Traité Clinique et Thérapeutique de l'Hystérie. By Par le Docteur Gilles de la Tourette. Préface de M. le Dr. Charcot. Avec 46 figures. Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit et Cie. 1891. Pp. 582.

Of recent years hysteria has received little scientific study in England, although it was an Englishman—Sydenham—who first placed it on a truly sound and secure basis. It was nearly two hundred years before Sydenham's work on this subject was fully recognized, and then the recognition came from France. With the exception of Brodie's notable contributions—which are fully appreciated in the work before us—no further advance has come from England. The school of the Salpêtrière—Charcot and a very large body of distinguished pupils—at present holds the field, and it is difficult to point to any worker not associated with this school who has lately done anything to advance our scientific knowledge of hysteria. The work, however, which has been done by Charcot and his disciples is now very considerable, and the time had arrived for some authoritative summary. This has been undertaken by Dr. Gilles de la Tourette, who has himself made important contributions to the question, and who possesses many qualifications for the task he has undertaken. His knowledge is wide, his tone is always moderate and judicial, and he is entirely free from that tendency to vague eloquence which has done so much in the past to render difficult a clear conception of hysteria. In this first volume of his work he deals with “Hystérie Normale” or interparoxysmal hysteria.