Our knowledge of the causes of mental diseases, in spite of the conflicting statements of morbid anatomy, has of late years had a tendency to remove from our minds, many doubts we might have been disposed to retain, as to the important part which the body takes, as an organic system, in the production of those diseases; and the ample results of a persistent and judicious application of therapeutic means, justifies the belief, that as the science of animal chemistry advances, and our knowledge, not merely of ultimate analysis, but of organic synthesis, is enlarged, we may have the gratification of seeing this protean malady deprived of many of its most painful and most formidable symptoms.