that all degenerates are criminals, anarchists or lunatics. The author, the artist, aye, even the eloquent minister of Christ's gospel sometimes belongs to this abnormal class. They are closely related to the anthropological family which furnishes the world its Prendergasts, its Guiteaus and its Marquis De Sades.

Dryden, you know, tells us,

"Great wit to madness nearly is allied,

And thin partitions do their bounds divide."

While we believe this to be true in some instances, yet we do not wish to be understood as accepting en masse the pessimistic doctrines of Lombroso or Nordeau, who evidently enjoy the thought that the world is degenerating from a high plane, rather than the optimistic though rational view that through evolution we are advancing upwards from a lower plane. An American dude, who when asked concerning his ancestry replied, "Oh I'm the first of my line you know, my father was in trade." It was probably this same individual who asked the elder Dumas if he was not an octoroon. He answered, "Yes" "and your father"? "He was a quadroon," "and your grandfather"? "A mulatto," "and his father"? "A negro." "And may I inquire who his father was"? "He, sir, of course was an ape, my ancestry begins where yours ends." It is the degenerate offspring of oftentimes honest and respected parentage who is the shining star of the theory of race degeneracy:

"Evolution ever climbing after some ideal good,

And reversion ever dragging evolution in the mud."

We believe that the history of the world is one long positive verification of the doctrine of evolution, the fundamental principle of which is the survival of the fittest. The weak have been ever pushed to the wall, and only the strong, the healthy, the brave, have successfully battled with encroaching multitudes and permanently placed their banners high upon the bulwarks of the nations of this earth. We are frequently brought face to face with statistics which prove that insanity, hysteria, criminality and moral imbecility are on the increase, out of proportion to the increase in population. Accepting this as true, still we claim that in the universal application of the law, the results

would be the same.

All conditions tending to degeneracy tend to sterility. I once had under my care at the same time the grandmother, the mother and the grandson-members of the same family-and all afflicted with the manifestations of insanity. The grandmother had been a woman of ordinary mental capacity, the mother less stable and with an early tendency to hysteria, the grandson an intellectual and moral imbecile, whose generative organs were undeveloped and who was entirely incapable of procreation. The last of a degenerating family. The apparent increase of the abnormal and defective classes in the United States may be partially accounted for by the constant pouring into this country of these classes. You will recollect that early in the settlement of this country our Puritan fathers were plagued with a class of people who had been arrested for various offenses in the mother country, and upon trial were found "not guilty if they left at once for New England."

Abnormal brain development is abhorrent to the physiologist. The relations, however, existing between criminology and psychology is very intimate. So well has this fact been established that the proper study of the criminal classes has been conceded to the alienist. Crime itself exhibits such peculiar and unreasonable conditions that the study of the criminal at once becomes of great interest to the psychologist. In Belgium, the government recognizing this obligation to the criminal classes, has appointed commissioners, alienists of known ability, to examine all criminals confined in the public jails. Every day our newspapers teem with accounts of strange and unnatural crimes, many of them motiveless, and consequently unaccountable, except on the grounds of abnormal brain development or moral perversion. Now, if our moral pervert is but the legitimate outcome of a degenerating race, we should probably not treat him as a criminal or ordinary felon. There is a class of philosophers who believe that all crime is the result of abnormal or imperfect development, but who also believe that as the laws are made to protect the innocent from the effects of crime and not to protect the criminal, that all crime, whether committed by mentally unsound or by the merely abnormal, should require the punishment of the perpetrator. On the other hand we are taught by equally intelligent sociologists that defective and

abnormal conditions absolve the perpetrator of crime from legal responsibility. We are satisfied that mental unsoundness in the criminal class is generally a mark of physical and mental degeneracy, and that hereditary influences, with this class, are especially strong.

Natural, spiritual and civil laws all entail penalties for those who break them, and of these, natural law is the most remorseless. Given a drunken grandfather, a weakened and diseased father-we have almost certainly a defective criminal or insane grandson.

We do not pretend to say that one can inherit insanity, but we do say that the vulnerable cell structure is directly inherited. from weakened cell structure, whether caused by disease or dissipation. Degenerate or defective man, from whatever cause his deficiencies arise, has less discernment, greater temptations and less will power to resist them, and consequently more often falls into the commission of crime, and in consequence is deprived of his liberty. These are the people who overcrowd our police courts, and are frequent boarders at the work houses. Would it not be better both for the community and the criminal himself, if he were placed in custody, and his degenerate condition operate as a bar to his release, than to have him committed to the work house for a thirty day period ten times a year? I do not believe that the perpetrators of any crime should go scot free, and as the average convict in many ways, either physically, morally or mentally falls below the normal standard, I believe that the best interests of the community demand his incarceration and detention until his disposition to criminal acts be overcome or eradicated. Therefore, if a brain be abnormally developed we may look for absence of sympathy or interest in the world or humanity, lack of knowledge and judgment, inattention, criminal tendencies, feebleness of aversion to crime, atrophy of the notion of duty and morality, all the direct result of environment either hereditary or physical. We have attempted to portray some differential details between normal and abnormal brain development, and we realize that the more complete the normal mental growth, the nearer we come to Him who gives us power to grow, develop and perfect our mentalities.

GASTROTOMY FOR THE REMOVAL OF FOREIGN

BODIES.

By Dr. George F. Inch,

Assistant Physician Michigan Asylum for the Insane,

Kalamazoo, Mich.

C. M. B. Female, aged thirty. Was admitted to the Michigan Asylum on February 7, 1900, suffering from profound melancholia.

Family history is of some interest as regards the causation of her mental ailment. Her father, mother and one cousin died of tuberculosis; her paternal great-grandmother died of general paralysis and one brother was insane for a number of years.

The patient was regarded as a healthy, normal child mentally, and her physical health was excellent. At the age of twenty she had a severe attack of typhoid fever, during which she was very delirious, but recovered and was apparently as well as formerly.

The mental alienation made its appearance about five weeks before her admission to the asylum. The immediate causes were supposed to be her worn out physical condition, combined with emotional strain, the result of a too frequent attendance at revival meetings. These, no doubt, in an unstable mind, caused by hereditary tendencies, may have been factors. Upon admission she had many delusions, mostly of a depressive nature, e. g., that she had committed a great sin, that she was eternally lost, etc. Previous to admission she made several attempts to commit suicide. Physically she was feeble and emaciated, due largely to agitation and frequent refusal of food. The internal organs of the body were apparently normal. Blood examination showed red corpuscles to the number of 2,500,000 per cubic millimeter; hæmoglobin eighty-five per cent. There was a slight increase of acidity found in examin

ing the stomach contents. Urine was normal and gynæcological examination negative.

There was no change in her condition until three weeks after admission when she began to improve, but did not become entirely free from delusions. This comfortable period lasted two months when again she grew agitated, made several attempts to commit suicide and refused her food until it became necessary to feed her through a nasal tube.

A month later, on May 29th, she told her nurse she had swallowed a brass curtain fixture, but as she was in no particular distress her statement was doubted. The following morning she complained of a pain in her chest and neck, but upon examining her throat nothing abnormal could be seen. A bristle probang was then introduced in the oesophagus six inches and withdrawn. This brought the fixture into the throat from which it was expelled by the patient's own efforts.

This experience did not lessen her desire to die and notwithstanding she was watched closely she succeeded on July 18th in obtaining and swallowing two hatpins, each five and one-half inches in length. Several hours afterwards she told the nurse what she had done and was immediately put to bed and hypodermic injections of morphine and a large amount of bread were given her in the hope of lessening the chances of perforation.

On examination she did not seem very tender over the stomach, but complained of periodical attacks of severe pain. A small sore was noticed at this time on her arm and on close examination the heads of two common pins could be felt. Patient stated that she had run these pins into her arm the day before.

On July 19th she was in great distress and required large doses of morphine to quiet her. The following day she was more comfortable, but did not obtain any decided relief until after passing from the bowels on July 21st two pieces of iron, each about an inch in length and about a quarter of an inch in diameter, three nails, one screw, two tacks, two common pins and three small pieces of glass. A few days later on examining the abdomen a sharp point beneath the skin and the subcutaneous tissue, could be distinctly felt in the epigastrium. Dr. Rush McNair of Kalamazoo was called in consultation and concurred in the advisability of operating at once.