The physical diagnosis of disease has been facilitated to an extent far beyond what the most sanguine physician of the last century could have deemed possible, by the discovery and practical application of the stethoscope, the pleximeter, the speculum in various forms, the ophthalmoscope, the laryngoscope and the thermometer; while chemistry and the microscopy have been applied successfully to the investigation of the various excretions, and especially of the urine, bile, and in the study of digestion where the process could be observed in its various stages in the person of Alexis St. Martin. But the field for the medical historian broadens immensely and can best be appreciated by study of a catalogue of medical books and periodicals of the present century. CASE OF HYSTERICAL BLINDNESS. BY D. B. SMITH, M. D. Professor of Diseases of the Eye and Ear in the Medical Department of Western Reserve University. On the fourth day of June I was called to see Miss C. R., aged nineteen years, a clerk, who told me that she had gone to bed the night before perfectly well, and that when she awoke in the morning she found herself totally blind, and had remained so up to the time of my visit, about eleven o’clock. This blindness she said had come on without the least pain or bad feeling, and the eyes were not in the least degree uncomfortable, nor had they been during the morning. No cause on the part of the patient could be assigned for the attack, and nothing of the kind had ever happened to any member of the family before. The external examination gave not the slightest evidence of any disease of the eyeballs or lids. The conjunctiva was perfectly normal, as were also the cornea iris and pupil. The ophthalmoscope revealed a perfectly healthy retina and optic nerve and clear media. The tension of the eyeball was normal. There was not the least constitutional disturbance, if we except a marked nervousness caused by the fear that she would be permanently blind. The patient declared most positively that she could not see the lamp even when held close to the eyes. From the fact that the pupils were perfectly normal and moveable under the influence of light, and that the patient put out her hand to shake hands with me in a way that I felt she could not do if she did not see, I diagnosed a case of hysterical blindness. It was more than a simulated blindness, for all the anxiety and mental distress of actual blindness were present; and I am satisfied the patient was honest in her belief that she could not see. The ordinary remedies for hysteria were given and were taken faithfully and regularly, and although for several days she took large doses of the bromide, valerianate of ammonia, hyoscyamus, assafœtida, and kindred drugs, there was not the slightest improvement in her vision. These remedies were continued from the fourth to the fourteenth