February 11, 1887.] 



SCIUNCE. 



141 



ject of study to the physicist, as its unity is a 

 merely subjective one ; and the geographer, in 

 treating these subjects, approaches the domain of 

 art, as the results of his study principally affect 

 the feeling, and therefore must be described in an 

 artistic way in order to satisfy the feeling in which 

 it originated. 



Our consideration leads us to the conclusion 

 that geography is part of cosmography, and has 

 its source in the affective impulse, in the desire 

 to understand the phenomena and history of a 

 country or of the w^hole earth, the home of man- 

 kind. It depends upon the inclination of the 

 scientist towards physical or cosmographical 

 method, whether he studies the history of the 

 whole earth, or whether he prefers to learn that 

 of a single country. From our point of view, the 

 discussion whether geology or meteorology be- 

 longs to geogi'apliy is of little importance, and 

 we are willing to call all scientists geographers 

 who study the phenomena of the earth's surface. 

 We give geology no preference over the other 

 branches of science, as many modern scientists 

 are inclined to do. The study of the earth's 

 surface implies geological researches as well as 

 meteorological, ethnological, and others, as none 

 of them cover the scope of geography, to delineate 

 the picture of the earth's surface. 



Many are the sciences that must help to reach 

 this end ; many are the studies and researches that 

 must be pursued to add new figures to the incom- 

 plete picture ; but every step that brings us nearer 

 the end gives ampler satisfaction to the impulse 

 which induces us to devote our time and work to 

 this study, gratifying the love for the country we 

 inhabit, and the nature that surrounds us. 



Feanz Boas. 



ITALIAN MEDICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 



The study of the nervous system in health and 

 disease has been assiduously cultivated in Italy 

 for many years. The peculiar environment and 

 volatile characteristics of the race may have been 

 influential in drawing attention to the study of 

 insanity. 



Itahan alienists have taken a deep interest in 

 the psychological aspects of their specialty ; and 

 their main review, the Rivista sperimentale di 

 freniatria, has been thriving for many years. A 

 brief notice of a few of the articles contained in 

 the last volume will serve to indicate some of the 

 directions in which work is being carried on. 



A frequent contributor to this review was the 

 physiologist Buccola, who died last year. He has 

 published a volume in the International scientific 

 series which is devoted to an account of the ex- 



perimental study of the time of psychic processes, 

 and which merits an English translation. One of 

 his latest researches is embodied in a long article 

 in this review on the electric reaction of the acous- 

 tic nerve in the insane. If you place one of the 

 poles in the external auditory chamber, and the 

 other on the neck or the hand, besides causing 

 slight pain, muscular contractions, etc., a distinct 

 sound will be heard on closing the circuit if the 

 negative pole is in contact with the ear, and on 

 opening the circuit if it is the positive pole. This 

 for the healthy ear. But in the insane this formula 

 is sometimes reversed, and suffers irregularities. 

 The examination of the auditory ai^paratus is thus 

 of diagnostic value, especially in cases of auditory 

 hallucinations. In almost all such cases the hear- 

 ing is thus shown to be diseased, and in a few 

 cases stimulation of the auditory nerve caused the 

 hallucinations to appear. 



Two observers, Tambroni and Algeri, contribute 

 to this study of the psychic diagnosis of insanity 

 an account of experiments upon the reaction times 

 of the insane. After some preliminary training, 

 the patient was subjected to eight tests of forty 

 observations each. An observation consisted, 1°, 

 in measuring the time necessary for the patient 

 to feel the contact of a point ; 2°, the time to per- 

 ceive whether a single point or a pair of points 

 2.2mm. apart was drawn across the tip of his right 

 forefinger. The paranoic patient reacts more 

 quickly than the normal man ; and in this is im- 

 plied not only that he feels sooner, but knows 

 what he feels more rapidly : it is a psychic hyper- 

 aesthesia. In all other forms of insanity the time 

 of a simple reaction and of a distinction is length- 

 ened when the normal time is .183 of a second ; 

 the time of the paranoic type is .174 of a second ; 

 of the maniacal, .312; of the demented, .344; of 

 the epileptic, .362 ; of the melancholic (in whom 

 all mental life is sluggish and monotonous), .374. 

 Four persons of each type were examined. It 

 takes slightly longer to perceive a double than a 

 single point. 



A very careful study on the effect of repetition 

 of simple acts, that is, of practice, upon the time 

 it takes to perform them, is rendered by Guic- 

 ciardi and Cionini. They take as their basis three 

 well-tnown laws regarding practice; viz., 1°, 

 that it makes repetition easier (and quicker) ; 2°, 

 that it does so at first more rapidly than later on ; 

 and, 3°, that a limit to this process is slowly 

 reached. The original part of their work consists 

 in showing that practice has greater abbreviating 

 power in complicated than in simple acts. A 

 simple touch reaction by the effect of 250 repeti- 

 tions was shortened .018 of a second ; the time for 

 perceiving that but a single point was touching 



