Litej^ary Notices. Ixxiii 



A Case for Diagnosis. 



Though the interest in degeneracy as a popular fad seems to be on 

 the wane, yet John Bryan's vohune of " Fables"^ may still possess 

 some interest to the mental pathologist, — highly spiced as it is, it can 

 hardly lay claim to serious recognition in any other quarter. The book 

 would seem well adapted both in style and matter to furnish pabulum 

 very acceptable to the disciples of Nordau. VVe do not presume to 

 decide whether the author himself is degenerate, but his literary style 

 certainly is so. Colloquialism could be condoned if it were a cloak for 

 anything better ; but it is difficult to see how the author expects to 

 "have made the reader wiser, better, truer" by his tirades against all 

 religion and conventional morality, and the fact that it is done up '' on 

 elegant cream paper, uncut edges front and bottom, bound in the new, 

 tasteful styles of Buckram with stamped sides and back," does not ma- 

 terially help the matter. c. j. H. 



The Physiology of Pain.^ 



The punctiform stimulation of the skin with gradually increasing 

 stimuli establishes the presence of two thresholds of the stimulus, a 

 lower one for the pressure sense, a higher one for pain. Pressure spots 

 and pain spots are distinct, the former near the hair bulbs. 



There are rather large areas of the body which are sensitive to 

 pressure, but not to pain, and others which perceive only pain. The 

 latter, accordingly, have only a single threshold of the stimulus, which 

 need not lie higher than the threshold of pressure and indeed may lie 

 considerably lower ( cornea ) . 



The author concludes, therefore, that sensations of pain are pro- 

 vided with special organs, pain spots and pain nerves. 



In the second communication the free nerve-endings between the 

 epithelial cells are regarded as the pain-termini. This receives corrobo- 

 ration from the fact that these are the only termini known in the cor- 

 nea. The pressure spots are distinguished from the pain spots not only 

 physiologically and anatomically, but by greater excitability by the 

 oscillating electric current and by the peculiarity of being not constantly 

 but. rhythmically excited by the constant current. The relation of these 



ipables and Essays. By John Bryan of Ohio. New York, The Arts and 

 Lettres Co., 1895. 



^ M. v. Frey. Beitrage zur Physiologic des Schmerzsinns. Bericht u. Verh. 

 kl. Sachs. Ges. d. Wiss. zu Leipzig. Math.-Phys. Classe, 1894, 2, pp. 185-196 J 

 Do., 1894, 3, pp. 281-296; Do., 1895, 2, pp. 166-185. 



