The progress of the disease may be divided into eight distinct stages—No. 8 being arrived at, by gradations more or less distinct, directly from No. 1. 1. HYSTERIA (including dyspepsia and menstrual irregularities). 2. SPINAL IRRITATION, with reflex action on uterus, ovaries, &c., and giving rise to uterine displacements, amaurosis, hemiplegia, paraplegia, &c. 3. EPILEPTOID FITS, or HYSTERICAL EPILEPSY. 4. CATALEPTIC FITS. 5. EPILEPTIC FITS. 6. IDIOTCY. 7. MANIA. 8. DEATH. My statement, that death is indeed the direct climax of the series, might be proved by several cases which have occurred in my own practice, one only of which I shall relate. Before doing so, I may mention that Dr. James Russell, of Birmingham, has recorded a case in the _Medical Times and Gazette_, Oct. 31, 1863, in which a male patient, æt. 32, died under his care in the Birmingham General Hospital. Complete paralysis both of sensation and motion in the lower part of the body and lower extremities attacked him after an unusually excessive venereal indulgence. There had been gradual exhaustion for the last twelve or fourteen years, from this cause. There was no attempt at recovery, and he died in four months from the date of the attack. The case that occurred in my own practice was as follows: ——, æt. 19, has been gradually becoming ill since the age of nine; does not look older than the latter age, though the sexual organs are as highly developed as they should be. Has been for many months in a metropolitan hospital suffering from acute headache, but has received no benefit. For two years has been perfectly blind. She was found dead, and with every evidence of having expired during a paroxysm of abnormal excitement. These cases will illustrate how important it is to arrest the disease _ab initio_, and the treatment must be the same whether we wish to cure functional disturbance, arrest organic disease, or, finally, if we have only a chance, of averting death itself. The time required for recovery must depend, not only, as has been already hinted, on the duration of illness, but also on the peculiar temperament of the patient, and judicious after-treatment; this latter requiring long perseverance on the part of both practitioner and the friends of his patient; and it is as we meet a favourable or unfavourable case that the opinions of Brown-Séquard, as to instant cure on removal of irritation, or of Handfield Jones, as to cure after a long interval, are verified. I have pleasure in stating that, with reference to the origin of most nervous affections of females, I have, in frequent conversation with Brown-Séquard, found that the views of this distinguished physiologist entirely coincide with my own, and he often expressed himself as satisfied that destruction of the nerve causing irritation was the only effective cure; the best mode of carrying out this destruction was, in his opinion, yet to be determined. He used actual cautery.