disease, of low febrile states, starvation, etc. Delusions are sometimes named in groups, according to the prevailing type of mental action; then, we have exalted delusions, in which the false notions and beliefs are rose-colored or extremely exaggerated (as in paralytic dementia, etc.). Again, we speak of delusions of persecutions, where the patient fancies himself pursued, maltreated, insulted, or where he insanely follows up and persecutes others. Such classification is useful for purposes of clinical and psychical study. Imperative conceptions or controlling morbid ideas and desires are ideal delusions presenting certain peculiarities; one of which is that of growth by accretion and assimilation by a sort of false logic and grotesque analogical reasoning, until from a mere fancy or notion the growth invades and governs the entire subjective life of the subject. VIOLENCE is a complex symptom always deserving of study and psychological analysis. It may present itself as an increase of a naturally bad disposition or as a wholly new exhibition of irritability and temper. Beyond these limits it may assume the shape of abusive and foul language (not before employed by the subject), or of physical acts of a destructive or dangerous character. Viewing the condition from a psychological standpoint, we should endeavor to distinguish between merely impulsive or animal violence due to over-activity of the emotional state or to a loss of self-control (cortical inhibition), and quasi-deliberate acts due either to special delusions or to delirium. Abnormal irritability, or increase in an {24} originally bad temper, is met with in hysteria, neurasthenia, and partial dementia. Masturbators and epileptics frequently exhibit this condition. In a state less pathological, from mere fatigue or overwork, irritability may temporarily show itself as a result of reduced cortical energy; and in such cases rest, a cup of tea or coffee, alcohol, or even ordinary food, restores good-nature and equanimity as by magic. In little children bad temper is a frequent precursor of illness, more especially of cerebral disease. Greater degrees of violence in speech and acts are met with in hysteria, neurasthenia, and in many forms of insanity, in the guise of exaggerations of animal propensities, to make a noise, break objects, injure persons in an aimless general way. Voluntary or quasi-voluntary acts of violence are those which are done under the influence of hallucinations, delusions, or of delirious ideas, usually by insane patients. The delirium of acute or inflammatory disease or of the typhous state is rarely active, although pericarditis sometimes gives rise to very violent delirium, and the mild delirium with picking and gesticulating of pneumonia, typhoid fever, etc. may sometimes simulate mania. In general terms, the words and acts of patients represent the ideas passing through their minds in a rapid confused way, much as in dreams.