George H——, a Quarter master-Sergeant in the 38th Regiment, was admitted into Grove Hall Asylum on the 12th of June, 1874. It was stated that the attack had then been of between one and two months' duration; that it was supposed to be aggravated, if not induced, by tropical climate; and that he had become epileptic. Previously to his admission he had been in a state of active maniacal excitement, incoherent, noisy, destructive, violent, and the subject of delusions of a grandiose character.

In the course of a tour, last autumn, through Greece, Turkey, and Asia Minor, I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of the Physician-in-chief of the Asylum of Constantinople and neighbouring provinces, and through his courtesy and kind attention I was not only enabled to visit the Timar-khané, or Dari-chifa, as it is sometimes called, but also to obtain some interesting information respecting the care and treatment of the insane by the Turks more than three centuries ago. Up to a recent date, the insane were taken care of in the Asylum of Suleimanié, situated near the mosque of that name, but in consequence of the building being unable to meet the demands made upon it, the patients were removed to the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, and lodged in the Asylum of Toptaschi in Scutari. The asylum, which is situated in the most Oriental and most beautiful suburb of Constantinople, on being approached, presents a rather dilapidated and neglected-looking appearance, and this aspect has been all the more heightened by the recent ravages of fire in the immediate vicinity; but the situation is most salubrious, as it catches the pleasant breezes from the Bosphorus and the sea of Marmora. The building is quadrangular, consisting of two storeys and surrounding a court, in the centre of which there is placed a fountain at which the patients perform their frequent daily ablutions before prostrating themselves in prayer at the calls of the muezzims from the minarets of the neighbouring mosques. The day and single rooms on the ground floor open into an arcade or colonnade which surrounds the entire building. The upper floor is used for dormitories which open into a corridor. In these the better class of patients sleep, and the more turbulent and excited sleep in the single rooms on the ground floor. The windows are protected by strong wire lattice instead of wooden lattice, as is the custom in all Turkish dwellings, and the flooring of both upper and under storeys is of tesselated pavement, which reminded me very much of that seen in the strada dell’ abondanza in Pompeii.

In the introductory remarks contained in the previous portion of this essay, I said that, as far as possible, I would refrain from referring to the condition of the nervous centres as seen after death, except to explain the nature of certain phenomena seen in these diseases during life. Having arrived at the second portion of my subject, I shall draw attention to the condition of the brain and spinal cord where death has been the result of an epileptic fit, or while the patient has been in what is now so well understood as the Status Epilepticus.

In the American “Journal of Insanity” for Jan., 1875, there is an article by Dr. Ray on a contested will—the Duncan Will Case—in which he discharges, as he says, “the ungracious task of exposing some features of a trial little calculated to shed much lustre on the medical jurisprudence of his country.” Had he said that it was not calculated to shed any lustre, but well fitted to cast some ignominy, upon the medical jurisprudence of his country, it would have been hard to dispute the statement. There was nothing in the will itself, nothing on the face of it, which yielded the least indication of insanity; not one of the persons who were in frequent and close intercourse with the deceased for nine months before his death, most of whom were persons of education and of good social position, had the least suspicion that he was not in his right mind; and those who were about him when he made his will, and up to the time of his death, agreed that he was not in any degree unduly influenced in the disposal of his property, and that he understood perfectly what he was doing. In fact, the main provisions of his will, which was made eleven days before his death, were in accordance with the scheme of distribution of his property which he had adopted in two previous wills made by him. If ever, then, a will appeared to be a rational act rationally done, this was one.