September i6, 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



137 



The length of the several roads, the width of the great plains and 

 mountains, are controlled by the configuration of the continent. 

 The Rocky Mountains run in a south-easterly direction, while the 

 trend of the coast is southerly, even a little south-westerly, to San 

 Francisco, and then south-easterly to the Isthmus of Panama. 

 This causes a diminution in the width of the great plains on the 

 line of the Union and Central Pacific roads, and a corresponding in- 

 crease in the width of the mountain systems and in the length of 

 the road. On the Canadian Pacific the great plains are i,ooo miles 

 wide, and the mountains about 500 miles wide. On the Union 

 Pacific the plains are 500 miles in width, the mountains 1,300 miles. 



The distances on the several roads from a common degree of 

 longitude, say the 97th, to the Pacitic Ocean, is shown in the follow- 

 ing table : — 



Canadian Pacific to Vancouver 1,480 miles. 



Northern Pacific to Portland 1,620 " 



Union Pacific and Oregon Short Line to Portland 1,724 "' 



Union and Central Pacific to San Francisco 1,885 "' 



Atchison, Topeka& Santa Fe to San Diego 1,694 " 



Southern Pacific to San Francisco 2,024 " 



Southern Pacific to San Diego 1,610 " 



All these roads require a harbor at the terminus on the Pacific 

 coast. North of the lower end of Puget Sound the coast is studded 

 with islands and e.-ccellent harbors. From Puget Sound south 

 the mountains rise almost directly from the ocean, there are few 

 islands, and the only harbors are at the mouths of the rivers, and 

 these are generally barred. 



The Canadian Pacific finds a harbor at Vancouver on Puget 

 Sound ; the Northern Pacific was forced to cross the Cascade 

 Mountains to reach a good harbor at Seattle and Tacoma on the 

 sound ; the Oregon Short Line has its terminus at Portland, loo 

 miles from the mouth of the Columbia River, where there is a bar 

 which cannot be crossed in stormy weather ; the Central and 

 Southern Pacific have good harbors at San Francisco and San 

 Diego ; the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe at San Diego. 



Gardiner G. Hubbard. 



PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDICINE AT THE INTERNATIONAL 

 MEDICAL CONGRESS. 



The programme of the Section of Psychological Medicine and 

 Diseases of the Nervous System, at the recent congress, was a 

 highly promising one. It announced the reading of a variety of in- 

 teresting papers, and a very large representation of foreign special- 

 ists amongst the readers. But the programme was widely diverged 

 from, and, of the forty papers announced, less than half (and not, 

 perhaps, in every respect the best half) were presented. Hardly 

 one-quarter of the foreign delegates who were announced to pre- 

 sent memoirs were present to do so. While thus the expectations 

 aroused by the inviting programme were naturally destined to dis- 

 appointment, the proceedings of the section are by no means to be 

 considered unsuccessful. Like the other sections, it suffered con- 

 siderably by the absence of the leading specialists of the United 

 States. Had the acknowledged leaders of American neurology 

 been announced to be present and to actively participate in the 

 proceedings, not only would all f he distinguished foreigners who 

 announced their coming have had greater inducements to come, 

 but the meWng would have recorded the high-water mark of neu- 

 rological science. Judging the proceedings by the same standard 

 that is to be applied to the entire congress, much can be said in its 

 favor, and some interesting observations and suggestions can be 

 culled from its deliberations. The address of the president of the 

 section. Dr. J. B. Andrews, gave a very useful summary of the dis- 

 tribution and care of the insane in this country. Throughout the 

 country there is one insane person to 545 individuals ; but this ratio 

 does not hold for all the various elements. The leaders of our 

 civilization, and, above all, the foreign element, who have the diffi- 

 cult problem of adapting themselves to a violent change in their 

 life-habits amid the pressure of a sharp competition, are the victims 

 of mental break-down. One in every 250 of the foreign population 

 is insane, one in 618 of the native whites, and only one in 1,097 of 

 the colored population. But even in the last mentioned their eman- 

 cipation and free admittance to civilization have more than doubled 

 their former percentage of insanity. This fact — that insanity is a 



disease of civilization — is also shown by the fact that the preva- 

 lence declines as we move towards the west and away from the 

 cities. Insanity, moreover, is on the increase, and in this country 

 at the startling rate of nine per cent per annum. Dr. Andrews also 

 described the great improvement in the rational care of the insane 

 (and this, in part, accounts for the increased longevity, and thus the 

 increased number, of this class), and added, that, if this country 

 had little new to show, it at least manifested its ability to keep 

 abreast with the progress of other countries. 



Dr. D. Hack Tuke of London sent a paper in which he 

 compared the insane of this country with those of England. The 

 difference in the nature of the asylums of the two countries makes 

 an accurate comparison impossible, but such comparison yields 

 much more similarity than difference. Dr. Tuke favored the 

 ' segregation ' plan, in which one patient, or at most a few, are 

 under care in the same homestead, and welcomed the now general 

 agreement that mechanical restraint was to be used only in e.xcep- 

 tional cases, but that in such cases it is to be unhesitatingly em- 

 ployed. 



Dr. H. M. Hurd of Michigan presented a valuable sketch of the 

 development of religious insanity, tracing the relation between the 

 nature of the morbid delusion and its physical excitant, and again 

 with the age, sex, mental development, etc., of the individual. The 

 healthiness of the religious sentiment lies in a just development of 

 the emotional with the intellectual faculties. 



Dr. Langdon Down of London described several interesting cases 

 in which mental deficiency was associated with a prow-shaped 

 cranium. The cause of this, Dr. Down referred to an abnormal 

 juncture of the medio-frontal suture. The break-down in such 

 cases may occur at any important change, — at first or second 

 dentition, at puberty, or even later, — and the deficiency may vary 

 from mere stammering and sluggishness of thought to marked 

 idiocy. The education of children with this cranial mark should be 

 a most special and careful one. 



Dr. Horace Wardner of Illinois showed most conclusively the 

 admirable effect of occupation in insanity. In a well-managed 

 asylum eighty per cent of the inmates can be usefully employed, 

 and this employment made an essential factor in their cure : it 

 diverts their mind from brooding over themselves and their imagi- 

 nary ills, prevents ennui, and establishes a healthy rhythm. Dr. 

 Wardner cited several cases in which the occupation learned in the 

 asylum became a means of livelihood after dismissal from the asy- 

 lum. Such patients, while not cured, were yet able to begin life 

 anew on a lower and simpler plane : they had not regained full 

 mental power, but occupation had rescued them from chronic in- 

 sanity to a condition of social usefulness. 



Dr. G. Fielding Blandford of London presented before the entire 

 congress a paper on the treatment of recent 'cases of insanity in 

 asylums and in private houses, originally intended for this section. 

 He showed how frequently a violent outbreak of mania passes 

 away quite suddenly, and leaves the patient in full health. In all 

 such cases the stigma, rightly or wrongly, attached to having been 

 in an asylum can and should be avoided. The physician should 

 have the right to keep patients of this general class outside of an 

 asylum long enough to judge whether such a course is necessary or 

 advisable. Dr. Blandford then gave criteria for distinguishing be- 

 tween cases which could be best cured in a private house and those 

 who needed the ' judicious neglect ' of a public asylum. Reform 

 in the treatment of the insane will certainly take place in the direc- 

 tion indicated by Dr. Blandford. 



Dr. T. W. Fisher of Boston spoke on the modern equivalents of 

 ' monomania.' He found these in the current terms ' paranoia ' 

 (which corresponds closely to ' crankiness '), the German ' primare 

 verriicktheit,' and the like : he argued for the separate recognition 

 of this form of mental alienation, and gave certain marks by which 

 to distinguish it. 



Professor Mendel of Berlin, in a paper on moral insanity, advo- 

 cated a disuse of the term on the ground that it was either a form 

 of congenital imbecility or an accompaniment of paranoia resulting 

 from a systematic delusion, and that it was a dangerous plea to 

 bring before the courts. 



Several anatomical papers were presented. Amongst these, one 

 by Professor Mendel, on the origin of the ocular branch of the 



