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is being made to the expenditure of vital energy ; besides the continuous processes of growth of the tissues and organs generally, the sexual apparatus, with its nervous supply, is making by its development heavy demands upon the nutritive powers of the organism ; and it is scarcely possible but that portions of the nervous centres, not directly connected with it, should proportionally suffer in their nutrition, probably through defective blood supply. When we add to this the abnormal strain that is being put on the brain, in many cases, by a forcing plan of mental education, we shall perceive a source not merely of exhaustive expenditure of nervous power, but of secondary irritation of centres like the medulla oblongata that are probably already somewhat lowered in power of vital resistance, and pro- portionably irritable* A little farther on, Dr. Anstie adds, “ But I confess, that, with me, the result of close attention given to the pathology of neuralgia has been the ever-
* Neuralgia, and the Diseases that resemble it. By Francis E. Anstie, M.D. Pp. 122. English ed.