io8 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XV. No. 367 



been thought wise to hold a convention for studying how best 

 to manage the sanitary interests of cities and towns so affected. 

 Every person interested directly or indirectly in this important 

 subject is earnestly requested to be present and assist in dis- 

 cussing the papers, and add whatever information he can to the 

 solution of these practical and most important questions, 

 affecting as they do the health and lives of thousands of 

 citizens of these three great common"wealths annually. 



Cholera and Europe. — The epidemic of cholera which has 

 for so many months been raging in the valleys of the Tigris 

 and Euphrates and the interior of Mesopotamia has also made 

 considerable inroads into Persia. Reports of the epidemic 

 having crossed the western boundary of Persia have been 

 heard from time to time; but it has now been announced 

 to the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, that there has been an 

 alarming increase of the disease in central Persia and on the 

 Turko-Persian frontier, and that the inhabitants are fleeing 

 toward the north. All those who can afl'ord the journey are 

 trying to reach the Russian ports on the Caspian. Remem- 

 bering that this is the route into Europe which the cholera has 

 so frequently taken, the announcement, says Tlie Medical and 

 Surgical Reporter, must be regarded as one of great gravity. 



MENTAL SCIENCE. 



The Rapidity of Mental Processes in Insanity. — The fact 

 that the change in the mode of responding to the stimuli of 

 the environment, characteristic of a disturbed mental equilib- 

 rium, will reveal itself in things important and trivial, has 

 often been emphasized and illustrated. In this respect a com- 

 parison of the time required for performing simple mental 

 operations in the insane with similar times in normal indi- 

 viduals is interesting, especially if we take account of the 

 nature of the disease. The chief point in such an investigation 

 is to secure a fair comparison, — a desideratum which former 

 studies have not sufiSciently taken into account. The most 

 recent contribution to this field comes from a lady (Marie 

 Walitzky, Eevue Philosophique, December, 1889), and furnishes 

 interesting results, based upon a sound method. She has 

 chosen for her subjects men of good education — physicians, 

 military officers, bankers, etc. — suffering from mental disease, 

 and compared the times they require for executing certain 

 mental processes with the times required for the performance 

 of the very same processes, tested by the same apparatus, under 

 the same conditions, by healthy physicians and other intelligent 

 persons. The subjects were three persons suffering from 

 paralytic dementia, — a case of remission after intense maniacal 

 excitement; a case of general paralysis (in the initial stage of 

 excitability) ; and another case observed at two different stages 

 (in the period of remission, and in a state of maniacal agita- 

 tion) . Experiments were also made upon another patient 

 whose disease is not altogether clear, and who was in a condition 

 very nearly normal. The preliminary stages of practice were 

 overcome; though times differing largely from the average 

 always occurred, and had to be rejected. Tlie processes studied 

 were (1) the simple re-action time (with each hand) to a 

 sound ; (2) a choice of re-action, re-acting with the one hand to 

 a loud sound, and with the other to a low one; (3) the re- 

 action to a spoken word; (4) the ordinary association of one 

 word with another ; (5) the addition of one number to another. 

 The associations were further distinguished as external, e.g., 

 flour-hour, mouth-nose, in which the link was not logical, but 

 rather accidental ; internal or logical associations, such as table- 

 round, house-dwelling ; and assocations fixed by habit, such as 

 pater-noster, Adam-Eve. Of course, these distinctions are 

 neither absolute nor always easy to apply, and the same asso- 

 ciation may take place differently in different persons. Each 

 average for each subject is founded upon' about a hundred and 

 fifty observations. The most important conclusions are the 

 following: in the three cases of paralytic dementia the simple 

 re-action time is lengthened, .225, .388, and . 364 of a second ; 

 while in the average of five healthy individuals this average 

 was .188 of a second; while in the other cases, mainly condi- 



tions of remission, no essential difference exists, the average 

 time being .201 of a second. The difference in the time of re-action 

 to a weak and to a strong stimulus is about the same in sane 

 and insane, except in the two most pronounced cases of paralytic 

 dementia, where the additional time needed to re-act to a slight 

 stimulus is one-tenth of a second or more. The choice time is 

 (and a similar relation holds of the other times) often three or 

 four times as long in the paralytic dementia as in sanity, but 

 approaches, though it is far from reaching, the normal in the 

 states of remission : dementia, . 816 of a second ; remission, .629 

 of a second; normal, .364 of a second. The re-action to words 

 is markedly longer than the normal only in the severest case 

 of dementia, .864 of a second; normal, .285 of a second. The 

 association time is most lengthened in a state of remission 

 approaching melancholy, 1.377 seconds; in the state of remis- 

 sion, as in paralytic dementia, it approaches the normal, .898 

 of a second (normal, .680 of a second). In mania this time is 

 shortened, .263 of a second. In those cases in which the 

 patient was observed in two different stages of the disease, the 

 same result is confirmed: the association time diminishes, and 

 the choice time increases, as the maniacal agitation becomes 

 more pronounced. The observations respecting the nature of 

 the association are too limited to be separately discussed. 

 These results suggest to the authoress the view, that, grant- 

 ing a reduction in association time to be dependent upon 

 the faculty of unconsciously reproducing the associations 

 fixed in the memory, the automatic function of the mind 

 is increased in the initial stages of mental impairment, and 

 that, parallel with this increase of mental automatism, the 

 activity of the will decreases, its processes being slower. 

 As the intellectual powers fade, the automatic functions also 

 become slow, and finally even the perception of the simplest 

 impressions is slackened. In the period of remission, even at. 

 its best, the mental powers do not fully recover: the automa- 

 tism of the brain becomes normal, but the recovery of the 

 will is incomplete. 



A Curious Mental Trait. — A correspondent of the German 

 Anthropological Society tells of his meeting a farmer by the 

 name of Lowendorf, who had a peculiar habit of writing 

 "Austug" for "August," his Christian name. Some years- 

 later he was inspecting a school, and heard a little girl read 

 "leneb" for "leben," "naled" for "nadel," and the like. 

 Upon inquiring, be found that her name was Lowendorf, and 

 that she was a daughter of his former friend the farmer, novy 

 dead. This defect was noticeable in the speech and writing 

 of both father and daughter. It appeared in the father as the 

 result of a fall that occurred some time before the birth of his 

 daughter. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 

 We regret to announce the death of Gustave-Adolphe Hirn, 

 the eminent physicist. He died at Colmar on Jan. 14, in his 

 seventy-fifth year. 



— A new kind of butter is now being made in Germany from 

 cocoanut-milk. The Calcutta correspondent of the London Times 

 says that the cocoanuts required for this industry are imported in 

 large numbers from India, chiefly Bombay, and that the ti-ade 

 seems likely to attain still greater importance. 



— Special attention was called by the United States Hydro- 

 graphic Office to the unusually early southward movement of 

 ice. Already (Feb. 1) thirty-six reports have been received of 

 ice sighted since Jan. 5, and the positions and dates indicate that 

 the ice season is one of the earliest on record, — nearly a month 

 earlier than usual. This is undoubtedly due in large part to the 

 prevalence of severe northerly gales east of Labrador, coincident 

 with the heavy westerly gales of December and January along 

 the transatlantic route. Masters of vessels should keep well clear 

 of the Grand Banks for a few months, till there is less danger 

 from icebergs and field-ice. 



— Professor S. P. Langley, in a paper on the ' 'Temperature of 

 the Moon, ' ' in the December Journal of Science, states, that, of 



