July 29, 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



53 



Massachusetts 



New Jersey 



Dist. of Columbia. . 

 Appalachian region 

 Missouri, Kansas. . . 



Texas 



Arizona. ... 



California 



Oregon 



Montana 



Remarks. 



Includes no primary triangulatton. 

 Includes some triangulation. 

 Includes no primary triangulation. 



Aided greatly by land surveys. 



The sheets, as completed, are engraved upon copper. For each 

 sheet, three copper plates are used. Upon one is engraved all the 

 drainage ; upon another, the contours, expressing the relief ; and 

 upon the third, all culture and lettering. In printing, colors are 

 used, — blue for drainage, brown for contours, and black for culture 

 and lettering. At the present date, 1 20 sheets have been engraved, 

 comprising an area of 250,000 square miles, parts of which were 

 surveyed by the Powell Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region, by 

 the Wheeler Survey, and by the Northern Transcontinental Survey. 



Henry Gannett. 



AMERICAN NEUROLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. 



The thirteenth annual meeting of the American Neurological 

 Association was held at Long Branch on July 20-22. The presi- 

 dent of the meeting. Dr. L. C. Gray of Brooklyn, in his opening 

 address, reviewed the position of the study of neurology in this 

 country as compared with European lands. America does not at 

 all sufifer by the comparison. In the movement which in the past 

 twenty-five years has raised neurology to a science, the names of 

 American workers are prominent, and the number of societies spe- 

 cially devoted to its interest is as large as in any other country. 



The recent advance in our knowledge of the functions and dis- 

 eases of the central nervous system is hardly appreciated, except by 

 such as can remember how things stood twenty years ago. A 

 medical student, who, in 1869, would have stated that the stimula- 

 tion of the cortex of the brain would give rise to definite move- 

 ments, would certainly not have received his degree ; while the 

 student of 1870, who would not have mentioned this fact, would 

 have stood in equal danger. The amount of research, with a 

 variety of ingeniously devised methods, that has been expended 

 since then upon the localization of function in the cortex of the 

 brain, is an excellent example of the great activity now current in 

 neurological problems. In every direction — in the improvement of 

 apparatus for diagnostic purposes, in the application of therapeutic 

 agencies, in the rational care of the insane — have there been rapid 

 strides, demonstrating beyond a doubt the important function of a 

 neurological association. 



The number and quality of the papers presented gave evidence 

 of the increasing attention which the study of nervous diseases is 

 here gaining. Dr. B. Sachs gave an interesting account of a case of 

 arrested cerebral development. It was that of a child with heredi- 

 tary predisposition to insanity, who lived for two years without ex- 

 hibiting any but the most rudimentary signs of intelligence. It was 

 listless, inactive, never learned to speak, and in its last period be- 

 came blind. On examining the brain, the surface appearance was 

 noteworthy. The left island of Reil — a group of cortical matter 

 specially related to the faculty of speech — was exposed. In a nor- 

 mal child it would have been folded inwards, and an abnormal 

 deviation accounts for the failure to develop speech. Many of the 

 fissures flowed together which normally should be separate, — a 

 mark of low-type and undeveloped brains. A microscopic examina- 

 tion showed that the pyramidal cells of the cortex, whose function 

 (in parts of the cortex) is specially connected with motion, were ab- 

 normal ; their positions were reversed, the nucleus faded, and the 

 processes poorly developed. Outside the cells the appearance was 

 normal. Dr. Sachs considered that the case was one of pure 



arrested development, the brain having grown to a certain stage in 

 the development, and then degenerative processes set in. 



Dr. C. L. Dana recounted the remarkable history of a simple, 

 chronic, neursesthenic tremor in a certain family. This tremor is 

 present in three generations, and has attacked forty-four members 

 of the family. The original member thus affected has had the 

 tremor for seventy years : he can momentarily control it, and any 

 excitement increases its intensity, as well as affects the clearness 

 of his speech. He is a watchmaker by profession, and very skilfully 

 controls the shaking at the instant when his hand must be steady. 

 The tremor ceases in sleep, and his walk and posture are normal. 

 The hereditary history is unusually interesting. His grandfather 

 was intemperate, his father insane, his nine children all have the 

 tremor to a greater or less degree, and some are mentally peculiar. 

 Seven of these children married and produced thirty-four children, 

 all of whom have the same tremor, and the other peculiarities still 

 remain. There are evidences that the tremor, though present, is 

 dying out in the third generation. It is noteworthy that an ad- 

 herence to Spiritualism is hereditary in the same family. 



Dr. Gray called attention to the serious aspects of chorea. This 

 disease is often treated less seriously than it merits. The majority 

 of cases occur in children between eight and twelve years of age, 

 and frequently the attacks are slight and readily outgrown. The 

 cases which the physician should regard with greatest anxiety are 

 those in which convulsions occur, in which there occur spasms of 

 the respiratory apparatus, in which there is hysteria or cardiac or 

 pulmonary weakness. The essential part of the treatment is com- 

 plete rest, the exercising of the muscles having a hurtful influence. 

 Dr. Spitzka called attention to the severe injuries which the brain 

 of dogs could undergo with impunity, and to the obliteration in 

 vigorous animals of the injury done by needles forced into the brain. 

 There are great individual differences between dogs in this respect, 

 and a dog once operated upon seemed better able to endure a 

 second operation. These experiments seemed to justify the pier- 

 cing of the brain in surgical operations. 



Dr. J. H. Lloyd cited a typical case in the peculiar borderland 

 of insanity known as the ' insanity of doubt.' The patient has a 

 morbid impulse to do things over and over again, for fear they are 

 not done exactly right. She gets in and out of bed twenty times, 

 until she does it just so. She sends her husband down at night to 

 light and extinguish a gas-burner in a definite way, and cannot rest 

 until it is properly accomplished ; otherwise she is perfectly rational, 

 recognizes the nature of her weakness, but cannot resist it. 



A very valuable contribution was that by Dr. C. L. Dana, de- 

 scribing a case of anencephalis. An apparently normal, healthy 

 child lived for two and one-half days : it cried very little, at times 

 opened its eyes, and re-acted to reflex stimulation. On opening the 

 skull the cerebrum was seen to be entirely absent, there being 

 nothing above the corpora quadrigemina except a not well-devel- 

 oped thalamus. Such cases are rare, and are valuable for the light 

 they shed on the connections between the spinal cord and the 

 brain. The cerebrum being absent, all such systems of fibres 

 as connect it with lower centres are absent. Prominent amongst 

 these is the pyramidal tract, which conducts voluntary movements, 

 and these were entirely absent. The sensory columns of the cord 

 were intact, as were also the cerebellum and the cranial nerves, 

 except, of course, the olfactory nerves. The value of such a case is 

 the independent testimony it affords to the correctness of the 

 sensory and motor fibre-systems as deduced by other methods. 



Amongst the other papers read was one by Dr. Ott, urging on 

 experimental evidence the existence of heat-centres in the spinal 

 cord ; by Dr. Dercum, describing two cases of chorea limited to one- 

 half the body and accompanied by Bright's disease ; by Dr. Spitzka, 

 carefully delineating the symptoms of acute delirium ; by Dr. Mills, 

 aiming to ascertain a distinctive symptom between polio-myelitis 

 and multiple neuritis ; by Dr. Putnam, on a case of overgrowth of 

 the skull bones ; by Dr. Hun, on the symptoms accompanying a 

 tumor of the pons ; by Dr. Jacoby, urging the treatment of neuralgia 

 by sprays of extreme cold ; and by Dr. Kellogg, on the effect of 

 baths in mental disease. 



The limit of membership was increased to one hundred, and Dr. 

 W. A. Hammond was elected an honorary member. The presi- 

 dent for next year will be Dr. J. J. Putnam of Boston. 



