124 Notices of Books. [January, 
posed from the impression made by affirmative instances.” The 
number of patients in whom a hereditary tendency could be 
traced was to the total number as i : 2*68. In the male sex 
alone this proportion falls to i : 3*05, but in the female rises to 
1 : 2*34. Acute derangement is more frequently hereditary than 
chronic mental affections to the extent of 7 per cent. In acute, 
chronic, and paralytic lunacy the paternal influence is to the ma- 
ternal as 100 : 103*3. Hence a tendency to mental affections in 
the female line is somewhat the more formidable. Parents 
whose madness is not hereditary have more frequently sound 
children than those whose disease has been inherited, and the 
offspring of the latter are more frequently weak-minded or 
idiotic. Cases where all the children die young are more fre- 
quent where the madness of the parents has not been inherited. 
In case of lunatic fathers the children were more liable to mental 
disease than the grandchildren. In case of lunatic mothers the 
rule is reversed. Moral degeneration, on the other hand, in- 
creases in the second generation. The only doubt capable of 
affeCting the author’s conclusions is that hereditary tendency to 
disease may often exist where it cannot be traced. Very few 
persons could show that not merely all their direCt ancestors for 
some three or four generations back, but all the collateral 
branches of the family in the ascending line, were perfectly free 
from insanity. Indeed such an inquiry could not possibly be 
undertaken with success unless we were first provided with a 
rigid definition of insanity, and were able to say where “ oddness,” 
“eccentricity,” “peculiarity” — perhaps even where genius — 
ends and where madness begins. There are grounds not to be 
altogether negleCted for considering genius as a morbid product, 
bearing a closer semblance to insanity than is commonly 
dreamt of. 
Another long and ably-conduCted investigation is devoted to 
the connection between insanity and phthisis. The author finds 
that the insane succumb to pulmonary consumption in a fivefold 
higher ratio than the sane, and that, conversely, among those 
affeCted with tubercular degeneration, mental disease is five 
times more common than among the non-tuberculous. In a 
largely preponderating number of cases the mental disease pre- 
cedes the pulmonary affeCtion. Hence pulmonary consumption 
cannot be considered as the cause, but rather as a possible effeCt 
of insanity. 
We cannot too strongly recommend this thorough-going, mas- 
terly, and truly philosophical treatise to medical men, and to all 
who have any interest in this important subjeCt. We must, 
however, point out that the value of the book would have been 
greatly enhanced by a more copious table of contents, or by a 
good index. 
