The condition of uneducated deaf mutes often nearly approaches that of a being destitute of language. It is true that even if they are not taught signs they contrive a few of their own invention; but these signs are of a very simple kind, and neither fitted nor intended to express any abstract notions, so that the deaf and dumb are in a much worse condition for obtaining knowledge than the blind. The deaf mute sees everything, but understands nothing; whereas in using the senses still remaining to him the blind man is guided by the words of others into true interpretations. We thus find that the deaf and dumb in the narrow circle of their own cogitations are in a very benighted condition, but it would be absurd to say that they do not possess or exercise reason. After they have become educated and are able to communicate by signs or writing, deaf mutes sometimes detail what they remember of the bounded state of their intellect before being sent to school. They record accidents and events which have made an impression on their mind; but it is clear that their speculations upon the nature and causes of things have never gone below the surface. In the Reports of the American Asylum at Hartford, there are a number of answers to questions put with a view to find out what were the thoughts of uneducated deaf mutes. One of them when asked, What did you formerly think when you saw a person die ? replied that he thought “he was deceiving the people, and that he would rise up.” He thought that “a man that was died was buried alive, and wondered that he did not rise from the dead in a few days.” Other deaf mutes by observing that the dead bodies of animals rotted away, arrived at a nearer idea of death. They rarely thought that they would die themselves, and an existence beyond the grave occurred to none. Many attended public worship for years without knowing what was the object of it.

The disease described by Heberden (1768) as Angina Pectoris, which is sometimes also termed Stenocardia, is not an anatomically definable cardiac affection, but rather a group of symptoms, originating in very different and for the most part unknown conditions. Although, therefore, we include a short account of it in this essay, we do not wish to indicate it as our belief that it is caused exclusively by changes in the sympathetic system, but that it seems to us that the latter, inasmuch as it takes the principal part in the formation of the cardiac plexus—which is almost certainly the starting point of angina pectoris—is undoubtedly in some way connected with the occurrence of the phenomena under consideration.

The study of the anatomy of the brains of idiots is a vast field accessible to research, which may serve to throw light upon some questions of psychiatry, hitherto obscure, but which possess an undeniably practical value. It ought to enable us to comprehend better the questions which relate to hereditary insanity. It is undeniable that the vices of physical conformation of ancestors are transmitted to their descendants, and that this phenomenon is the point de depart of pathological varieties.

Few problems are we called upon to solve surpassing in importance that of demonstrating the insane nature of the evil propensities and criminal deeds, which are the outcome of nocturnal epilepsy. If, during the night, a man be periodically roused from his sleep in great bewilderment and mental agony, that quickly cease; or, if in the midst of apparent sanity, he were to be found, unexpectedly, in the morning, either maniacal, or sullenly disposed to unprovoked acts of extreme violence, we may, with confidence, diagnosticate that he is an epileptic, and irresponsible for what he has perpetrated.

Having availed myself, when recently in Paris, of the opportunity afforded of visiting the Salpêtrière, I have made a few notes of what I witnessed in the service of M. Charcot, although, from the shortness of my visit, I was not in a position to do justice to the subject which has recently attracted so much attention—the influence of metals in anæsthesia, hystero-epilepsy, &c. I can do little more than record facts, and suspend my judgment as to their nature and the explanation which further investigation will give of them.