" Did you know that person on earth?"

"No, M. Leuret; for els months I have worked for the castle, on the security of the king, and have not drawn a cent. I looked at the sun whilst I worked, and when my eyes pained me, I stopped, and then looked again."

"You think you have enemies; who are they?"

"Yes, I have enemies here; first the parlor waiter. There arc others whom I hear, bat do not see; they are under the head of my bed; if you will let me search in the body of the building, I shall soon find them. The vaults are under the head of my bed, and there are my men, who will carry my orders to Paris. I have, besides, many other enemies. At night I hear women beneath me. They tell me everything."

"What do they tell you?"

"They tell me I am a great idler. They talk to me incessantly when I am in bed, when I am resting, when I am in the court; they talk to me everywhere, and always to annoy and insult me."

"How is it that you do not now hear women's voices?"

"Probably because there ore many persons about."

"But, by your bedside; how is it that your neighbors do not hear these same voices?"

"Because the conversations are carried on in a low tone, and often only by signs."

Having listened very calmly to this narration, Leuret spoke to A. as follows: -

"Now, A., I will tell you what I think of all you have been Baying: there is not one word of truth in it; all that you have said is nonsense, and you are in Bicetre because you are mad."

A. replied: "M. Leuret, I do not think I am mad; I cannot help seeing the persons who are under my bed and in the vaults, since they are there. You say that all I have said is nonsense: it may be so; but I know what I have seen and heard. After what you say, then, there is no hope of my leaving this place?"

"You shall leave it, but upon one condition; listen attentively to what I am about to say. You will only leave it when you are no longer mad, and I will tell you what you must do to be so no longer. You must look neither at the sun nor at the stars; you must not believe that there are vaults under your bed, because it is not so; neither do you hear voices, nor are any persons there. Moreover, you must never refuse to work, whatever you are ordered to do. If you wish me to be pleased with you, you must obey, because I only ask what is reasonable. Will you promise neither to think nor speak any more of these follies?"

"If you wish me to speak of them no more, because you say they are follies, I will not."

"Will you promise me not to think of them?"

The patient hesitated considerably, but the point being persisted on, he replied: -

"No sir, I will not think any more of them."

"Will you promise me to work every day when you are ordered?"

"I have' a trade; I want to go out to work at it."

"I have told you on what conditions you can go and work at your trade. Now, I ask you if you agree to work?"

The patient was obstinate.

"As you have often broken your word on this point, and your promises are not to be relied on, you shall receive the douche, and it will be continued every day, until you come, of your own accord, to ask for work; and until you own, also, of your own accord, that all the things you have said are nonsense."

The douche was administered, and was so painful that he soon gave in.

"You wish me to go and work; I will go. You desire me to think no more of what I have said, because they are fancies; I agree. If any one talks to me about it, I shall say it is not true, that I only had fancies in my head."

"Will you go and work to-day?" - "If I am forced to it, I must."

"Will you go willingly?" - "I will go, if I am forced."

"You should say, that you understand it is to your interest to go and work. Will you go willingly, yes or no?" The patient hesitated, and the douche was again given, when he quickly said, "Yes, sir, all that I said to you was nonsense; I will go to work."

"You have been mad?" - "No, I have not been mad." - "You have not been mad?" - "I think not, at least," - "The douche again!" - "Have yon been mad?" - "It is then being mad to have fancies, to see, and to hear?" - "Yes." - "Well, then, sir, I have been mad. There were neither women, nor men, nor companions, but it was all madness."

"When you think yon hear something of that kind, what will you say?" - "I shall say it is nonsense, and not dwell on it-"

"I expect that to-morrow you come and thank me for having rid you of your foolish ideas." - "I promise that I will work, and thank you for having rid me of my ideas."

On the evening of the same day the douche was administered to him by M. Auband, for having forgotten to go to work during the day.....

September 13. This morning A. came towards Leuret, as soon as he appeared in the courtyard, and thanked him for having rid him of his fancies; he was waiting the hour to go to work. Since yesterday he had neither seen nor heard anything; they were, he said, illusions; he was now convinced of it.

September 14. The same protestations as yesterday.....

A. neither saw nor heard anything, and spoke jestingly of his past fancies. Leuret tried to entrap him, but A. skilfully avoided it, always asserting that his ideas were nonsensical. .... For several days Leuret renewed his attempts, but unsuccessfully.

September 25. There can be no doubt of the radical cure of A. This man, prior to the latter treatment, was thin and melancholy; he had now recovered his corpulence, at the same time with his cheerfulness. He slept quietly, and was good-humored to everybody. He thought he had seen; he thought he had heard, were all the expressions he made use of in replying to questions on the different nature of his hallucinations. He asked for his dismissal, which was granted to him on the 3d of October, twenty days after the long conversation of the 12th of September.

"The cure of A.," says Leuret, "was owing, doubtless, in the first place, to the douche; and, secondly, to the care which I took, whilst he was in the bath, to speak on all the subjects connected with his insanity, and to make him give me rational replies.... I was not contented so long as there was, or appeared to be a mental reservation in his words. If I had been contented with A. 's reply, I should have been at a disadvantage, and, probably, not have succeeded. I was not over delicate towards his self-love; I obliged him to utter the word ' mad,' in order, if possible, to make the idea of madness and of his malady inseparable, by the use of a repulsive epithet.

"The bath treatment once over, I wished him to work, in order that he might give me proof of acting like a rational man.

"I often spread traps for the insane, who, after the douche, appear rational. I return to them, pretending to be sorry for the remarks I made, and the distress I caused them, and, if they are caught, I show them wherein they were deceived, in order to put them constantly on their guard. As in this kind of strife, my object was not to punish, but to cure, of course, I was careful to proportion the stratagems I employed to the degree of intellect of the patients whom I addressed."*

This very interesting case, the chief points of which we have extracted, appears a powerful argument in favor of the opinion we have elsewhere pronounced on the difficulty of applying the treatment of Leuret, in all cases, to patients in private asylums* Whatever talent the physician may possess who puts this system into execution, we repeat to him that men of education, accustomed to compare, to reflect, and to will, will not so readily yield up their ideas, and that dreadful scenes might ensue on telling them they were mad, especially in obliging them to acknowledge it. That the hallucinated subject reasons falsely, on one or two points is incontestable, but on the rest his judgment is sound; would not this disposition of mind of which ho is conscious contribute to strengthen his false sensations? The world is full of men of imperfect judgment. Let them listen to the most eloquent, persuasive, and logical orator, but who offends their prejudices, and not one of their conviction* will be changed. Who, then, can be persuaded in life? The infinitely small number of those who are gifted with a cool judgment, and lively and impressible natures; the immense majority obey only their passions, great or trivial. Is it likely we can do that for madmen which we cannot accomplish for rational men? It is certainly necessary to distinguish the errors resulting from disease from those consequent on education, and Leuret was right in saying that they could never prevent a few from believing in the immediate coming of the Messiah, nor cure certain of the populace of their faith in sorcery; but have not the errors which this physician attributes to the disease their source in education? How can they be conquered by an open attack? The victory may be easy in a hospital; we think it much more rare in private asylums, particularly when attempted on firm or proud characters. All have not been cured who have undergone this treatment. Three years ago we were consulted by a priest, who had a mania that he was a bishop. Under the douche, he appeared to recognise his error, and quitted Bicetre. These were his words: " I acknowledged myself wrong because there was no other means of escaping the punishment, and because all my assertions would have been useless in a place where the doctor is all-powerful; but in receiving it, I was not the less persuaded that all I said was true." His expressions were unjust and exaggerated, but the fact of dissimulation existed nevertheless. In our own practice, when recourse had been had to dissimulation, the patients have said, when out of our hearing: "We yield because we are powerless against force, but we are not the less certain of the reality of our ideas."

* Leuret, Da Traitement moral do la Folk-, p. 186. Hallucines, Traite-meet des Hallucination*, 1 vol 8vo. Paris, 1849.

Pariset, in an address to the Acadlmie de Medecine, has made other objections to this method. "What can severity do," he inquires, " for the hallucinated? on those who are disturbed with strange sounds, voices, words, phrases, or discourses? . . To wring from these unfortunates, through suffering, an avowal that they do not hear what they do hear, is to make them utter a falsehood, and that falsehood, by degrading them in their own eyes, fills them with hatred and disdain towards their physician; and as they are not insane from their hallucinations, but from the false ideas attached to them, to attack these ideas in order to destroy them, to combat them by arguments and violence in order to bring the patient back to the single sentiment of his internal impressions, is most frequently but to imbitter his life with fresh torments."*

These objections do not influence Leuret, who, after refuting them, adds: "If the recollection of the service you have rendered the afflicted person does not dispel his resentment, be it so; let him hate you, so long as he is cured."†

We will make but one observation, which is, that it is not always without bad results that the insane person is made to acknowledge his error.