The distinctive signs and symptoms of neurasthenia are capable of fairly precise definition, and there need rarely be any doubt, or difference of opinion, as to whether a particular case is to be classed as of this nature or not. The chief symptoms are a constant feeling of fatigue, not relieved by rest, and the occurrence of various forms of hyperæsthesia, paræsthesia, and localised pain. Two important physical signs constantly occur—exaggeration of the patellar reflex and tremor of the eyelids when the eyes are half closed. Added to these, there are, in greater or less degree, characteristic mental features which constitute the picture of psychasthenia, namely, incoercible ideas, obsessions, and monophobias.

The demonstration by Noguchi and many other investigators after him of spirochætes in the nervous texture in tabes dorsalis and in dementia paralytica has, as is well known, quite subverted the old conception of these diseases as para- or metasyphilitic in nature. They are just as syphilitic as other diseases caused by Spirochóta pallida are. It is quite a different thing, however, that in certain respects they occupy a peculiar position; as a rule they do not manifest themselves till ten to fifteen years after the primary affection, and they are very little affected by antisyphilitic treatment. It is well known that it was especially this last fact which caused them to be considered as not syphilitic in the common sense.

A Sub-Committee of the Parliamentary Committee of the Association was appointed in January, 1918, the terms of the reference being “to consider the amendment of the existing Lunacy Laws.”