apoplexy coming on after an operation for cataract. His sister, Miss Anu Parish, was treated for cataract, and also for paralysis. On this occasion, Mr. Parish was temporarily relieved by a free bleeding and emetics. He was confined to his room but a few hours, but was kept in the house five or six days. His wife wrote from Dresden, October 27, that she did not think, he had ever recovered from this attack. His cheek was sunken and he had then lost much flesh. He returned to America in July, 1844. In the summer of 1849, Mr. Parish had intermittent fever. On June 2d, he wrote to A. M. Sherman, his brother-in-law, that he had "return of the chills yesterday;" he took cayenne, and hoped to stop it at once. Dr. Markoe said he found him with fever and ague. His wife often complained of his staying away too late at the club. Before the attack of apoplexy, he was exceedingly affable and courteous. His mind was slow, deliberative, and having made up his mind, he was firm and very decisive. He kept up intimate intercourse with his brother Daniel. July 19, 1849, seven years after signing the will above mentioned, Mr. Parish had the first attack of well marked apoplexy. Coming into the office of Prime, Ward & King, he became suddenly convulsed and paralytic. He was caught by Mr. Edward Prime, who first saw twitching of his shoulders, and he was in the act of falling. He was then observed to have paralysis. Dr. Van Rensselaer was called: He did not bleed; but Dr. Delafield said any other Doctor would have bled, though Mr. Parish had evidently no blood to lose. He was carried to his house on Union Square, being taken up from the sidewalk to his own room in an easy chair. After being placed in bed he showed signs of paralysis of the right side. Drs. Delafield and Markoe were with him much of the time, day and night. The paralytic seizure was found to be a hemiplegia, presenting defect of motion but not of sensation in the right arm and leg, and also defective power of the organs of speech. From this he recovered gradually in a day or two. Up to October first he lost flesh, but hopes were entertained of his recovery, though they were never realized. The urethra remained paralyzed longer than other parts. The catheter was used, perhaps a dozen times in all. October, 1849, Mr. Parish had new symptoms. He had pain in the bowels; frequent and unavailing efforts were made to evacuate them; retention of urine; offensive evacuations from the bowels. By the middle of October he was much exhausted. Dr. Delafield thought there was an intussusception of the intestine, and sloughing off of a portion of it, and that these symptoms might be caused by efforts to pass enemas into it.* The Doctor's further testimony shows that Mr. Parish had great apprehension about his eyes; there was inflammation of the lungs; abscess under the jaw; inflammation of the skin of both legs; swelling of the legs; difficulty with the bowels; incontinence of urine, sometimes obstruction. He sometimes had to wear an artificial receptacle for the urine; this was more common than retention. Natural Evacuations.-These were involuntary evacuations of the bowels and bladder, often when there was no time to wait on him; these often come on while he was sitting at the table, and before he could be got away. Convulsions.-These began in about 1840. In July, 1849, they began to return at short intervals of from eight days to three weeks. Whether they were of an apoplectic character or not was not well settled. They were preceeded by warnings of irritability. During the paroxysm the convulsed muscles became alternately rigid and then relaxed. After the apoplectic seizure of 1849, Mr. Parish lived for seven years. His general bodily health was restored; his appetite for food unimpaired, and he manifested the liveliest interest in business affairs, but from the time of his first attack he spoke no intelligent word; could never read, write or distinguish one letter or figure from another, though he continued to dictate investments, to change them from time to time, to supervise and correct check-books, and to listen with intelligent interest to the newspapers, making a few signs and sounds by which visitors and his family could partially understand him. In this condition was Mr. Parish, when just forty days after the first attack he dictated an important codicil to the above mentioned will, the late distinguished lawyer of New York, Daniel Lord, being a witness to the addition then made. Four months later, he re-executed the same codicil, with the same formalities, as evidently intending that it was still his desire to have it carried out. The will was now essentially changed; Mrs. Parish was to receive the mansion in Union square, a lot and building on. Wall *See Guy's Hospital Reports, Vol. II., 1856, p. 98. street, valued at $76,000, and the additional furniture, paintings, silver, etc., incident to their improved style of life. In September, 1853, these devises were renewed to Mrs. Parish, with the large addition of $350,000 in stocks and other securities. The codicil by which this addition was made gave to the American Bible Society, the New York Orphan Asylum, and St. Luke's Hospital $10,000 each, and to the New York Eye Infirmary $20,000. The same codicil revoked the appointment of Mr. Daniel Parish, who had been made executor, but did not revoke that portion which made him a joint devisee with his brother James of the residuary estate. In less than four months, however, this last clause was revoked by a third and last codicil, and the residue of his estate given to his wife. Three years later, or on March 2, 1856, Mr. Parish died. The progress of his disease, and the manner of his death, throw some light upon his physical and mental states during this period of declining hold on life. By June 1, 1853, Mr. Parish had attained to general health nearly perfect, continuing, in some respects, to improve till January, 1855. For the next six months he appeared well, though he inclined to sleep. Disorder of the Right Eye.-Eighteen months or two years before death, he had floating moats visible before the eyes. Dr. Markoe thinks this showed a tendency to amaurotic paralysis of the nerves of vision, producing blindness. Tendencies to structural disease of the eye had long before been seen-at least for two or three years before the attack of 1849; one eye had been long impaired, if not defective from birth; the other became amaurotic. For cataracts of both eyes he was under treatment for about eighteen months or two years. An operation was performed on the left eye with success, and on the right with fair success. His sight still remained not very good through his later years. For the last year he seemed to fail in general health. Seven weeks before his death he was evidently sinking. The lungs now became the seat of distress, and this continued till within a few hours of death. The last illness occupied in its invasion and course several weeks, but was not considered as serious for more than a fortnight. For the last few weeks his food was not swallowed as soon as masticated. Dr. Taylor, in his testimony on the trial, says: "Mr. Parish was breathing heavily at nine o'clock March 1st, and he died the next morning at four." There was no post-mortem examination. As the reason for this omission, Dr. Delafield, Mr. Parish's brother-in-law, says: "I knew no useful end that could be gained by it; and further, I did not wish, without a good purpose in view, to wound the feelings of the widow." Dr. Markoe said that after the death of Mr. Parish he spoke to Dr. Delafield of a post-mortem. The latter stated that the family were opposed to the thing itself, and referred, I think, to the fact that it had never been permitted in his family, owing to this feeling against it. Mr. Parish was in his sixty-ninth year when he died. He had been married twenty-five years and left no children. Four days after his death, Mr. Joseph Delafield, one of the executors of the will, offered for probate the four instruments above described, as the last will and testament of Henry Parish, merchant. The will, with its amending codicils, was contested by two opposing parties. 1. The sisters denied the validity of the will on the ground of its revocation by subsequent changes in the estate; and the codicils as being obtained by the widow through fraud and undue influence. 2. The brothers desired to retain the original will, with the residuary clause which had now become highly valuable, the estate having risen one hundred per cent in value; but anxious to defeat the codicils which gave this estate to the widow, they joined with the sisters in declaring that the latter had been obtained through artifice and undue influence after their brother had ceased, through disease, to be capable of judging truly of the effects of his own acts. The trial of the Parish will case involved the elaborate examination of many witnesses, and occupied the courts of New York nearly two years. A decision was then rendered by the Surrogate of this county, Alexander W. Bradford. He favored the admission of the will and first codicil to probate, but rejected the last two codicils as inoperative on the ground that the testator was mentally disqualified at the time of their execution. The executor and Mrs. Parish appealed to the Supreme Court. In the course of the following year, a decision was given, in which the judges unanimously affirmed the decision of the Surrogate. The case was then carried to the Court of Appeals, where it was argued in January, 1861, and a reargument was ordered for the ensuing summer. During this interval, James Parish, one of the brothers, and the widow died, and both the appeals were revived by the representatives of the respective parties. In June, 1862, the Court of Appeals, five justices concurring, affirmed the decision below; and the will and first codicil were recorded as the last will and testament of Henry Parish, after a litigation extending over a period of six years. Haxing found some unsatisfactory features in the application of psychological science to the purpose of jurisprudence, it might be proper to propose some measures for removing them. We know but few remedies to offer; we sum them up in two: I. Let physicians give more time and attention to the study of the human mind in its connection with the human body. We have had good schools of anatomy, and schools of some kind for metaphysics. Let them be embraced in one course of study and pursued through all the manifestations of disease, both mental and physical. II. Let the physician who would become a thorough medical expert, begin anew the study of human nature in all the phases under which it is exhibited in health, in all the specimens of our race with whom he may become acquainted; and if his own organization be favorable for such investigations, he may hope to learn, to estimate each individual more nearly at what he is than ordinary men have yet done; and to discriminate among the totality of the symptoms found in a given case, between those which lie on the right or left side of that narrow line which society must ever draw between the sane and the insane. ARTICLE LXXVI. A Contribution to the Study of Human Milk. By T. F. ALLEN, A. M., M. D. This contribution to the study of human milk is presented as the result of a large number of observations which have been made during several years past; and with the hope that it may furnish some suggestions of practical value in regard to the microscopic examination of milk in health and disease. There are some points concerning the histology, or genesis of milk, to which I shall refer, not perhaps entirely new or original, but which have been for the most part overlooked. I do not propose to enter into any discussion concerning the chemistry nor the best methods See "Medical Opinions of the Parish Will Case," New York, 1857, 8 vo., p. 573, containing opinions by John Watson, M. D., Tilden Brown, M. D., M. H. Ranney, M. D., Pliny Earle, M. D., Luther Bell, M. D., I Ray, M. D., and Sir Henry Halford, Bart., M. D. |