270 NATUEE STUDIES. 



learned, rather late, to leave men a good deal to 

 themselves, so far as the former are concerned, are by 

 no means ready to admit that mental troubles can 

 also for the most part be remedied without calling in 

 the physician. Writers like Forbes Winslow, and 

 others, who have dealt with obscure diseases of the 

 mind, have done service in calling attention to certain 

 signs of cerebral mischief which laymen might be apt 

 to overlook ; but they insist rather too strongly on 

 these as indicative of actual disease, whereas it is 

 within the experience of thousands that such signs, 

 in the majority of cases, are no more to be regarded 

 as necessarily indicating disease than a passing feel- 

 ing of nausea necessarily indicates an approaching 

 fever, or than a pain in the bowels necessarily indi- 

 cates an approaching attack of Asiatic cholera. 



It should also be noted, that much mischief may 

 be caused by suggesting that tricks and failings of 

 the mind, which are quite common, are signs of 

 serious cerebral mischief. Not long after the first 

 edition of Forbes Winslow's treatise on fc Obscure 

 Diseases of the Mind" appeared, a friend of mine, 

 who had begun to read the book only because 

 of his interest in matters scientific, found that 

 it possessed for him a strong fascination, because 

 nearly all the phenomena mentioned by Winsjow as 

 indicative of approaching insanity were such as he 

 had frequently noticed in his own case. Thereafter 

 regarding these symptoms in the light in which they 

 were thus presented, this unfortunate student of 



