cxii Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



ther and seem.s'to indicate some connection between intestinal putrefac- 

 tion and epilepsy. The evidence on this head is interesting but far from 

 convincing. 



Excision of Cortex .\s a Cure for Insanity. i 



Six cases of chronic mania, dementia, etc., were operated by removal 

 of 2 cm. or more of the cortex, the areas corresponding to the seat of the 

 sense chiefly affected by hallucination. In five cases, amelioration, in 

 one, death resulted. The effect seems to consist in the transformation of 

 impulsive mania into passive dementia, frecpiently with removal of the 

 hallucinations. 



James Briefer Course in Psycholocy.- 



Professor James is a teacher, and his much used work is conceived as 

 only a teacher could. It contrives to supply very much of the vivacity 

 and piquancy of personal instruction within the compass of a text book. 

 Add to this the fact that he is especially alive to the prevailing tenden- 

 cies in psychological thought and we have a jjartial explanation of the 

 sudden success of a work which is neither Ipgical in arrangement nor 

 faultless in psychical analysis. The briefer course seems to us a vastly 

 more usable book. The author describes it as three-fifths "scissors and 

 paste." These three-fifths have greatly gained, from the student's stand- 

 point, through both these modifying agents. The scissors have relieved 

 him of tapestries which would, in all probability have hung in shreds 

 about his hurrying feet, and the paste has been "mixed with brains." 

 The twft-fifths not accounted for sup])ly important phy.?iological details 

 as to the sensory organs which American classical ccjurses seem never to 

 adetpiately supply in the term or two of physiology. 



Many teachers will object to building up the fabric of an elementary 

 .text-book upon such a 'working hypothesis' as this: "Mental action 

 may be uniformly and absolutely a function of brain-action, varying as 

 the latter varies, and being to the brain as eft'ect to cause." Conscious 

 processes are divided into sensation, cerebration, and tendency to action. 



The i^aragraphs on sensation fail to distinguish ade(|uate]y sensation 

 and percejjtion. ICspecially unsatisfactory is the discussion of externali- 



1. BuRKCiiAKDT, (r. Allf^. Zeitsch 1'. P.syeliiatric, X1.,VII. 



2. .I.NMKs, William. Psychology, .Vuicrican Science Sorics. Briefer Cmir.se. 

 Henry lli.lt .\: Co,, New York, ls;i-J. 



