muscles in time may become totally paralysed, wasted, and useless.

Friends should very carefully note exactly where and how the attack begins, the exact part first involved, and the precise order in which the spasms appear, as this is the only way the doctor can localize the brain injury. The importance of this cannot be overrated.

The consulting surgeon will say if operation is, or is not, advisable, but operation is the sole remedy for Jacksonian epilepsy, for the causes that underly its symptoms cannot be reached by medicines.

Patients must consult a good surgeon; other courses are useless.

Psychic or Mental Epilepsy is a trance-state often occurring after attacks of grand or petit mal, in which the patient performs unusual acts. The epileptic feature is the patient's inability to recall these actions. The complaint is fortunately rare.

The face is usually pale, the eyes staring, and there may be a "dream state". Without warning, the victim performs certain actions.

These may be automatic, and not seriously embarrassing—he may tug his beard, scratch his head, hide things, enter into engagements, find the presence of others annoying and hide himself, or take a long journey. Such a journey is often reported in the papers as a "mysterious disappearance". Yet, had he committed a crime during this time, he would probably have been held "fully responsible" and sentenced.

The actions may be more embarrassing: breaking something, causing pain, exhibiting the sexual organs; the patient may be transported by violent rage, and abuse relatives, friends or even perfect strangers; he may spit carelessly, or undress himself—possibly with a vague idea that he is unwell, and would be better in bed.

Finally the acts may be criminal: sexual or other assault, murder, arson, theft, or suicide.

In this state, the patient is dazed, and though he appreciates to some extent his surroundings, and may be able to answer questions more or less rationally, he is really in a profound reverie. The attack soon ends with exhaustion; the victim falls asleep, and a few moments later wakes, ignorant of having done or said anything peculiar.

We usually think of our mind as the aggregate of the various emotions of which we are actually conscious, when, in reality, consciousness forms but a small portion of our mentality, the subconscious—which is composed of all our past experiences filed away below consciousness—directing every thought and act. Inconceivably delicate and intricate mind-machinery directs us, and our idlest fancy arises, not by chance as most people surmise, but through endless associations of subconscious mental processes, which can often be laid bare by skilful psycho-analysis.

Our subconscious mind does not let the past jar with the present, for life would be made bitter by the eternal vivid recollection of incidents best forgotten. Every set of ideas, as it is done with, is locked up separately in the dungeons of subconsciousness, and these imprisoned ideas form the basis of memory. Nothing is ever forgotten, though we may never again "remember" it this side the grave.

In a few cases we can unlock the cell-door and release the prisoner—we "remember"; in some, we mislay the key for awhile; in many, the wards of the lock have rusted, and we cannot open the door although we have the key—we "forget"; finally, our prisoner may pick the lock, and make us attend to him whether we wish to or not—something "strikes us".

Normally, only one set of ideas (a complex) can hold

the stage of consciousness at any one time. When two sets get on the boards together, double-consciousness occurs, but even then they cannot try to shout each other down; one set plays "leading lady", the other set the "chorus belle" and so life is rendered bearable.

This "dissociation of consciousness" occurs in all of us. A skilled pianist plays a piece "automatically" while talking to a friend; we often read a book and think of other things at the same time: our full attention is devoted to neither action; neither is done perfectly, yet both are done sufficiently well to escape comment.

Day-dreaming is dissociation carried further. "Leading lady" and "chorus belle" change places for a while—imaginary success keeps us from worrying about real failure. Dissociation, day-dreaming, and mental epilepsy are but few of the many milestones on a road, the end of which is insanity, or complete and permanent dissociation, instead of the partial and fleeting dissociation from which we all suffer. The lunatic never "comes to", but in a world of dreams dissociates himself forever from realities he is not mentally strong enough to face.

The writing of "spirits" through a "medium" is an example of dissociation, and though shown at its best in neuropaths, is common enough in normal men, as can be proved by anyone with a planchette and some patience.

If the experimenter puts his hands on the toy, and a friend talks to him, while another whispers questions, he may write more or less coherent answers, though all the time he goes on talking, and does not know what his hand is writing. His mind is split into two smaller minds, each ignorant of the other, each busily liberating memory-prisoners from its own block of cells in the gaol of the subconscious. The writing often refers

to long-forgotten incidents, the experiment sometimes being of real use in cases of lost memory.

Dreams are dissociations in sleep, while the scenes conjured up by crystal-gazing are only waking dreams, in which the dissociation is caused by gazing at a bright surface and so tiring the brain centres, whereupon impressions of past life emerge from the subconscious, to surprise, not only the onlookers to whom they are related, but also the gazer herself, who has long "forgotten them".

It is childish to attach supernatural significance to either dreams or crystal-gazing, both of which mirror, not the future, but only the past, the subject's own past.

It is noteworthy that women dream more frequently and vividly than men. When a dreamer has few worries, he usually dreams but forgets his dream on waking; when greatly worried, he often carries his problems to bed with him, and recent "representative dreams" are merely unprofitable overtime work done by the brain. Occasionally, dreams have a purely physical basis as when palpitation becomes transformed in a dream into a scene wherein a horse is struggling violently, or where an uncovered foot originates a dream of polar-exploration; in this latter type the dream is protective, in that it is an effort to side-track some irritation without breaking sleep.

Since Freud has traced a sex-basis in all our dreams, many worthy people have been much worried about the things they see or do in dreams. Let them remember that virtue is not an inability to conceive of misconduct, so much as the determination to refrain from it, and it may well be that the centres which so determinedly inhibit sexual or unsocial thoughts in the day, are tired by the very vigour of their resistance, and so in sleep allow the thoughts they have so stoutly opposed when waking to slip by. The man who is long-suffering and slow to wrath when awake, may

surely be excused if he murders a few of his tormentors during sleep.

Epileptiform Seizures are convulsions due to causes other than epilepsy, and only a doctor can tell if an attack be epileptic or not and prescribe appropriate treatment. To give "patent" medicines for "fits", to a man who may be suffering from lead poisoning or heart disease, is criminal.