If these doubtful cases be eliminated from Addison’s list, there remain five which constitute a sufficient basis for his conclusions ; I may say also that these were his early ones, and those on which his own opinions were formed ; it is therefore to be lamented that in the ardour of a fresh discovery, he was led to include cases of which he had no opportunity of proving their genuineness. Fortunately, for myself, I was well acquainted with all the cases Dr. Addison describes, and have also had the opportunity of examining every subsequent example of it which has occurred in Guy’s Hospital, as well as seeing and discussing with the late lamented physician many of his private cases ; and I know, had he been spared to bring before the profession another edition of his work, he would have cropped his pages of those doubtful instances which have done much to retard the spread of the discovery. I may say, also, that Dr. Addison was in the habit of submitting to me all the specimens which he was constantly receiving from various parts of the country, taken from patients who were supposed to have suffered from the affection bearing his name. I have thus had a very good opportunity of corroborating or falsifying his original opinions ; and I may, in consequence, state (as the convictions of a writer are of some weight with the reader as well as the bare facts which he may enumerate), that having no doubts of the facts whilst Addison was preparing his work, I certainly have none now, after having witnessed, or had knowledge of ten-fold the number of instances which he himself brought before the nlotice of the profession.

By clearing the ground of some of the extraneous matters which Addison introduced into his work, the subject will stand much as the author himself would have understood it at his death ; and we shall, by this means, also be in a much safer path for the further elucidation of the disease, since there can be no doubt that much of the scepticism which exists is due to the unfortunate errors which at first crept in. As regards the prevailing disbelief, it may be further said, that it arises not only from those natural reasons which spring from a want of familiarity with the disease, but from a mistaken notion of Addison’s real statements, by those who have not had an opportunity of perusing the original work. On the