Several interesting observations have recently been made regarding the existence of maximum hours of mortality and the allied subject of recurrent variations in the activity of physiological function. During the present year an important contribution to the literature of the subject has been made by Dr. James Finlayson, of Glasgow, who in a couple of papers published, the one in the Transactions of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow for 1873-4, and the other in the Glasgow Medical Journal for April 1874, has supplemented and summarized Schneider's searching examination into the statistics bearing on the subject, tabulated the results of Mr. West Watson, a Glasgow predecessor in the study of vital problems, and collected the scattered statistics contained in the important contributions to the literature of this interesting enquiry. In an independent summary, showing the hours at which the greatest number of deaths occur in several Glasgow institutions, Dr. Finlayson determines the comparative cumulative mortality during successive hours of the same day, and during groups of hours collocated on account of some marked contrasts in meteorological conditions and physiological activity. As far as regards deaths from chronic diseases, the results obtained by Dr. Finlayson are confirmatory of those of Caspar and the summarized statistics of Schneider. They show a notably increased mortality during ante-meridian hours, as compared with those of the afternoon and evening, and especially a determinate maximum between 4 A.M. and noon. With regard to acute diseases, the figures of Dr. Finlayson show that in them the morning rise is nearly if not altogether equalled by a second rise in the extent of hourly mortality occurring in the afternoon. He accounts for this divergence from the general results, by referring to the influences exerted by the post-meridian rise in temperature which characterizes that group of diseases, as a means of determining in them the modification of their hours of maximum mortality.