The symptoms accompanying softening of the brain, present a considerable variation. Among the more prominent, may be mentioned an unsteady or tottering gait, partial palsy, thick and inarticulate speech, feeble memory, disordered intellect, dull pain or heaviness in the head, frequent drowsiness, formication, numbness or rigidity, or occasional involuntary contraction of the muscles of the upper extremities. =Abscess= of the brain, differs from softening, to which it may have some points of resemblance, in the purulent matter being contained in an irregular cavity, lined with a more or less distinct membranous cyst. Flakes of lymph are frequently found in these abscesses, giving the matter much the appearance of that contained in scrofulous abscesses, and they are most commonly found in subjects who present the usual symptoms of the strumous diathesis. While these collections are unquestionably often the result of inflammation, yet it has been claimed that they may result from previous disease of a suppurative character in the lungs, and perhaps other organs, the purulent matter being taken up by the veins and carried into the general circulation, and finally deposited in the substance of the brain. Abscesses may be found in any portion of the brain substance, or the purulent accumulation may be found between the bone and dura mater, or between the two layers of the arachnoid. In the latter cases, the disease may generally be traced to caries of some of the bones of the head, as of the petrous or mastoid portions of the temporal, or of the bones of the nasal cavity, involving the cribriform portion of the ethmoid. Again, abscesses in the brain may result from external violence, as from a blow or fall upon the head. It is remarkable, that in these cases, some months may elapse between the date of the injury and death. =Hardening.= Induration of the cerebral substance, is a condition not readily distinguished during life from that of softening, the two states being accompanied by symptoms of a similar character. Dr. Jones, who has charge of the male department of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, and has had many opportunities for examining the brains of insane patients, tells me that he found hardening, nearly as frequently as softening, in these cases, and never could tell beforehand, with certainty, which condition might be present.