xxxiv Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



of the missionary. In fact, we are told that they are at first skeptical. 

 How has it escaped the writer that the missionary is under the strong- 

 est of all inducements to accept the current interpretation ? It is, how- 

 ever, a common experience that one should be unconscious of the most 

 powerful motives influencing his belief and we need not impugn the 

 honesty of such an one in insisting that this motive is patent to every 

 outside observer. The exorcism of the natives is an integral part of 

 their religion and is adopted by all sects alike. When Christianity en- 

 ters the field it must at once compete with these sects in this most prac- 

 tical matter. Since the function of religion is to control the spirit of 

 evil, that must be the best religion which most successfully combats 

 these manifestations of satanic power. The author expresses surprise 

 that the natives eagerly seize upon the accounts of New Testament pos- 

 session and need no suggestion from the missionary to turn them to prac- 

 tical account. The result is what one would expect. Grant, as we must, 

 that the native doctors are often successful with their burning pills on 

 the nerve plexus at the roots of the nails, and that the native conjurers 

 are also frequently able to banish the disease by their incantations, it 

 would be expected that the strange message from a land beyond the 

 realm of dreams should create the conditions for deliverance, nor is it 

 astonishing that the complete change in mental attitude and the 

 saner methods of life involved in embracing Christianity should cause, 

 in many cases, a permanent cure. Even a much less significant change 

 is often sufficient in practice. "The number of those who for this 

 cause have become Christians is very great." (P. 51.) The mission- 

 aries must be much less or more than human if they are uninfluenced 

 at least unconsciously by this unexpected and powerful means to reach 

 the otherwise inaccessible heathen. Who shall determine whether this 

 is not a providential opening? Be this as it may, it would seem un- 

 necessary to degrade occidental humanity to the same depths of super- 

 stition and we cannot applaud the attempt. 



Fifteen cases are presented from China and we must give up our 

 plan of analysing them and do so the more willingly that they present 

 nothing novel or especially pertinent not already noticed. In the spirit- 

 ualistic career the fortune of the experimenters often mysteriously dis- 

 appears. The afflicted is incidentally shown to have been a gambler 

 and profligate, etc. The author explicitly denies that there is any ten- 

 dency to epidemics but there is evidence, even in the few cases given, 

 of contagion, i. e. that the influence of others is felt not only in pro- 

 ducing but in determining the form of the attack (p. 37). The rhyth- 

 mical form of expression in such cases is as old as history and the author 



