In the course of obtaining detailed clinical histories of the onset and precommitment evolution of the disease in a series of patients suffering from general paralysis of the insane, I have been impressed by the relative frequency with which loss of weight was mentioned spontaneously as having had a place, and sometimes a prominent one, among the early symptoms presented. It has seemed worth while to look further into its occurrence in view of the fact that loss of weight has received no very special consideration, so far as I am aware, in discussions of the symptomatology of early general paralysis.1 Furthermore, loss of weight, as a symptom, possesses in itself considerable significance in that it indicates some fundamental even if ill-defined disturbance of metabolism;2 the occurrence, as a more or less prominent manifestation in a due proportion of cases, of general paralysis should serve to direct the