The opening years of the twentieth century have
proved to be an exceedingly fruitful period for the study
of general paralysis of the insane In the nineteenth
century general paralysis was early recognized by the
French school to be a more or less independent disease - with a well -defined syrrptomatolegy and characteristic
course (Esquirol, Bayle, Calmeìl) . The etiological importance cf syphilis gradually won recognition on statistical grounds; the unsatisfactory nature of this form of
proof, however, was sufficiently clear from the extraordinary divergence cf the statistics furnished by the
various authors. The pathological anatomy of the disease r °ave rise. to much controversy from an early date
