The dominating motive which for more than a generation has directed the activities of the asylum authorities in Scotland has been the desire to make the asylum in that country an institution, inspired by the same exalted principles and conducted on the same medical and nursing methods as those existing in our great general hospitals. That ideal has the supreme merit of being simple and tangible as well as high, for the voluntary hospital is the most perfect embodiment of practical humanitarianism and science at present known to us, and the position it occupies is unique among medical institutions. The more nearly this ideal is reached, the more closely will the care of those suffering from mental disorder approximate to a state of perfection, and the more completely will the asylum be transformed into a hospital for the treatment of a special disease. This is what is understood by the phrase, “the hospitalisation of the asylum,” which was first used in 1902.