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This work of Dr. Bianchi is one of the few large treatises on mental diseases which are extant and which have been kept alive. This is the second edition, the first having appeared some years ago and in its English dress about ten years ago. The difference between this edition and the first is on the whole not very great. The anatomical section has been materially shortened, otherwise the anatomical and psychological introduction remains of comparatively the same proportion. The general text of the description of the various mental disorders is of the same character, namely essentially descriptive. While the author has taken cognizance of recent writers and has revamped his various chapters in the light of what has been accomplished during the past decade, he is still practically at the descriptive level. His sensorial insanity occupies as prominent a place as in the previous edition.
The work as a whole is a monumental piece of writing, containing a great mass of information and valuable as a reference book. It comes from one of the greatest of Italian psychiatrists, Professor Bianchi, who is not only a psychiatrist, but a man of wide scientific attainments and unusual mental breadth being at one time minister of Public Instruction of Italy.
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