A Treatise on the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity

Abstract

We have received the fifth edition of Dr. Ray's valuable treatise on the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity, the first edition of which appeared thirty-three years ago. A work which has lived and flourished during that length of time, and has been so well appreciated both in America and in this country, requires no further testimony of its worth. In the additions to the present edition the author has availed himself of some of the latest accessions to our knowledge, and so has maintained the character of his book as a standard treatise. If we were to pass any criticism upon it, we should be disposed to say that it is perhaps too much inspired of the psychological spirit of the time of Hoffbauer and Georget, and too little inspired by the positive scientific spirit of more recent investigations. The important researches of Griesinger into the relations of mental to other disorders of the nervous system, of Skae into the relations of mental to other bodily disorders, and of Morel, Moreau, and others into the hereditary connections between nervous diseases—researches which are producing a sort of revolution in our mode of looking at the varieties of mental derangement—have not received their due appreciation from the author. In fact, when we say that we have not observed any mention of the names of these distinguished investigators, or of the work which they have done, we have said enough to show that there is yet room for further additions and improvements in the sixth edition, which we hope the author may live to publish, and those of our readers, who are not weary of the sun, may live to see.