"Pray, walk a little."

Griesinger is glad. His gait, formerly so trembling, has now become already pretty sure.

There lies one suffering from aphasia, gesticulating and stammering. His main difficulty is weakness of mind. He weeps, laments, and considers himself unhappy, because he cannot give expression to his wishes. Griesinger asks him to show his handkerchief.

It is hanging from his pocket, but he does not know it.

"What is this, pray?" asks Griesinger, and draws his watch.

The patient shakes his head.

"As soon as you can tell me what this is, it shall be yours. This is a watch, such as you used to wear yourself."

How gladly would he give, not only his watch, but even his chain, if he only could restore to his patient the lost idea of the chronometer.

A merchant is suffering from epileptic weakness of the mind. He has been a poultry-dealer, and has committed several thefts, and has been punished for it. That he has probably taken to heart.

ears.

"How are you?" cries Griesinger into one of his

"It seems to me as if I were flying, and could not come down any more," is the lament of the poor one. Then Griesinger says something into his other ear. The patient remains apathetic. He does not hear any thing, he probably suffers from an internal disease of the ear.

Griesinger goes into the division for women.

There is a woman seventy-four years old who, when she speaks, is compelled involuntarily to utter whistling

and chirping sounds, and to indulge in motions similar to the St. Vitus dance. She also constantly inserts the words "dauna" and "asra" between the words of her speech. Even the most serious person must laugh when hearing her speak. But Griesinger, however strongly he may feel incited to do the same, always retains his calm and serious air in presence of this woman; she speaks quite reasonably.

"You told me yesterday that you would give up whistling and chirping to-day. You also said I should not hear to-day the 'dauna' and 'asra,'" says Griesinger, and deep solicitude was depicted on his brow.

"I cannot suppress it," replies the old woman, and whistles again.

"But I command you now to do it. As long as am speaking with you, I don't want to hear one chirp. You must make an effort."

I

Yes, there he stands with fearful seriousness. The spell in the old woman is subsiding. Her eye is fixed on the commanding forehead of Griesinger. She continues to speak with him for a long while yet, and no one would think her to be insane.

Griesinger repairs to the room of another woman. The father and sister of her mother have been insane. She has been five or six weeks in the Charité. Formerly she used constantly to lament because her daugh ter had died a violent death. She always sits on the same spot and curses at times. She speaks with a low and hesitating voice, without connection, timidly and dejectedly, and likes to remain in bed, because she always feels tired. She is very much attached to Griesinger. To a stranger she neither pays any attention nor does she reply to his questions. The prognosis of Griesinger in her case is very favorable.

A very sad impression is that made by a working. girl from Berlin, twenty-six years old, who looks at least ten years younger. The poor one forms a counterpart to the unfortunate Miller, and suffers from cataleptic insanity, one of the rarest varieties of mental diseases. She has hallucinations of a melancholy character. She only hears, sees, and feels, as if in a dream; she is benumbed with fear, smells bad odors, thinks herself in hell. Sometimes she suddenly starts up, and then again relapses into her old apathy. She must be fed; sometimes she eats when let alone.

She has again not touched her food. Nor is she this time to be fed. She is to eat in Griesinger's presence.

"Why do you not eat?" asks Griesinger, while pointing to the untouched repast.

She stares with frightened look at him, and utters a sound which only Griesinger can understand.

"Poison !" he exclaims. Then he sits down, tastes the food, and tries by his gesticulations to convey the idea that he finds it excellent. While chewing yet, he then adds: "No poison, good food," at the same time he again points imperatively to the food.

Yes, she will eat, but Griesinger must go first-so says her look, which, however, is already less timid. But Griesinger does not move. Nothing is now of greater importance for him than to make her eat. It takes a very long while before she eats, but at last she submits. Griesinger leaves her with the gratify. ing prognosis, "She can be saved yet."

Thus Griesinger was able, by his kindness, his dig nified manners, and his indefatigable patience, to attach his patients to himself, and so develop their self-control. Their love for him was so great that they some

times would kneel down before him. Only his enthusiasm for his calling helped him over its many troubles and difficulties. But he also insisted energetically upon the necessary assistance, particularly as regards numerous, intelligent, active, and kind nurses. On them, who formerly were nothing but jailors in disguise, depends especially the welfare of the patients. Only by means of assistants who try to soothe and quiet the patients, in addition to an uninterrupted medical superintendence, the abolition of every mechanical coercion in the asylums for the insane has become possible. Griesinger was among the first who raised their loud voices in favor of abolishing all coercion and of an institution for the cure of the insane to be organized in full conformity with all requirements for such a purpose.

"First a hospital for those suffering from mental diseases, as beautiful and convenient as it can be constructed, and then a museum," he said in one of his lectures.

He was born in Stuttgart, the 29th of July, 1817. He made his studies in Tubingen and Zurich. He graduated in 1838, with a dissertation on "Garotilles," the disease now better known under the name of diph theria. In the winter of 1838-39 he went to Paris, settled then as practitioner in Friedrichshapen, and became afterward assistant-physician at the hospital for the insane in Winnenthal. There he remained two or three years, and contributed to the " Archives for Phys iological Medicine." In 1843 he became assistant to Professor Wunderlich in Tubingen. Having received, in 1849, a call to the university at Kiel, he made in 1850 a journey to Egypt to enlarge his knowledge of contagious diseases, especially the plague and cholera;

in 1854 he again returned to Tubingen as professor, went in 1860 to Zurich, and settled in 1865 in Berlin.

By a series of lectures he was the first to call the attention of the medical world to the importance of the study of psychiatria at the universities. He furthermore instituted the clinical instruction in this science in a manner proportionate to its value. He organized regular psychiatric clinics, and insisted upon the purely medical diagnostic of mental diseases, connected with an intelligent conception of the abnormal psychical phenomena.

He has been torn from our midst! Who will be able to take his place?

CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE.

THE only important question discussed at the late meeting of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane' was, the "Project of a Law" defining the legal status of the insane, as explained in the following preamble:

The Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane, believing that certain relations of the insane should be regulated by statutory enactments calculated to secure their rights and also the rights of those intrusted with their care, or connected with them by ties of relation, or friendship, as well as to promote the ends of justice, and enforce the claims of an enlightened humanity, for this purpose recommend that the following legal provisions be adopted by every State whose existing laws do not, already, satisfactorily provide for these great ends.

1. Insane persons may be placed in a hospital for the insane by their legal guardians, or by their relatives, or friends, in case they have no guardians; but never without the certificate of one or more reputable physicians, after a personal examination, made within one week of the date thereof; and this certificate to be duly acknowledged before some magistrate, or judicial officer, who shall certify to the genuineness of the signature, and to the respectability of the signer.

1

1 Report of the proceedings of the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane, at their twenty-second annual meeting held at Boston, on the 2d, 3d, 4th, and 5th days of June, 1868.