in patients obliged by the tenor of their lives to keep their acoustic and optic nerves continually on the stretch, a more or less intense erethismus, but never the specific signs of neurasthenia. The latter I had indeed noticed in a small number of such patients, but co-existing with other conditions; that of erethismus always, and sometimes morbid sexual feelings, etc. etc. Above all convulsive bursts of idealism, and a more or less marked deficiency of control. I did not ignore the fact that other colleagues had believed they had found a germ of neurasthenia in persistant abnormal sensations of heat, touch, etc. Simmel asserts that labourers are exposed to such hyperstimuli, in which, however, he perceives an ethnological moment.

Can it be true? Here also my clinical inquiries did not fully lead to agreement with what Simmel asserts. I had met with several cases with a special tic in the vibrations of the nerves. That is to say, this or that nervous want of equilibrium which almost never squared with the specific and characteristic disease named by modern medicine (following the proposal of Beard)-Neurasthenia.

It is true that some Neuro-pathologists, who are partial to this theory, are also followers of that Psycho-physical Principle, that, since years, I have tentatively defended, and still defend, with the conviction that I have touched upon truth. The discrepancy exists only in the succession of the various factors. For, in my opnion, the prime Moment is generally an abnormal psychic rhythm, which, acting on the material elements, provokes the insurgence of the syntomatological neurasthenic cortex.

The reverse must be said of the opinions of

KARY

other colleagues, because they are partial to the principle that the somatic anomaly would. force the superior centres into the fatal neurasthenic vortex. This theory which is reduced to asserting that Neurasthenia is the primary factor, be it an incident of the alienation of the somatic elements, or secondary to that of psychic want of equali brium, I have long since combated in different. publications in Italy and Germany, especially in my << Neurasthenia in Life and Modern thought », reviewed in the Deutsche Revue.

I was convinced that the most notable factor of such affections consists in a disturbance of the psychic centres, which, by virtue of the fundamental laws of our organic life, must act on the somatic elements. This, for me, is the classic neurasthenia, the Rhamnusio virgo of the feverish, excited, panting life of modern mankind.

But I do not deny that, in a certain number of cases, small in comparison with those of the first kind, there may be a secondary neurasthenia, which generally disposes to morbid processes, especially to « Artritide ». So that abnormal psychic deviations enter secondarily into the scene and have very often a special feature.

In other words, I had armed myself against the theory which, since Rokitansky, sought to affirm that, in all the perturbatione of psychic life the efficient cause must be sought in an abnormal atrophy of the nervous cells, which would have a consequence fatal to the mind. A theory founded on cellular lesions, which constitutes the fundamental fulcrum of that theory. I will confine myself to observing that the American life, unfolded before me, exercised an irresistible fascination in deciding which of the two theories was exact. For, evidently, this Land of Labour,

often panting for the unattainable, seemed to me the very focus of Neurasthenia; the laboratory which day by day showed innumerable examples.

On that laboratory Beard had fixed his regard, and studied the convulsive neurasthenia of the North American soul, calling to it the attention of all colleagues.

His voice was the trumpet-call for the physicians of the Old Country, who found his assertions confirmed, because their own examinations had falleu upon clinical cases often mistaken with respect to the examples seen in North America.

I then thought of studying, in this Titanic human preserve, the genesis of neurasthenia, convinced that no other place could afford more favorable conditions for examining the correctness of my own or other theories. My short stay in St. Louis reinforced my intention and ended by determining me to tackle it. And it led to diligent scientific peregrinations which had for their aim the search for the Vitam imprendere Vero. These pages are the fruit; and they complete a whole cycle of analyses carried out by a physician with all the ardour of his purpose of illuminating a portion of the grand chapter of Human pathology.

I have, in part, reached my aim, I hope in the interests of the reader, so that he may not close the book with a feeling that he has wasted his time. And I hope also that, whatever be his judgment, he will appreciate my fundamental conception.

If ignorance or negligence do not cloud my discernment, I believe the conception is new from several points of view. Above all a new field for doctors, to whose honour would certainly redound. an addition to well-known scientific victories,

that of analysis with a view to facing the various assonances and dissonances that concur in determining all socio-historic connections.

The second half of the eighteenth century has introduced a new element, which has extended the horizon of intellectual man so that, henceforward, he lives, at one and the same time, the individual life and the life of the world. And we may with reason foresee that, in the process of time, this movement will always more and more tend to determine the so-called solidarity of the human family.

In this movement lies the fundamental conception which has inspired my book. Let the intellectual reader respond!

CHAPTER IV.

GENERAL IMPRESSIONS

OF NORTH AMERICAN LIFE

Does there exist an impartial historian?

It seems to me that the life of a People is the Psyche of that people, reflected in all its mental and material manifestations. For its Psyche is the Weeping Philosopher's « eternal renaissance », the punta rei» of that great classic Thinker. In the light of fundamental principles we un. derstand the almost insurmountable difficulty of compressing the life of a people into a definition more or less defective and partial. What value could a history of that kind possess ?

None, says Waitz; it would be a marvellous panorama, but without an eye to observe its essence. Waitz's conception has been confirmed in other spheres.

With greut acumen Du Bois Raymond argued that the Biblical passage « and there was light » is physiologically false. Light was light at the moment when some infusoria was able to see it: without optic and acoustic nerves this world, shining with colour and echoing with harmony