5 58 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the litterateur and the lying of the imbecile, and the fact that some great 

 men have actually had attacks of insanity. Yet he deems all these to be 

 mere resemblances, not real affinities. Great men are not to be measured 

 by the same standard as ordinary beings, and the reason why they are 

 often deemed insane by those around them is because their superior powers 

 are not understood. Taking up the subject of degeneration, he discusses 

 the views of Morel, Xrafft-Bbing, and Lombroso as to the characteristics 

 of degenerates, and concludes that " in consequence of its common cause in 

 all cases namely, mental instability, discord of the mental faculties the 

 cases always have something to characterize them, and they give to the 

 competent observer no occasion to confound them with great, fiilly devel- 

 oped, and harmonious minds." In his chapter on Secular Hysteria, Dr. 

 Hirsch first comes in conflict with Nordau. He flatly contradicts the asser- 

 tion of the latter that neurasthenia and hysteria are epidemic as they have 

 never been in former centuries and are vitiating the literature, art, and 

 culture of the time. He says : 



Had Nordau in bis sharp critique of existing conditions in the fields of society, litera- 

 ture, and art made no pretension to any other standpoint than that of the aasthetician and 

 art critic, his work, in spite of its many ecctntricities and falsities, would undeniably not 

 have been without service, for he lays the scourge that is their due upon many a folly and 

 absurdity of our time. But when he wraps himself in the solemn garb of science and, 

 assimiing the position of a psychiatrist, hurls the ban of degeneracy and hysteria upon 

 everything that does not meet his approval, he can only be called a psychiatric dilettante. 



He regards as Nordau's chief error the drawing of psychiatric conclu- 

 sions from his purely subjective criticism of works of art, without regard to 

 the purpose of the artist or author. In order to make his meaning clear he 

 takes Richard Wagner as an example, and gives quite an extended analysis 

 of his compositions, maintaining that they give no such evidence of degen- 

 eracy as Nordau alleges. In reading Dr. Hirsch's pages one can not help 

 being impressed with his fairness. He never fails to admit what he can 

 agree with in his opponent's position. At the same time he is a good fighter, 

 and his blows fall thick and heavily upon those things that he undertakes 

 to combat. 



Although prepared chiefly for certain professional and business men, 

 the little book on Theater Fires, recently published by Mr. Gerhard, deals 

 with a matter which often becomes of wide and painful interest.* From 

 the statistical pages, with which the author introduces his subject, we learn 

 that before 1878 flve hundred and sixteen theaters had been completely 

 destroyed by fire. Theaters are in most danger from fire when they are 

 new and their apparatus may not be in perfect working order, and again 

 when forty to fifty years old and much of the aj)paratus has become worn 

 out. The causes of theater fires are many and various, but most of them 

 arise, naturally, on the stage or in the dressing rooms. Panics in theaters 

 also have a number of causes besides the actual appearance of fire. One 

 may be started by a false alarm, by an alarm of fire in the neighborhood, 

 by the unannounced darkening of the house, by the plunging of a fright- 

 ened horse on the stage, etc. As measures for preventing outbreaks of fire 



* Theater Fires and Panics. By William Paul Gerhard. New York : John Wiley fc Sons. Pp. 

 175, 15mo. Price, gl.50. 



