[Sidenote: Serjeant Shee] I have said “a little learning is a dangerous thing,” and it appears to me that there never was a case in which the adage was so applicable as it is in this. Of all the works of God, the one best calculated to fill us with wonder and admiration, and convince us of our dependence on our Maker, and the utter nothingness of ourselves, is the mortal coil in which we live, and breathe, and think, and have our being. Every minute of our lives functions are performed at our will, the unerring accuracy of which nothing but Omniscience and Omnipotence could have secured. We feel and see exactly what takes place, and yet the moment we attempt to explain what takes place, the instant we endeavour to give a reason for what we know, and see, and do, the mystery of creation--“God created man to His own image; to the image of God created He him”--arrests our course, and we are flung back upon conjecture and doubt. We know in a sense--we suppose--that the soft medullary substance which is within the cavity of the head is the seat of thought, of sensation, and of will. We know that that soft medullary substance is continued down the middle of the back, protected by a bony duct or canal, within which bony duct or canal it lies embedded; and we know that from the sides of this bony duct and from this medullary substance proceed an infinite variety of nerves, the conduits of sensation from all parts of the body to the soul, and of muscles connected and dependent on them, the instruments of voluntary motion. This we know, and we know that by that process all the ordinary actions of our lives, at our own will, are effected with the most wonderful precision. Sometimes, however, these nerves and muscles depart from their normal character, and, instead of being the mere instruments of the will of the soul, become irregular, convulsive, tumultuary, vindicating to themselves a sort of independent vitality, totally regardless of the authority to which they are ordinarily subject. When thrown into this state of irritation and excitement their effects are known by the general name of convulsions. It is remarkable, unlike most other fine names, they are not a modern adaptation. The ancients had them to express the very same thing; the spasmodic and tetanic affections were known then, and as much about them hundreds and thousands of years ago as is known now. Tetanic convulsions have in later times been divided into two specific branches of tetanus--idiopathic and traumatic. We have heard a great deal of these two descriptions of tetanus. One question my lord asked, which was answered by Dr. Todd--it would have been more satisfactory if my lord had asked what the meaning of the English of “idiopathic,” viz., self-generating, was; the answer given to the question, What does idiopathic mean? was “constitutional.” True, but that means nothing, or, if anything, it means “unaccountable.” LORD CAMPBELL--Without external injury.