Since a knowledge of the Physiology of Mind is essential to a clear comprehension of its Pathology, we may fitly introduce a paper purporting to deal with one form of abnormal mental action, with a few considerations concerning mental action in general.

At the annual meeting for 1880, one of the Editors of our Journal asked the members present for contributions on the subject of practical details in asylum management, pointed out the value of improvements in such directions, and expressed the opinion that such topics came most properly within the scope of a good asylum physician.

Dr. Ripping, in the “Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie (Band xxxix., Heft 1), considers the important clinical question of the relation of the diseases of the sexual organs in women to mental alienation. While he admits that changes in the uterus and its appendages, whether physiological or pathological, have an effect upon the mental susceptibilities of women, he is doubtful whether this effect is profound enough to become a potent cause of insanity. He is rather disposed to place such affections in the second or third line of causes as adjuvantia. The uterine diseases and the mental disturbance are sometimes the result of a common cause. “I have never observed,” writes Dr. Ripping, “a single case in which the insanity was a pure reflex neurosis of disease of the genital organs.” If in some patients this seemed to be probable, it was found on more careful examination that there were other circumstances which gave an easy and unforced explanation of the mental derangement. It is only after uterine disorders which, from their severity, implicate the whole organism, or lower the strength, as in continued bleedings, that insanity can be held to supervene as a result.

Eastern Counties Asylum for Idiots, Essex Hall, Colchester.— This institution, which is still under the assiduous care of Mr. Millard, is being enlarged, the demand for admission being much greater than the accommodation could supply. Provision is, or is about to be, made for about 50 more cases; a new steam laundry; a gymnastic and recreation hall combined; bath rooms, lavatories and water-closets; the outlay being estimated at about £12,000. At the last annual meeting a powerful appeal was made for funds. Dr. Bateman stated that there are in the Eastern Counties 3,000 idiots, of whom at least 1,000 needed the benefit of such an asylum, whereas there was accommodation for only 99, and he justly describes the inmates of the cottages where an idiot dwells as doomed to constant association with the most repulsive features of humanity, and obliged to breathe an atmosphere of moral miasma. No doubt the appeal of the committee will be responded to, but doubtless the efforts required to obtain subscriptions and donations involve much labour and anxiety.