In the Sixty-fifth Report (1909) of the Commissioners in Lunacy for England and Wales, the following observations were made in respect of the incidence of cancer in mental hospitals and in the general population:

“There remains one morbid condition which is responsible for an increasing number of deaths in the general community, from which it would almost appear as if the insane enjoyed some immunity. According to these figures, the proportion of deaths from “cancer,” i.e., from all forms of malignant disease, was in asylums 36.4 per 1,000, which may be compared with the ratio of 99.4 per 1,000 in the rest of the community, the disparity being more marked in the female than in the male sex. Although the mortality-rates per 1,000 living show a rate of 2.98 amongst the insane, and of 1.39 in the others, yet having regard to the great divergence between the general death-rates in the two series, the general cancer mortality in relation to that of the insane is not 1.39, but 8.11. Upon what can this difference depend? Is it because, as suggested in the analogous case of bronchitis, the asylum patient is protected from some unknown factor in the development of this disease; or has it to do with mode of living as well as of environment; or can it be that there is any antagonism between the conditions favourable to the development of cancer and those which conduce to insanity? At any rate, in view of these statistics, which seem valid and are confirmatory of those we published two years ago, a thorough investigation of the subject might not be without profit.”

Man is distinguished from all other living creatures by the quality and range of his intellect, and on the physical side by the nature of the brain which confers upon him this mental pre-eminence. Moreover, as its exceptional powers were acquired by a process of evolution, the true significance of the human attributes can only be appreciated by examining the history of their development.

This paper attempts to show how cysts of the pineal body may attain clinical importance, and it consists of what I believe to be descriptive facts rather than conclusions drawn from them or theoretical arguments about such findings.

India, like many other countries in the world, for centuries held the “demonologicalconception” of insanity. As late as the eighteenth century the insane were regarded as possessed by evil spirits, and requiring drastic measures to get rid of their afflictions. Under this belief some were mercilessly flogged and others were made to drink or eat nauseating stuff. With the progress of civilization, India, like Europe, began to erect grim, sombre buildings for the treatment of her mentally afflicted, with small openings in the walls, guarded by strong iron bars; narrow corridors, dark cells and desolate compounds, where no tree, shrub or flower ever grew. Moreover, the old asylums were manned by brutal types of attendants,who were always ready to impose manacles and chains and stripes at their own free will. Insanitary conditions and semistarvation of the patients were special features of these institutions. Of recent years, however, India has been making a steady though sather slow progress in psychological medicine. The old asylums in the Provinces are now called mental hospitals, and the old buildings are either given up, or improved as far as practicable to fit in with their new names. A humanitarian hospital system for the insane has been instituted.

The recent publication of two papers by Patterson and Weingrow (1, 2) on the brain-liver weight ratio in epilepsy suggested to the writer that an investigation of this ratio in non-epileptic psychoses as well as in epilepsy might prove interesting.

The acetic anhydride test was introduced in 1923 by Boltz, who regarded a positive result as diagnostic of syphilis of the central nervous system. The technique of the test is simplicity itself, and is as follows: Place 1 c.c. of spinal fluid in a small test-tube. Add 0.3 c.c. of acetic anhydride drop by drop; shake. Add 0.8 c.c. concentrated sulphuric acid drop by drop; shake. After five minutes examine the colour of the fluid against a white background. A lilac or blue-pink coloration is positive.

Since the publication of the last number in the author's present series of papers (Stewart, 1929), four articles have appeared which bear upon the subject. They are by the following writers: Mutch, Schemer, Mann and Shipp, Shera.

In view of the fact that cholesterol is one of the principal constituents of nervous tissue and presumably plays an important part in the functioning of that tissue, it is surprising that comparatively little attention has been given to the study of the variations of the blood cholesterol in disorders of the brain and mind. Such researches as have been published do not appear to have been based, as a rule, on any extensive number of cases, and there is rarely any attempt to analyse the results according to the actual mental state of the patient, apart from the diagnosis. It is therefore not remarkable that the conclusions of different observers have been somewhat contradictory.

The following is an outline of laboratory investigations which have been performed at the Warwick County Mental Hospital during the past two years, together with a summary of results and brief deductions as to the value of each investigation considered from the points of view of diagnosis, prognosis and lines of treatment.

Many requests have been received for information concerning the table, and also as to the method for continuous colon irrigation used at this hospital. In the hope that such information may be of general service the following communication is made:

In 1927 Dr. Henry A. Cotton kindly supplied us with a photograph of the table for this purpose which he had installed at the New Jersey State Hospital at Trenton.

The object of this paper is to place on record some work which has been done during the past fourteen months in the laboratories of the Cardiff City Mental Hospital. This work, which is in the nature of animal inoculation experiments, was done with a view to detecting the presence of any filter-passing organisms which might be present in cases of schizophrenia. The justification for this line of research depends upon the suggestions that have been made by American and Continental writers that there are many striking points of resemblance between epidemic encephalitis and schizophrenia. In this country, Farran-Ridge has pointed out the striking similarity of the motor phenomena in certain cases of these two conditions. He draws attention particularly to fluctuation in body-weight, blepharoclonus, pruriginous phenomena, chewing movements, greasy face, respiratory disorders and choreiform manifestations. It has been suggested that these symptoms may be due to involvement of the basal ganglia. This being so, there is primâ facie evidence that some cases of both encephalitis and schizophrenia are the outward manifestations of similar disease-processes. In the case of encephalitise, vaditi, Loewe, Hirschfield and Straus and others have done work which suggests the existence of an ultra-virus of variable virulence which may exist in the saliva, the central nervous system, herpetic vesicles and elsewhere. If, therefore, these premises are correct, it would be valid to search for a similar virus in schizophrenia.