In the following stray notes and remarks, the writer details a trip to various places of medical and psychological interest which he made, in company with Professor Laycock, through some parts of France, Savoy, and Switzerland.

The public has, doubtless, long ago become wearied of the tale of George Victor Townley, the murderer of Miss Goodwin, of Wigmore Grange, Derbyshire. As, however, important principles are involved in the curious history of his trial—his condemnation—his temporary release from prison—his transfer to a lunatic asylum—and his subsequent removal into penal servitude, an humble contribution to the facts of the case may not be out of place in the pages of ‘The Journal of Mental Science.’

Memory is an attractive theme, and one on which it is important that just views should prevail. It seems, however, that there is too much inexactness in the views which are commonly entertained about memory. It is generally supposed to be a repository, or something analogous to a tablet, which receives or retains impressions. Now, these notions, when the facts of the case are minutely investigated, fall short, in many respects, of the truth. This may be partly accounted for by the difficulty which, at first, invariably exists to find words to express mental operations, for men, at the outset, are forced to use, in an analogical sense, words already associated with physical phenomena, in order to designate those of mind. When, therefore, we speak of memory as a receptacle of impressions, after the manner of a tablet, we may perhaps mean no more than this, that there is some kind of analogy between memory and a tablet. Allowing that there is truth in what is here stated, it nevertheless seems that the words which are usually chosen to describe the phenomena of memory, are intended to convey the idea that knowledge exists in the mind in a latent condition, that it resides there even when it is not manifest in the form of consciousness or cognition, and to deny this will be deemed a grave error by some, and, indeed, present a paradoxical air to all. But let us examine the facts of the case.

The hereditary transmission of disease, or of a tendency to it, has of late attracted more attention than it formerly did, and medical literature has been enriched by many able and learned disquisitions on the subject. Its importance seems to be generally appreciated, to a certain extent, but not to so great an extent, as a more perfect knowledge of its operation, and the vastness of its influence, would justify. From Burton's ’Anatomy of Melancholy’ may be quoted many passages by ancient writers, showing a lively appreciation of the fact of hereditary transmission, especially of disease. Fernelius says, “Such as the temperature of the father is, such is the son's, and, look, what disease the father had when he begot him, his son will have after him, and is as well the inheritor of his infirmities as of his lands.” “And where the complexion and constitution of the father is corrupt, then,” saith Roger Bacon, “the complexion and constitution of the son must needs be corrupt, and so the corruption is derived from the father to the son.” Burton also quotes passages from Hippocrates, Buxtorfius, Lemnius, Paracelsus, Crato, Bruno Seidelius, Daniel Sennertus, Forestus, Rodericus a Fonseca, Lodovicus Mercatus, and many others, referring to hereditary transmission, or the transmission of melancholy. The last mentioned wrote a book on the subject, ‘De Morbis Hereditariis,’ and therein first notices what is now called atavism. “It skips, in some families, the father and goes to the son, or takes every other, and sometimes every third, in a lineal descent, and doth not always produce the same, but some like, and a symbolising disease.” This last remark is of importance, as anticipating a fundamental principle in modern investigations into the subject. Burton himself highly estimates the importance and power of hereditary transmission, when he says, “These secondary causes, hence derived, are commonly so powerful that (as Wolphius holds) they do often alter the primary causes and decrees of the heavens.” This most learned and far-seeing author mentions facts, and hints at conclusions which are only now being understood and arrived at, and shows that an appreciation of the truth of hereditary transmission had formed the basis of laws forbidding the marriage between persons in any whit allied, and of those stern and implacable decrees, which, among certain Indian tribes, and even in Scotland, at an early period, necessitated the destruction of those that suffered from madness, gout, falling sickness, or any such dangerous diseases.

Dr. Ludwig Meyer, of Hamburg, has had the courage to defend the non-restraint system in Germany, and also himself to practise it in the Hamburg Asylum with the best success. It is true that Dr. Meyer had previously visited England, and examined with careful eyes, impartial goodwill, and practical mind, the non-restraint system. Why do not such physicians as Casimir Pinel of Paris, Renaudin of Mareville, Dick of Klingmünster, Neumann of Pöpelwitz, and Erlenmayer of Coblenz, visit England also, and with the same honest intentions as Meyer, study a system which has been practised here for more than twenty years amongst a population of insane amounting to 50,000 patients? It must be a messing to suffering humanity and a disgrace to those who have the boldness not only to assert that they do not comprehend these facts, but also to call the system an English swindle, to hear the voice of Dr. L. Meyer in the Desert of German Restraint.