The State Secretary for the Department of Instruction has to some extent been an agent in the progress of mental science by rendering compulsory for students of forensic medicine a course of lunacy in an asylum extending over two months. By an unfortunate imitation of the Italian system, which in a single chain unites subjects of so diverse a character as toxicology, legal medicine, and mental diseases, the best method of freniatric teaching is not obtained. In Spain, a physician at the end of his career knows nothing at all of mental infirmities and affections. The action of the State Secretary is the more surprising when one remembers his order founding and establishing separate and compulsory chairs, both clinical and theoretical, of dermatology, otology, and ophthalmology. Alienists in Spain are disappointed, and regret that so incomplete a step should have been taken in so important a matter, for physicians at present look either dumb or foolish at court when cases of criminal responsibility, civil incapacity, etc., are being tried.