often been noticed that such friction has completely rubbed off the hair or whisker on the affected side: this happens the more easily, because the neuralgic affection itself impairs the nutrition of the hair and makes it more brittle, as we shall have occasion to show more fully hereafter. The general appearance of a confirmed neuralgic of the type now described is very distressing, and the history of his case fully corresponds to it. He is moody and depressed, he dreads the least movement, and the least current of air; he hardly dares masticate food at all, more especially if the inferior maxillary division of the nerve be implicated (as is generally the case sooner or later), for this movement re-excites the pain with great violence. Nutrition is very commonly kept up by slops, and is thus very insufficiently maintained: this failure of nutrition is itself a decidedly powerful influence in aggravating the disease. And there is a still further calamity which is not unlikely to occur. The patient may fly to the stupefaction of drink as a relief to his sufferings, and, if he has once experienced the temporary comfort of drunken anæsthesia, is excessively likely to repeat the experiment. But this is another and one of the most fatally certain methods of hastening degeneration of nerve-centres, and the ultimate effect, therefore, is disastrous in every way. Although the neuralgias of the degenerative period are thus fatally progressive, on the whole, there are some curious occasional anomalies. Many cases are recorded, and I have myself seen such, in which the attacks of pain, after reaching a very considerable degree of intensity, have ceased for many months, whether under the influence of remedies or not it is difficult to say with certainty, but probably far more from independent causes. Whatever may be the reason of these sudden arrests, however, certain it is that they are very seldom permanent, the pain returning sooner or later, like an inexorable fate.