COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 107 



thin lead, which are much used by the Paris retailers, a 

 chemical action takes place, the result of which is to 

 charge the snuflF with subacetate of lead. Mayer of 

 Berlin traces several deaths and cases of ^ saturnine 

 paralysis' to the patients having taken snuflF from 

 packets, the inner envelope of which was thin sheet- 

 lead, in constant contact with the powdered weed.'' — 

 From the Athcnseum, 2d Octoher, 1858. 



120. Dr. Bucknill, of the Devon County Asylum, in 

 his communication to the Lancet, 28th February, 1857, 

 argues that " the preponderance of lunatics of the fe- 

 male sex, is conclusive evidence against the theory that 

 tobacco either causes or predisposes to mental disease." 

 But the accuracy of Dr. Bucknill's statistical argument 

 is liable to many objections. It may be diflferently ex- 

 plained; and I have tables furnished to me on the sub- 

 ject, which I could adduce, if necessary, establishing 

 an opposite conclusion. At all events. Dr. Bucknill 

 seems to have overlooked the many powerfully exciting 

 and predisposing causes rendering females liable to 

 attacks of insanity. 



121. A scientific physician, on reading Dr. Bucknill's 

 communication in the Lancet, observed that " Dr. Buck- 

 nill blows hot and cold on the tobacco blast ; " and on 

 Dr. Pretty's paper in the same number of the Lancet^ 

 that '^ Dr. Pretty adduces 'pretty proofs of contradiction 

 and absurd reasoning." 



122. It the Asylum Journal of Mental Science for 

 October, 1857, vol. iv. No. 23, edited by. Dr. Bucknill, 

 there is a statistical account or memorial drawn up by 

 a Miss Dix, of the Hospitals for the Insane in the 



