It seems to have been long, before the assistance afforded in other forms of human infirmity was extended to persons bereft of reason. Their actions and appearance being usually repulsive or alarming, they were avoided, and suffered to wander about uncared for until this freedom became inconvenient or dangerous, and were then tied up, and beaten and starved, kept out of sight, and forgotten. Remnants of this system were to be recognised long after asylums were built for lunatics, and even to a period within the remembrance of persons now living. It is, indeed, only within the last thirty years that the exertions of the Society of Friends, which commenced at York about forty years sooner, became really successful in awakening general attention to the treatment required to restore health of body and of mind in those affected with the dreadful malady of insanity.