82 Canadian Record of Science. 
interest him. He was suffering from an abdominal disease 
which seemed to produce mental aberration. Upon every 
topic that could be suggested—social, governmental and 
religious—this gentleman was fearfully pessimistic. Dr. 
Hart gave a table showing that diseases above the dia- 
phragm were optimistic in their tendencies, those below the 
diaphragm, pessimistic, and those of a constitutional and 
chronic character, such as rheumatism, malaria and dropsy, 
were equally aaeteai sie and optimistic. Chest diseases 
gave buoyancy to the system, and abdominal diseases were 
very depressing. 
Dr. Hart offered no explanation whatever of these state- 
ments, which in themselves the experience of general 
medical practice will bear out. I would suggest. that the 
large capacity of the blood vessels of the abdominal region ; 
the tendency to stagnation in the veins; the great varia- 
tions in the calibre of the arteries, effected through the 
nervous system; the abundant supply of nerves to the 
organs, and their connection with both spinal cord and 
brain; the partial starvation consequent on disease of cer- 
tain organs below the diaphragm, and many other influences, 
which might be enumerated, will account fairly well for 
the relation of the physical to the bodily conditions noticed. 
And it must be remembered that lung diseases may run 
an almost painless course; but that with most abdominal 
maladies there is more or less of obscure irritation, if 
not actual pain, which must tend to exhaust the nervous 
centres, and, in consequence, to be followed by mental 
depression. 
Dr. Jastrow’s paper on “Modes of Apperception,” 
which presents some aspects of truth of great practical im- 
portance, and with very direct bearings on methods of 
teaching. The author of this communication maintains 
that individuals may be roughly classified as “ visualaires ” 
or “ auditaires,” according as they perceive and remember 
better by the use of the eye or the ear. Certain tests have 
been proposed with a view of affording a means of classi- 
fying persons,—such as reading aloud a paragraph from some 
book and comparing the results, in the case of those ex- 
