Mental Diseases

If there be one branch of medicine which does not lend itself, after the mode of the late Pelissier, to " potting," it is that of mental diseases. Should, as in the present case, the object be to give the medical student and general practitioner such a sufficient knowledge of the subject as the many other claims on their time for study allows, the plan preferably to be pursued is that of affording a general and equable survey, neither curt nor discursive, avoiding minutiae where possible on the one hand, and superficial or scant treatment of any parts on the other. The most ineffective purpose for this class of readers is that of attempting in a short work to embrace all obtainable details and to indicate every current speculation. This can only be done by sacrificing literary style, and projecting bald statements at the unfortunate reader as with a pea-shooter. Many works on insanity have faults of one kind or another, not seldom a want of evidence as to any reason for having been written at all. We do not, however, recall any book previous to this whose author has so failed to realise that such