so good as the reasoning of a whole man. Of course, the influence of a delusion, or of a false impression of sense, upon the life of the individual, varies in proportion to the influence of the thoughts of the same individual upon the same subject. Thus, if a man believed that he [103] constantly heard the whisper of a silk dress, and was otherwise perfectly sane, one could understand that such a belief could have little or no influence upon the actual life of the individual. But if a man believed that his own wife had entered into a conspiracy

against him—if his disposition was so far changed by disease as to make him hate and suspect those persons whom he had formerly loved and trusted-it would be impossible to calculate the influence of such a diseased condition upon the life of the person thus affected. This is a fact, which the use of such words as monomania or partial mania is very apt to conceal from those who are only partially acquainted with medical psychology, and it is a fact that it is very important each medical man should duly appreciate.

BR. INS.-15