The chronic rheumatism does also, occasionally, affect the sheath of the nerve in such a manner as to produce a deposit which sets up neuralgic pain, must also be admitted, although I believe the number of such cases to be preposterously over-estimated by careless observers. It has several times happened that a patient has come under my care with so-called "rheumatic affection of the nerves" of the thigh and leg, and that on examination one has found all the symptoms and clinical history of a neurosis, but not the slightest valid argument for a diagnosis of the rheumatic diathesis. Indeed, upon this point, I think it is time that a decided opinion should be expressed. I firmly believe that a large number of sciatic patients have their health ruined by treatment directed to a supposed rheumatic taint which is purely imaginary. The state of medical reasoning, suggested by the way in which too many practitioners decide that such and such pains are rheumatic in their origin, is a melancholy subject for reflection. Nearly always it will be found, on cross-examination, that the state of the urine has been made the basis of a confident diagnosis; the practitioner will tell you that the urine was loaded, _i. e._, with lithtaes. He ignores the fact that nothing is more common, in neurotic patients who are perfectly guiltless of rheumatic propensities, than a fluctuation between lithiasis and oxaluria, neither of which phenomena, under the circumstances, indicates any more than a temporary defect of secondary assimilation of food, produced by nervous commotion. I may perhaps find room, on a future page, for a few further remarks on the subject; at present I only put in a caution against too ready an acceptance of the rheumatic hypothesis. II. VISCERAL NEURALGIAS. _Uterine and Ovarian Neuralgia._--This is an important group of neuralgic affections, and one which I cannot help thinking is strangely misappreciated, very often, in a therapeutic point of view. In one aspect these affections possess a special interest, namely this, that they are more frequently dependent on peripheral irritation for their immediate causation than any other group of neuralgias. If we consider the great copiousness of the nervous supply to the uterus and ovaries, and the powerfully disturbing character of the functional processes which are periodically occurring in these organs, we shall be at no loss to understand how this may be. The amount force of the peripheral influence and which are brought to bear upon the central nervous system by the functions of the uterus and ovaries are greater than any that emanate from the diseases and functional disturbances of any other organ in the body.