Literaty Notices. xvii 



of Babinski, — that hypnotism can have therapeutic action only upon 

 the manifestations of hysteria. 



(4). Finally, I shall try to explain the frequency of neuropathic 

 affections in the Vendue. Is it due to alcoholism, to the so numerous 

 consanguineal marriages? Must we conclude also that hysteria is 

 more easily developed in a new, primitive country, excessively super- 

 stitious ? Are these three causes combined ? 



In chapter I an account of ten cases of hysteria involving aph- 

 ony, astasia, and abasia, anorexia, spasm, hyperesthesia, paresia, gas- 

 tralgia and vomitings, agoraphobia, — all hypnotizable and all cured, 

 usually by a single treatment. 



In chapter II five cases of adults cured by suggestion while in a 

 waking condition, affections involved being much the same as in 

 chapter I. 



Chapter III treats of associated hysteria ; the cure of hysterical 

 troubles by hypnotism, but the persistence of troubles due to concomi- 

 tant diseases. 



In chapter IV the remarkable frequency of nervous diseases in 

 the Vendee is explained. It is due not to the causes that produce 

 hysteria and neurasthenia generally : excitement of city-life and alco- 

 holism ; but to marriages of kindred, and to superstition. 



The editor, Bourneville, in a note dissents in part from this ex- 

 planation. The true one, he says, is neuropathic heredity, intensi- 

 fied, doubled by consanguineous marriage. 



G. F. McKibben. 



Miscellaneous Pathological Notes. 



Dr. Peterson exhibited before the New York Neurological 

 Society, Dec. 5, 1893, the brain of a female infant aged 20 months, 

 which had suffered from congenital diplegia-spastic paralysis of the 

 four extremities. There were convulsions and enormously exaggerated 

 knee-jerks and ankle-clonus. The head was very small and the 

 sutures closed. A large group of convolutions especially of the motor 

 area were absent. Degeneration and atrophy of the lateral columns 

 of the cord. 



Dr. Peterson also exhibited the brain of an 18-months child 

 with chronic hydrocephalus and lacking the hemispheres. The cere- 

 bellum was of the normal size. There was degeneration and atrophy 

 of the lateral columns of the cord. The child was blind and had 

 nystagmus. There was rigidity of the extremities and convulsions. 



Dr. Wiener reported a case of unilateral bulbar palsy. A few 



