Argyll and Bute (1889-90).—As the result of the discharge of all out-county private and pauper patients, it has been necessary to increase the weekly charge from 8s. to 9s.

The use of cocaine is so widespread that a few words of caution against its indiscriminate employment may not be superfluous. From time to time cases in which alarming symptoms have followed the use of cocaine are noted, but they do not attract much attention. Dr. Edmund Falk, of Berlin, is the more to be thanked for having collected and tabulated 176 cases of poisoning by therapeutic doses of cocaine. The dose employed, with its method of employment, and the results following the use, are carefully set down. Dr. Falk excludes from his table not a few cases of syncope which have been set down to cocaine, but which he considers may be referred to the operation itself. He is also of opinion that a majority of cases have not been published, and further that a large number of cases of insanity are to be found in the asylums, which have arisen from the prolonged use of cocaine. The 176 cases which he has tabulated will, therefore, fall very short of representing the real toxic dangers of cocaine. Ten fatal cases are to be found in the list. Two of these fatal cases followed the use of a four per cent, solution of cocaine applied to larynx or pharynx. One case followed the injection of 0·06 gramme (10 grain) beneath the mucous membrane of the gums; another, the subcutaneous injection of a little over three grains. The smallest dose causing death was 0·6 grain (0·04 gramme) injected subconjunctivally. Short of death, very alarming symptoms are frequently noted, such as pallor, cyanosis, vertigo, fainting, collapse, unconsciousness, more or less prolonged, delirium, hallucinations, diminished general and special sensibility, impairment of vision, deafness, etc., etc.

The chief feature in the psychological literature of Italy since my last report has been the multiplication of periodicals devoted to it. Thus we have received copies of the following new journals:—“The Annali di Freniatria,” of Turin; “Il Manicomio,” of Nocera Inferiore; “Il Pisani,” of Palermo; and “L'Anomalo,” a “Gazzettino,” published at Naples. On the other hand, I regret to say that no copies have been sent since 1888 of Lombroso's always interesting, if sometimes paradoxical, “Archivio di Psichiatria ed Antropologia Criminale.”To some extent these periodicals may be considered as equivalent to our Asylum Reports; and they doubtless show the great activity and zeal with which our specialty is studied in Italy. But from another point of view they seem to me no unmixed advantage. Each periodical is starved by the scattering of so much ability, which was formerly concentrated in fewer journals; and the space left vacant has been, to a great extent; occupied by matters of local, temporary, or secondary interest. When allowance is made for this, Italian psychological literature will be found quite equal to the high level it has attained in former years.