the cause of fatal illnesses and accidents. Clouston reports the case of a lady who by a series of extraordinary misrepresentations and clever impostures raised large sums of money on no security whatever, and spent them as recklessly; imposed on jewellers, so that they trusted her with goods worth hundreds of pounds; furnished grand houses at the expense of trusting upholsterers; introduced herself by open impudence to one great nobleman after another, and then introduced her dupes, who, on the faith of these distinguished social connections, at once disgorged money. To one person she was a great literary character; to another of royal descent; to another she had immense expectations; to another she was a stern religionist. At last all this lying, cheating, scheming, and imposture developed into marked insanity and brain disease, of which she soon died; and it was seen that all these people had been the dupes of a lunatic whose very boldness, cunning, and mendacity had been the direct result of her insanity. S. K. Towle has reported the case of a man whom he had under {145} his care at the Soldiers' Home near Milwaukee, Wis., as follows: “He had been a lieutenant in a volunteer regiment, and I gave him rather more privileges on that account, but after a time I found that he was more nearly an example of total depravity than I had ever seen. There was no truth in him, and he was intelligent enough to make his lies often seem plausible to me as well as to others. By his writing and talking and conduct generally he kept the patients and their friends in a ferment, and gave me more trouble than the whole hospital besides. He had a small scar about the middle of his forehead, which he said was due to a slight flesh wound from a glancing ball in battle. While he was under my care an older brother came to see him, and he told me that up to the time his brother, my patient, who so tried my patience, entered the army he was almost a model young man, amiable and affectionate, the pet of the whole family and intimate friends; ‘But,’ said he, ‘ever since he came back he has been possessed of a devil if ever any one was.’ After a time, much to my delight, he asked for a transfer to the Soldiers' Home at Dayton, Ohio, which I got for him with commendable alacrity; and he went there. His conduct at Dayton was the same as with me, but after a few months he quite suddenly died, when an autopsy was made. In sawing open the skull, at the point of the small scar on his forehead the saw came directly upon the butt end of a conical bullet, two-thirds of which projected through the skull, piercing the membranes and into the brain. The internal table of the skull had been considerably splintered by the ball, the pieces not being entirely separated, and there was evidence of severe chronic inflammation all around, and quite a collection of pus in the brain where the ball projected into it. Here was the devil that had