BRAIN TROUBLES. 293 



that, though they need not alarm those who note them in 

 their own case, they should not be neglected. They are 

 always signs that the mind wants rest, and they may 

 be signs that some more specific remedy is required, 

 which can be readily determined by noting whether 

 rest brings relief. " I am anxious," says Dr. Forbes 

 Winslow (and it could be wished that throughout his 

 valuable work he had been similarly careful to avoid 

 occasioning unnecessary alarm), "to attach no undue 

 importance to this evidence of morbid intelligence, 

 but I cannot close my eyes to the fact that a debili- 

 tated power of attention is a prominent symptom in 

 the early stage of cerebral disorder. Cases of in- 

 cipient brain disease have occurred in which patients 

 have, previously to other symptoms, lost all ability 

 to read continuously twenty lines of a book without 

 a painful effort of thought/' It will be noticed that 

 Dr. Winslow here puts distraction as a phenomenon 

 preceding, in cases of cerebral disorder, the loss of 

 memory : albeit, we believe that had he had the 

 means of ascertaining the precise progress of mental 

 disorder, in cases where . he supposed this to have 

 been the case, he would have found that the memory 

 had begun to go in the first instance. "If," he 

 proceeds, " there be impairment of attention and 

 debility of memory, it is illusory for the patient to 

 imagine that he is able, until his physical condition of 

 ill-health is attended to, by repeated and persevering 

 efforts, to resuscitate these prostrated powers. In his 

 attempt to do so he still further taxes the morbid 



