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Thirty-one cases are recorded as having originated from injuries produced by falls. The effect of sudden shocks or concussions of this kind, falls most heavily upon the brain and nervous system. Hence their agency in the production of mental disorder is most obvious.

If the prick of a pin or needle may, as it frequently has done, exert so potent an influence upon the nervous sys-tem as to result in that terrible disorder popularly known as the lock-jaw, it is certainly not remarkable that a punctured or a gun-shot wound should cause insanity. One case arising from each of these causes is mentioned above.

One case is also recorded as the effect of a kick by a horse, upon the region of the stomach. Here the disorder of the brain was undoubtedly secondary, to the immediate effect upon the great central plexus of the sympathetic nerve, in the region receiving the shock.

After the cases of insolation, there is a series of causes, all, or nearly all of which, exhaust the nervous power, occasion debility and probably by this means, destroy the healthy exercise of the brain. The first of these is mas-turbation. Thirty-seven cases are placed against this as their exciting cause. For a long time, this bas been known as one of the many agents tending to destroy the balance of the mind, but it is not until within a few years that its influence was supposed to be so great as it is at present by most physicians to institutions for the insane. Although it is acknowledged to be a very prolific cause, yet there is danger of misapprehension upon this point. The habit is, undoubtedly, in many cases, the effect of the disease.

The important revolution which the system of both males and females undergoes at the time of puberty, sometimes seriously affects the mind, and produces absolute insanity. Thu tendency or this change to operate upon the healthy action of the mental powers, is greatly increased by the simultaneous disposition to rapidity of growth. When the nutritive vessels are acting with such energy, and all parts of the frame are becoming developed with an unwonted rapidity, the texture of the organs is loose, incompact and light, wanting the density, tone and stability, essential to a vigorous performance of their functions, and the nervous fluid can not act with the celerity and vigor requisite to perfect health.

Four cases of men and seven of women are attributed to excessive bodily exertion and loss of sleep.

The renovation of energy by sleep, is absolutely essential to the healthy exercise of both the physical and the mental powers. So important is its position as a preventive to mental derangement, that were we called upon to give advice to all who are predisposed to insanity, are threatened with it, or fearful of it, and were we obliged to give that advice in the briefest possible terms we would concentrate it into an imperative phrase of but two words, "sleep enough."

Nothing exhausts the nervous energies of the system more rapidly than constant and prolonged watching. It subverts a primary law of nature -- a law which can not be seriously infringed with impunity.

Excessive bodily exertion exhausts the frame by its inordinate tax upon the nervous system. The muscles, it is true, are the immediate organs of motion, and consequently of labor, but they are matter merely, inert as the bones or the nails if deprived of the nervous stimulus. If a constant supply of the latter could be continued for an indefinite period, we can perceive no sufficient reason why the muscles should not perform their office with all their energy, unweariedly. At least, the converse of this proposition has never, so far as we are informed, been demonstrated.

Inordinate and prolonged labor reduces the nervous energy, and rest and sleep become necessary to its renewal. But it is frequently reduced to so low a point, that sleep becomes impossible, or, if at length it be attained, it is imperfect, broken, and insufficient to enable the nervous system to rally its wonted forces. Hence, in these cases, it may be not so much the bodily exertion itself, as its secondary effect, the deprivation of sleep, which is the immediate cause of mental disorder.

One case is said to have arisen from "Mesmerism." This was the cause assigned by one of the parents of the patient. The leading features in the history of the case, are as follows. The patient was a young man, about twenty years of age, of a highly nervous temperament, with a brain remarkably developed and corresponding intellectual powers. For several years he had suffered from occasional epileptic fits, which, as yet, had left his mind but little if at all impaired. The skill of many physicians and the virtues of every medical resource, believed to be applicable to such eases, had been exhausted upon him without benefit. As a dernier resort, and at a period when he was in a state of comparative stupor, such as frequently follows a succession of epileptic fits, he was placed under the care of a person professedly practising "Mesmerism" for the cure of disease. To use the expression of this person, "The pa-tient was magnetised daily, for nearly a month" without effect, he remaining in the torpid condition already men-tioned. At length he was suddenly roused, appeared rational for a few hours, and then passed into a state of high excitement and absolute mania. A day or two afterwards he was brought to the Asylum with his arms and legs strongly bound. When admitted he talked but little, and that little was perfectly devoid of meaning. He was highly excited, his face flushed and the veins of his head swollen; the circulation rapid, the pulse being from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and forty per minute, the tongue furred, and the bowels very much constipated. After free catharsis, an inordinate quantity of medicine being required to operate upon his bowels, he was placed upon the use of sedatives. Under this treatment and after the lapse of two days, he began to improve, and in eight days he left the Asylum, restored to his ordinary condition, and without so much of the torpor as existed previously to his excitement.