ZOOLOGY. 3G7 



and a great number of similar phenomena. This, too, gives a good explana- 

 tion of such phenomena as stuttering, and is the key to many chronic 

 diseases. 



Conditions of Insanity. M. Morcau, physician of the Bicetre, Paris, states 

 in a recent work " that the organic conditions most favorable for the devel- 

 opment of the faculties are those which give origin to delirium. Transcen- 

 dental capacities, or intellectual aptitudes, derive their origin from an extra- 

 physiological condition of the organs of thought, and from this point of 

 view we may consider genius as a neurosis. The- axiom of 'a sane mind 

 in a sane body' is false. The deterioration of the physical man is a con- 

 dition of the perfection of the moral man. The human intelligence is 

 never nearer to its fall than when it is elevated to its highest grandeur. The 

 causes of its fall are also the causes of its grandeur." Again he asserts : 

 " Most individuals endowed with a superior intellect, or even merely placed 

 above the common level of intelligence, reckon among their ancestors and 

 members of their family, lunatics," etc. 



M. Meyer, of the insane hospital of Hamburg, has also recently published 

 the results of a long series of observations upon insane patients, in relation 

 to the heat of the body, and the theory of insanity which these observations 

 go to establish. The leading ideas of M. Meyer are briefly as follows: 



All mental disease is accompanied by some corresponding abnormal 

 physical condition. All mental diseases fall into two great classes. In the 

 one the mental action exhibits a state of the intellect below the normal 

 intelligence, there is evident weakness or confusion of mind. This 

 diseased condition is idiopathic, comes from the brain. If, in case of any 

 patient of this class, there appears a state of excitement, this excitement 

 indicates at once fever. 



In patients of the second great class, the mental strength is not below the 

 normal standard, but the intellectual activity is wrong in direction. The 

 insanity here is " sympathetic or reflected," that is, it does not arise fi-om 

 a diseased brain, but the cause is to be sought in some other organ or part 

 of the body, the organs of generation, the digestive organs, etc. 



While assistant physician in the Insane Department of the Charite at 

 Berlin, Dr. Meyer made the observations above spoken of, in relation to the 

 degree of heat of the bodies of several of his patients. For this purpose he 

 had delicate thermometers constructed, some to be used in the mouth, others 

 in ano. The tables of observation show Avith remarkable uniformity how a 

 change of temperature precedes (or at all events attends) such changes in 

 the mental condition of the patients as belong to one or the other of his 

 two great classes. 



Effects of Drunkenness on the Offspring. At a recent meeting of the Acad- 

 emy of Sciences, Paris, M. De'meaux read a paper exhibiting, in a very strik- 

 ing manner, the very great proclivity to disease incident to children whose 

 fathers are intoxicated at the moment of fecundation. Paralysis, epilepsy, 

 insanity, hysteria, and a long, sad catalogue of disorders of the nervous 

 system, have been classed among the maladies so communicable to children. 

 Moral debility and intellectual obliquity are also said to be not seldom com- 

 municated in a similar way. 



Antidote for Strychnia. About a year ago, Dr. Vclla, an Italian chemist, 

 announced the discovery of a remedy for tetanus and an antidote to strych- 

 nine, in the shape of curarina (curare), an alkaloid obtained from the Lasios- 

 toma curare, or woorare-tree of South America, and by far the most subtle and 



