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The large amount of phosphorus containing compounds in brain and nervous tissue and their universal distribution through all living cells has led to much research as to the rOle of phosphorus in animal metabolism. It is known that the compounds of phosphorus play an essential part in the metabolism of fat, carbohydrate and protein. They are also fundamental to such physiological processes as the contraction of muscle, the ossification of bone and permeability of cell membranes. The average diet contains a great variety of phosphorus compounds, viz.: inorganic phosphates, phospholipids (lecithin and kephalin), phosphoproteins (caseinogen of milk) and the simpler organic esters, such as glycerophosphates and hexosephosphates. Since phosphorus compounds are found abundantly in nerve tissue and since they form a considerable, portion of the average diet, it was thought advisable to investigate the possible relationship between mental disease and the urinary excretion of organically bound and inorganic phosphate. Mairet (1884) in studying the phosphorus metabolism of manicdepressives found an increased total urinary phosphate excretion over normal in both the agitated and depressed states. Lailler (I8&t) found that in acute delirium or mania there was a marked

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THE great reform period of I807-I8I9 in Prussia, associated with the names of Stein and Hardenberg, was a direct result of the military collapse of the Prussian armies before Napoleon at Jena and Auerstadt. After this catastrophe, nobody but the most incorrigible adherents of the old order could deny any longer that a thoroughgoing program of military reform was overdue. But because military and civilian affairs in Prussia were so closely related, socially, economically, and politically, and because the shock occasioned by Prussia's ignominious defeat temporarily weakened the forces that had been resisting fundamental changes in the social structure, the faint stirrings of progress characterizing the first years of the reign of Frederick William III could be suddenly transformed, at the hands of Baron Stein, into a bold and homogeneous program of reform. The ultimate object of this program, in Stein's own words, was to mobilize the physical and spiritual resources of Prussia through "the reawakening of a spirit of community and civic pride, the employment of dormant or misapplied energies and of unused knowledge, harmony between the views and desires of the nation and those of the administrative authorities of the state, the revival of patriotism and of the desire for national honor and independence." 1 This program had to be carried out in the face of manifold difficulties. Perhaps the greatest of these was the formidable opposition offered by the conservative forces in Prussian society, which soon recovered from the blow of Napoleon's victory and once again began to use their influence and their social position (for many of them were of the nobility) in the cause of saving Prussia from "Jacobinism." But this was by no means the only obstacle confronting Stein and his successors. Among the most prominent of the others may be counted the French occupation, and later the threat of reoccupation; the desperate financial situation of a defeated and plundered