delusions of the diseased brain, and ceased to cultivate opposition to it-believing that he was now converted, and received into a state of grace. He had his "experiences," his ravishing emotions-he bathed in spiritual light, and felt the most transcendent tranquillity and bliss; but this gradually changed into a conviction that he was a reprobate of heaven, and for ever cut off from salvation.

CHAPTER XV.

DIFFUSED DISORDER AFFECTS ONLY ONE SIDE.-DEATH OF DR. WOLLASTON.IMBECILITY COMPATIBLE WITH HIGH MORAL QUALITIES.-STORY OF THE TWO CHILDREN.-CHARACTER CHANGED BY A SPICULA OF BONE.-CASE OF ANTAGONIST CONVICTIONS IN A CLERGYMAN.

Ir it be objected that a diffused disorder is not likely to produce disease in one cerebrum only, I answer that such limited effects from general causes are common;the suffusio dimidians, for example, where only one half of the field of vision is perceived by the mind, has been known to arise from exposure to marsh miasmata. I had under my care a young gentleman about sixteen, who, from sleeping only one night in the neighbourhood of Barking in Essex, returned to town with feelings of indescribable distress, of which he could give no other description than that he felt very ill. On visiting him the next morning while he was in bed, I found one half of his face and forehead in the most profuse perspiration, while the other half remained perfectly dry and harsh. On turning down the bed-clothes, the same appearance was manifested throughout the body, but not quite so distinctly; the median line in the face forming an absolute boundary and demarcation. "I have known a patient," says Dr. Holland, "suffering under various symptoms of diseased brain, who frequently saw only half his face when looking in the glass; and very recently I have met with an instance

where a father and daughter had each the liability of this affection. In another instance in a young lady, the occurrence was always followed by intense headach."

We are all familiar with the effect of gout, which, affecting the whole system (or rather both systems) to a violent degree, ultimately expends its malignancy perhaps on one toe. If it locate itself in one brain, is it at all wonderful that it should produce insanity? A case of this kind I have already narrated. It is not necessary that it should produce the same effects on the cerebrum as in the toe-that it should create inflammation, pain, and swelling in the brain; it is enough if it set up a very slight disturbance in one of the cerebra, in order to break up that harmonic unison of the two which is necessary for single mind. If, by a slight degree of peculiar irritation in one of these organs, it excite therein ideas of violence or murder, or a disposition to suicide, it depends entirely on the healthiness of the other organ-on its degree of cultivation, and of remaining power-whether the propensity be followed, or not followed, by corresponding action. In the great majority of cases, there is so perfect a consciousness in the sound brain that the sensations, perceptions, and volitions of the other, are morbid and unnatural, that if its faculties have been duly cultivated it can prevent these morbid volitions from passing into action.

If malaria can produce such effects on the body, we may easily conceive other causes capable of inducing similar disordered states of the sensorium, as we see, indeed, in the impoverished state of the blood from long suckling, from the insertion of specific poisons, and from many other causes.

N

It would seem that, in the optic commissure, the external fibres of each nerve continue without decussation, while the internal cross each other to the opposite side. A paralysis, temporary or continued, (like that of the pes anserinus, from exposure to cold,) of separate portions of the optic nerves in their commissure, might perhaps explain the strange disease alluded tosuffusio dimidians.

Some of the deaths recorded of remarkable men have been supposed to prove that the higher faculties of the intellect have a greater power of triumphing over the effects of bodily disease, than have those faculties and powers which we possess in common with the brutes. This is true only in a very limited sense; sense; and the striking sentiments uttered by such men in their last moments, are wrongly supposed to indicate the possession of greater mental powers, more independent of corporeal structure, whereas they indicate nothing but the simple fact, that one brain remains perfect to the last, although the disease in the other is incompatible with life,-the man dies from disease in one brain, but the other remains in full possession of all its faculties.

This was remarkably shewn in the case of the celebrated Dr. Wollaston, alluded to by Dr. Holland in a note, page 166, of Medical Notes and Observations:I have heard many minute particulars of the death of that very remarkable man, who seemed to possess the curious faculty of carrying out to perfection, and to a useful result, every idea that was suggested to him by another man, without being able to originate one himself. I believe that some account of his death was

published, but after much search have been unable to discover it, and can therefore only give a few of the particulars which rest in my memory, and add to them the statement of Dr. Holland above cited. I hope, on a future occasion, to furnish the full details of a case which throws much light on the theory I am endeavouring to establish.

Dr. Wollaston died from disease of one brain, producing entire disorganization of it. He was aware, from a very early period, of the nature of his disease. and of its inevitable result; he had first been made sensible of its existence on the occurrence of numbness at the end of his finger when out shooting. "He was accustomed," says Dr. Holland, "to take exact note of the changes progressively occurring in his sensations, memory, and voluntary power. He made daily experiments to ascertain their amount, and described the results in a manner which can never be forgotten by those who heard him. It was a mind unimpaired in its higher parts, watching over the physical phenomena of approaching death; and, what well deserves note, watching over the progressive change in those functions which seem nearest to the line separating material from intellectual existence."

It is much to be lamented that so accurate an observer, and so deep a thinker, as Dr. Holland, should have been suddenly incapacitated by dangerous illness from following up his attendance on Dr. Wollaston to the last moments of his existence. But for this interruption, I feel satisfied that he would have come to the same conviction from that single case, which has been impressed on my mind by a great number of similar instances of cerebral disorder, and that my theory would