"Professor Forel determined the diagnosis already on the first day of his stay. This was total temporary amnesia, with confusion of thoughts, probably resulting from the attack of dengue fever mentioned in the paper, and complicated by a retrograde period of amnesia, without confusion. He was certified as suffering from this condition to the proper authorities. However, it was necessary to confirm or correct the diagnosis by further observation.

" The first task consisted in testing the patient's account as to its reliability, for this account at first appeared extraordinary even to an experienced psychiatrist. Further, it was necessary to attempt to fill in the gap in his memory for the eight months by the objective statements of third persons. On inquiry from all sorts of people and offices, one was able gradually to glean the following:

" Mr. N. had really applied himself to his studies, which he had interrupted for divers reasons for a long time in the autumn of 189 - , in A. He had then applied for an appointment to a responsible official position in Australia, and had actually obtained the post. After all the necessary preparations had been made, he sailed for Australia in the beginning of the following year, and entered into his new position, and remained for several weeks in the port of Z. Not a single incident from this time could he elicited which would justify any doubt but that our patient's mental condition at that time was a perfectly normal one. Even those persons who came in contact with him almost daily were not aware of any circumstance which would lend credence to the supposition that the reverse was the case. In his correspondence with his relatives not a single peculiar point could be discovered. He wrote a letter home fairly regularly once a week during his journey out and during the first period of his stay in Australia, but these letters did not contain, either in form or context, anything suspicious. (We have read through this correspondence ourselves, and found that it was sincere, affectionate, and particularly nice in all respects.) This correspondence suddenly ended on May 6th, and from that time his relatives did not receive any news as to his movements. In his last letter from Z. he stated that he would undertake an official journey inland within a few days, and as a matter of fact Mr. N., according to the official report, set out on his journey in good health on the evening of May 6th, having carried out his obligations in a perfectly correct manner, leaving his accounts, etc., in strict order.

" We have it on excellent authority that shortly after his arrival in the town O., in the interior of Australia, be complained of being unwell, consulted two doctors, and on their advice kept to his room for a few days. The doctors stated, that he was suffering from a mild attack of fever, sleeplessness, and marked depression, in consequence of overexertion of the brain. Mr. N. made up his mind, consequently, to return to the coast as early as the sixteenth of the month, and in connection with this he stated that he intended to stop them from sending on his letters from Z. by telegram. This telegram, however, was never sent, neither did Mr. N. communicate with O. on his arrival at the coast, as he had promised before he started off. From the moment when he left the railway station in O. on his way to the coast, nearly all traces of Mr. N. were lost until he turned up in Zurich. We have only been able to pick up a very few facts of the time which elapsed. Among these there is the fact that the patient was seen and recognized at the station of the Australian port L. by a lady with whom he had often spoken during his passage out, and also during the time in which the steamer lay in the harbor of the same port, two months before. The lady was going to bow to him, but he turned away from her, and went off as if he did not recognize her. Lastly, it was discovered that a passenger answering to the description of Mr. N. embarked on May 22d on the steamer Oroya on the return journey from L. to Naples, and that the name entered on the ship's list was Corona.

"That is all that we could learn of the doings of Mr. N. during the time in question. We now come to the observations which were made on the patient in the Burghoelzli Asylum.

" At first the patient, who was bodily healthy, in spite of being of a somewhat weakly build, was in a distinctly depressed mood. He was unhappy, puzzled about his position, which he did not yet fully appreciate. The look of his deep-set eyes was rather piercing, and this lent a gloomy expression to his whole-physiognomy. Apart from this, one noticed extremely rapid twitching!) of the eyelids, followed by a partial closure of the same. This occurred especially when he was talking. He slept badly; as a rule, he lay awake for a long time, and in spite of this, awoke early in the morning. He suffered frequently from nightmare. After passing such a night he felt as if he had been beaten all over. He occupied himself diligently and ardently with his person and his bodily condition, often spoke of all sorts of mild pains and abnormal sensations - e.g., pains in the neck, which made it impossible for him to wear a high collar, and also prevented him from letting his hair grow at all long. Mental work caused the patient a great effort - e.g., he had to interrupt the writing of his personal history several times, and when it was finished he was much exhausted. In the same way, letter-writing was only carried out with great difficulty. When doing this he sweated freely, even in cool weather, although he did not sweat easily as a rule. He frequently made mistakes, and often corrected what he had written wrongly again. He complained that when reading he had frequently to read the same words over and over again before he understood what he was reading about, and also that reading tired him, as he constantly found himself missing a line.