1028 The American Naturalist. [November, 
and temperature, but chiefly to a dehydration of the blood. A portion 
of this water accumulates in fluid form in the stomach and caecum, and 
another portion in the peritoneum and other membranes in the form 
of lymph containing leucocytes. At the same time, owing to a diminu- 
tion in the portal circulation, glycogen accumulates in the liver. Upon 
awaking, these fluids are reabsorbed, the leucocytes convert the gly- 
cogen into sugar and the temperature rises. All these phenomena are 
under the control of the center for thermic sensibility in the anterior 
portion of the aqueduct of Silvius; and between this center and the polar 
plexus, which controls the portal circulation, there is direct anatomical 
relation. Acetone, which is known to have soporific powers, is also 
found in the blood of the hibernating marmot and doubtless contrib- 
utes to the total effect. “The winter sleep of the marmot may there- 
fore be described as a carbonico-acetonemic autonarcosis.” 
The doctrine of the subconscious fixed idea has never been as 
clearly and succinctly stated as by Pierre Janet in the June number of 
the Revue. He gives first a typical case of a conscious fixed idea. A 
woman, aged 33, of neurotie ancestry and hysterical antecedents, fell at 
sight violently in love with a physician called to attend her child, and 
for some years remained under the control of this fixed idea. Here we 
have (1) Marks of mental weakness, (2) An irrational passion at- 
tached to one idea, (3) Its natural consequences in words, acts, ete. 
Four other cases are then detailed, precisely analogous, save in the ab- 
sence of the second factor, there being no conscious fixed idea, A 
hysterical woman, aged 21, has repeated attacks of vertigo and of 
groundless terror. Another sustained, at 29, three great shocks: her 
father lost his money, a near friend died of phthisis in her presence, 
and she saw a man crushed to death. For four years afterwards she fell 
into an apparently dreamless sleep upon the least shock. A girl aged 16 
has nocturnal micturition, but affirms that she never dreams. A woman 
of neurotic family, a brother being hysterical, a sister insane, father 
and grandfather drunkards, has monthly attacks of mental and physi- 
cal distress which end in an uncontrollable desire to drink. After a 
spree of several days’ duration, she recovers consciousness and has no 
memory of the attack. While her normal self she is a total abstainer, 
and has a horror of the liquor which has ruined her family. In all 
these cases we have no conscious fixed idea. But when hypnotized, it 
apparently comes to light. Case (1) in hypnosis tells of a horrible 
i ped from a bridge; this dream 
When a child, she was frightened by 
that her terrors are due to seeing snakes about 
recurring produces the vertigo. 
a snake, and she claims 
