If asked “What's in a name?” one might fairly answer our knowledge of the thing named. Certainly, the primary meaning of the word seems to imply as much. “There is a petrified philosophy in language,” Professor Max Müller remarks; “and if we examine the most ancient word for name, we find it is nâman in Sanscrit, nomen in Latin, namo in Gothic. This nâman stands for gnâman, which is preserved in the Latin co-gnomen. Nâman, therefore, or name, meant originally that by which we know a thing.” And since we know a thing by its qualities or attributes, it follows that all nouns or names “express originally one out of the many attributes of a thing, and that attribute, whether it be a quality or action, is necessarily a general idea. The fact that every word is originally a predicate, that names, though signs of individual conceptions, are all, without exception, derived from general ideas, is one of the most important discoveries in the science of language.” I have quoted these sentences because it is necessary that we should know exactly what we are about when giving names to morbid mental states, whether they be of disorder or defect. They are meant to express as accurately as may be, our knowledge of those states. Hence it follows that naming is no mere ingenious exercise of the intellect, but a procedure of the greatest practical importance. Our knowledge is not only thus generalised, but also rendered easily applicable to particular instances. A single word may in this way indicate attributes, qualities, or the series of events known as causes and effects. In naming mental disease and defects, this method has been long practised. Thus the ancient term melancholia indicates both the characteristic physiognomy and the then supposed cause of a form of insanity in which there is morbid pain of mind. But the term phrenalgia of Guislain, meaning morbid mind-pain simply as differentiated from neuralgia, or morbid body-pain, is obviously better because it indicates the leading fact, attribute, or quality of the thing to be named. Of course the scientific form of the term differentiates the morbid mind-pain of melancholia from normal or ordinary painful feelings. And while the term indicates correctly the chief condition of a group of mental affections, it implies no theory or false fact, as is implied in the term melancholia. For there are persons who are melancholic who have rather a ruddy than a swarthy complexion; and when swarthiness is associated with morbid mind-pain, it is not always or even generally of bilious origin, but is commonly a melasma, and to be distinguished from an icteric tint. “The spleen” is another of those etiological terms which imply both a painful mental state and its cause, and is equally vague as melancholia. All such etiological names whatever are clearly open to the objection that they can hardly fail to be more or less erroneous since but little is known of the essential causes of many mental diseases; as, for example, of melancholia. There are a few great divisions, however, to which the etiological principle is applicable. Thus mental defects may be classed according as they are primary—that is, due to congenital defects in organization and function; or secondary—that is, consecutive to certain other morbid states occurring in a previously healthy brain. To the class of primary defects belong idiocy, partial or total; to the secondary belong amnesia, or loss of memory, dementia, and moria or folly.

During the past few years there have been published, both in this country and on the continent, several comprehensive treatises on the subject of insanity, as well as new editions of older works. In England there has been issued a new edition of the volume by Drs. Bucknill and Tuke, a volume on ‘Obscure Mental Disease,’ &c., by Dr. Forbes Winslow. In Germany, a new edition of the work of Griesinger, ‘Die Pathologie und Therapie der Psychischen Krankheiten;’ and in 1859, ‘Lehrbuch der Psychiatre,’ by Neumann, and ‘Allgemeine Pathologie der Seele,’ by Wachsmuth, each of which enjoys an extensive reputation. In France, a ‘Traité Elémentaire et Pratique des Maladies Mentales,’ par Dr. Dagonet, of Strasbourg; ‘Traité Pratique des Maladies Mentales,’ par Dr. L. V. Marcé, of Paris. In 1860, ‘Traité des Maladies Mentales,’ par Dr. B. A. Morel, of Rouen; in 1859, ‘Traité des Maladies Inflammatoires du Cerveau,’ par le Dr. L. F. Calmeil. It is the aim of the present article to examine into views entertained by the authors of the above works on the subject of melancholia, and to compare them with those contained in the writings of older writers, as well as with opinions to be found scattered in the periodical literature of insanity. It is true, that the aim of the different writers named was different while writing their works. One class of them have had for their object to produce digested handbooks, others original and scientific treatises. While the one avoid discussion on disputed points, the others make such discussion an important part of their works.

During the few months that have passed of the present year eleven persons have received sentence of death, for the crime of murder, in England and Scotland. Others have been charged with the same offence, but have escaped through a deficiency of evidence, while others, again, have been arraigned for attempts at the destruction of human life. Five of the prisoners accused of murder were defended on the plea of insanity, which was in each instance met by a verdict of guilty and a sentence of death. Three of the men thus sentenced have undergone execution, one of them being unmistakably a lunatic, whom no medical man would have hesitated to certify as such before the commission of the act for which he died, and another of them exhibiting a state of mind strongly resembling, if it did not actually consist in, a form of madness. The latter, Burton, was condemned and hanged, while Mr. Touchett, who was tried in 1844 for a similar offence, prompted by a similar motive, was acquitted on the ground of insanity, a circumstance that illustrates the glorious uncertainty of the law and the present state of public feeling.

To make our retrospect more complete, we propose to give the titles of such essays and papers on insanity and cerebral disease as appear in the foreign journals exchanged with us or purchased, but winch, from want of space and other reasons, we are unable to present to our readers in summary. By so doing we shall increase the value of these quarterly reports on the progress of psychological medicine, particularly to those who desire to make reference to the opinions and practice of Continental and American physicians. In other words, our retrospect will serve as a more complete index to the labours of our contemporaries in other countries.

We are always glad to meet (even though elsewhere) with the writings of our distinguished honorary member, Professor Laycock, the only university professor in the realm who deems the study of mental disease worthy of his systematic teaching. In this and recent numbers of the ‘Journal of Mental Science’ Professor Laycock, and our readers, will find in the interesting original communications by Dr. Crichton Browne and Dr. McLeod practical evidence that the Edinburgh University teaching of psychology has already borne fruit of great promise. In this paper Dr. Laycock has made a most valuable contribution to practical medicine. Any effort to check the practice of masking the symptoms of disease by opium, and calling the plan medical treatment, must be of advantage, and when such protest comes from so distinguished a quarter, will command an attention which our warnings and admonitions fail to receive. Dr. Laycock introduces his present remarks on the treatment of delirium tremens, a disease allied to and complicated with mental disease, properly so called, with the following just comment on the heroic treatment of the disease by opium:—

Dr. James Duncan, a member of this Association, in this suggestive essay, reminds us how recent our knowledge is of the diseased states of the nervous system consequent on the presence in the blood of the venereal poison.

We give the following summary of Dr. Ramskill's views on the treatment of epilepsy by belladonna.

“Concerning the treatment by, and action of, belladonna, I will give you, in a short compass, the results of my experience in its use. First, you must not always, nor even usually, look for immediate and palpable beneficial results. The number of fits at first may not lessen in equal times; very frequently the reverse obtains; and you may expect, for three or four weeks after commencing it, even in the most appropriate cases, a complaint that the patient gets worse; but, after six or eight weeks, if any amelioration occur, it will be decided and progressive. At first, the dose should be very small, and gradually augmented until the pupil shows signs of its action, and the patient complains of both alteration in sight and dryness of throat.

Dr. McLeod publishes in the ‘Medical Times' a series of papers on the employment of hydrocyanic acid in the treatment of insanity, with the detail of eight cases out of forty thus treated. Dr. McLeod thus states his views of this mode of treatment.

During the last few years, says Dr. Laycock, the attention of the profession has been directed to a disease in which there is more or less of a general debility resembling anæmia, considerable and varied nervous disorder, greatly increased activity of the heart and of the arteries of the head and neck, a vascular enlargement of the thyroid gland resembling bronchocele, and staring eyes, with protrusion of the eyeballs, giving a peculiar expression to the face. This latter appearance, known as exophthalmos, exophthalmia, and proptosis, has attracted especial attention.