is in most cases followed by an increase of the mental derangement. Pritchard recognises four stages of dementia or fatuity:-- _First Stage._--Forgetfulness and impaired memory. This is common to old age. In most cases passing events produce little, if any, impression, whilst the past is remembered with tolerable freshness. _Second Stage._--Incoherence and unreason, characterised by a total loss of the reasoning faculty. _Third Stage._--Incomprehension. The person so affected is quite incapable of comprehending the meaning of the simplest question; and should he attempt to reply, his answer is generally remote from the subject. _Fourth Stage._--Inappetency. The animal instincts are lost. The unfortunate sufferer lives, and that is all, being scarcely conscious of life. Organic life is all that is left. DELIRIUM TREMENS. SIMPLE DELIRIUM. SOMNAMBULISM. SLEEP-DRUNKENNESS. =Delirium Tremens.=--A temporary form of insanity, the result of excessive indulgence in spirituous liquors. The drunkard, under the effects of intoxication, “can derive no privilege from a madness voluntarily contracted, but is answerable to the law equally as if he had been in full possession of his faculties at the time” (1 Hale 32; Co. Litt. 247). The intoxication of the defendant may be taken as a mitigating circumstance, showing that the deed was unpremeditated. A person rendered incapable of using his reason by intoxication brought about by others, is not liable for his actions. =Simple Delirium.=--Acts performed during attacks of certain diseases--fever, sunstroke, &c.--accompanied with delirium, do not render the individual liable to punishment; and wills made during the continuance of the disorder, if they contain no statement inconsistent with the known wishes and desires of the party during health, are valid, the law looking more to the good sense of the will as a proof of a lucid interval, than to the proved existence of such lucid interval.