e Managers of the New York State Lunatic Asylum_,'
one of the clearest and most comprehensive documents in its kind that we
have ever perused. It proceeds from the capable pen of A. BRIGHAM, M. D.
the superintendent and physician of the institution, and is full upon the
definition, causes and classification of insanity; the size and shape of
the heads of the patients; the pulse; description of the building; daily
routine of business, diet, labor, amusements, religious worship, visitors,
suggestions to those who have friends whom they expect to commit to the
care of the asylum, etc., etc. The cause of insanity in _fifty_ out of two
hundred and seventy-six patients is attributed to religious anxiety,
produced by long attendance on protracted religious meetings, etc. Want of
sleep is decidedly the most frequent and immediate cause of insanity, and
one the most important to guard against. 'So rarely (says the
superintendent) do you see a recent case of insanity that is not preceded
by want of sleep, that we regard it as almost the sure precursor of mental
derangement.' As evidences of the difficulty of arranging the insane in
classes, founded on symptoms, Dr. BRIGHAM gives us the following synopsis
of individual peculiarities noticed among certain of the inmates of the
Asylum:

'In addition to emperors, queens, prophets and priests, we have
one that says he is nobody, a nonentity. One that was never born,
and one that was born of her grandmother, and another dropped by
the devil flying over the world. One has had the throat cut out
and put in wrong, so that what is swallowed passes into the head,
and another has his head cut off and replaced every night. One
thinks himself a child, and talks and acts like a child. Many
appear as if constantly intoxicated. One has the gift of tongues,
another deals in magic, several in animal magnetism. One thinks he
is a white polar bear. A number have hallucinations of sight,
others of hearing. One repeats whatever is said to him, another
repeats constantly words of the same sound, as door, floor. One is
pursued by the sheriff, many by the devil. One has invented the
perpetual motion and is soon to be rich; others have already
acquired vast fortunes: scraps of paper, buttons and chips are to
them, large amounts of money. Many pilfer continually and without
any apparent motive, while others secrete every thing they can