220 REPORTS FROM THE SECTIONS. 
time is most in use at Gladesville for epilepsy is }-drachm doses 
each of bromide of potassium, tincture of cannabis, and sul- 
position, and a dimly lighted room for a few hours, or even a da 
or two, after a fit, will often ward off an attack of mental excitement, 
and a dose of chloral hydrate is useful in the same direction. 
One of the most interesting diseases seen in a hospital for the 
insane is general paralysis or paresis. The paralysie générale des 
United States, and Dr. W. F. Browne, then of the Crichton In- 
es. 
for Scotland, contemporaneously described it as possessing special 
features. In 1842, Dr. Bell, of the McLean Asylum at Boston, 
wrote of it as a new disease in America, and stated that his 
registers prior to that date contained no cases resembling it in 
their manifestations, though it has probably existed unrecognized 
in England. Dr. Browne, in a letter written to me about two 
“I industriously sought for any proof of its existence in former 
records, and have been forced to regard it as an outcome of 
ife.” It is curious that it remains 
d, and unable to recognize it, and feeling it a sort 
expressed reproach that he was unable to diagnose it, went © 
essly to England, saw it in English Asylums, and returning 
home asserted positively that the disease did not exist | 
institution over which he presided. In 1868, after seeing “ 
disease in English and continental asylums, I made inquiries 0» 
the subject in the United States, and found that instances of : 
were rare. “Ihave nota single case,” said the superintende® 
of a large asylum in the Eastern States, “and the last patient = 
suffered from it here was an Englishman.” In 1875 I apes 
day with Dr. Shurtcliffe, at the Stockton Asylum, © 
