1. American Retrospect.: (Communicated.)
In a communication read last June, before the American Neurological Association, by Dr. William A. Hammond, he endeavours to prove that Thalamic Epilepsy is entitled to distinct recognition on clinical and pathological grounds. He refers to Hughlings Jackson's division and definition of epilepsy before proceeding to detail two out of five cases which have led him to these conclusions. Passing by what relates to Hughlings Jackson's ideas, and the reasons for which they are rejected by Dr. Hammond, we will only confine ourselves to the principal facts suggesting that his two examples exhibit no exclusive characters to warrant the hypothesis based thereon, or that they belong to any new variety of epilepsy, inasmuch as their description plainly sets forward nothing but a sensorial aura, very familiar to those practically acquainted with epilepsy. In proof of this, we lay before the reader the essential points and features of the attacks in the two cases selected by Dr. Hammond to exemplify this alleged new kind of epilepsy.