THE DANGERS OF SCHOOL ATTENDANCE.

1385 colonies should be regularly published. Major Ross admitted that there were difficulties in the way of organising the definite and centralised sanitary scheme thus indicated. Of course, it might be found advisable after discussion to modify the details while retaining the principles. But he maintained that, if we wish for a continuous policy against malaria and the other grave diseases in the tropical colonies we must reorganise our sanitary system. A short discussion and a vote of thanks to Major Ross for his lecture brought the proceedings to a close. A REMARKABLE

CASE OF PERSONALITY.

MULTIPLE

drawing." Moral delinquency was exhibited in another of her personalities. She was then violent and cruel, bullied her little sister, and on one occasion she would have pushed the latter into the fire if help had not arrived. When she grew up to be about 16 years of age her normal personality had practically entirely vanished. She was sometimes the individual which she called a "thing"but more usually she was another-viz., "good creature."" In some of her personalities, adds Dr. Wilson, habits of baby-talk and a forward unmaidenly manner existed and when menstruation was established no difference was produced in her mental condition. When 17 years of age she developed another personality in which she was self-willed, disobedient to her parents, subject to strong eroti impulses, and inclined to wantonness. In all, says erotic Dr. ’Wilson, about a dozen different personalities, alternatDr. < ingor ing occurring at irregular intervals, constituted the total hi psychical life. -’’ This opens the very serious question of her whi( constantly confronts us, that of responsibility"for acts which in such states of abnormal consciousness. don< done

RECENT clinical investigations by physicians, especially of the school of Charcot, in regard to the subject of "double consciousness " have brought to light many facts of professional and medico-legal interest. In the Jonrnal of Mental Science for October Dr. Albert Wilson reports a remarkable case of multiple consciousness in the person of a young girl who at different times of her life exhibited the varying and different characters of one or other of a dozen "personalities." At the age of 12t years the girl was attacked with THE DANGERS OF SCHOOL ATTENDANCE. influenza and cerebral meningitis lasting about six weeks. iv MR. C. 0. TREW, writing in the Times of Nov. 9th, points The multiplicity of personalities which she exhibited during out that the great and proper desire of educational authoher life began during this illness and in the following rities to stimulate a high average attendance may lead to circumstances. In the third week of the illness she was all to the community. Where a cent. per cent. attenddelirious and maniacal and showed intense fear of imaginary danger anc is aimed at children are sure to be sent to school when ance snakes (visual hallucinations). She was mentally blind in the are physically unfit. To use Mr. Trew’s words, though that she could not recognise people, "yet a hand or any they a a of receiving instruction through temcrease in the counterpane became to her a snake." Chorei- "absolutely incapable or incipient malaise they are sent that they may Pox porary form fits and opisthotonos occurred in the fourth week, the 12’Dl miss. Thus attendance is too often the seed of an attacks being terminated by temporary coma. In the fifth not We feel that there is great force in this epl epidemic." week recovery set in and intelligence returned. In the The connexion of school attendance with epidemics rer remark. sixth week there developed catalepsy and paraplegia and measles and of diphtheria, for example, is so close that no she into one a different quite suddenly developed day be on the part of school authorities eff efforts should personality. Whilst in bed reading and playing withto weed out from sparedtheir flock children coming back to among her dolls she " commenced to shake and clear a before have school they properly recovered, or attending around. Then she said,tt is coming,’ turned a somer- scl in cl school while the early stages of disease or from an sault, and sat up in bed in this new personality." Her ml It is hard on the children and hard on infected house. manner was now childish and her words were clipped as in th the that the teachers prestige and the salary dependent on baby talk, she also used words wrongly, calling white, hi attendance should suffer because of the high average black ; black, white ; and red, green. In this state she had but all the world Qver illness is incidence of sickness, some conception of her normal self whom she called that in attended with inconvenience to others than the sick and is that at she with "very cross person." She always says so far as possible risks of infection through school attendShe has frequent so person for going and leaving her." ance must be removed. The parents who despatch a sick is noisy and ar while in this and attacks state cataleptic child to school do not act in the interests of the child, or of forward in manners, whereas in her normal state she is or of his fellow pupils and this fact requires his teacher, modest and well-behaved child. Other personalities suc- hi recognition. ceeded from time to time in the patient and as a rule she re gave herself a different name in each case. Thus her next PRIMARY DIPHTHERITIC BRONCHITIS. personality (No. 3) was called by her " Old Nick." This new personality made its appearance on July 24th, 1895, AT the meeting of the Société Medicale des Hôpitaux of p on Oct. 16th M. Emile Sergent and M. Henri Lemaire stayed till August 8th, and then disappeared for a year, Paris d a case of the rare condition of primary diphtheritic returning on July 12th, 1896, when it continued for ten described weeks. When in this personality the patient was able to read b bronchitis. A woman, aged 21 years, was admitted to and to write and enjoyed good health but displayed a very b on hospital Sept. 23rd suffering from intense dy.pncea. bad temper. When she returned to a normal state she had The ’] was that she had had bronchitis for eight days history no memory of events which had occurred to her in the " Old and that on the last two days the dyspnoea had been severe. a Nick"stage. In the character of a fourth personalityThe 1 respirations were 40. Inspiration was stridulous and she was both deaf and dumb. The deaf-mute conditionwas accompanied by supra- and infra-sternal retraction. recurred five times, its last appearance being in August, The r voice was hoarse and almost inaudible. The face was 1895. It lasted a few days only. Other personalities werefslightly cyanosed. The throat was normal and the cervical of varying character and duration ; one of these was namedglands were not affected. The pulse was 110 and the temI by her " good thing " or " good creature " or " pretty ,1perature was 101 5° F. On auscultating the chest the only dear." This was the most intelligent of the numerous per-abnormal sound heard was slight stridor ; the vesicular sonalities and while in this stage she learnt French. Another murmur was almost absent. Dyspnoea of laryngeal or personality was characterised by imbecility, blindness, and tracheal origin was suspected. As the thyroid was enparaplegia. " The striking feature in this case was that larged, the pupils were slightly unequal, and there was a when blind she could draw, while at no other period of her well-marked collateral venous circulation in the sternolife, either normal or abnormal, had she any ability in clavicular region, this view was thought to be confirmed

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