Camillo Golgi was born of humble parentage at Corteno (Valcamonica) on July 9, 1843, and died at Pavia on January 21, 1926. At 22 years of age he completed his medical studies in the University of Pavia, and subsequently acted as Assistant in various cliniques of the Faculty of Medicine there. He was most assiduous in his attendance at the Laboratory of Experimental Pathology, at that time under the direction of Bizzozero, the discoverer of the blood-plates. He had, for financial reasons, to leave Pavia for a time and take charge of a hospital for chronic patients, but he allowed no difficulties to discourage him, and, even in apparently uncongenial surroundings, carried on his researches. In 1873 he discovered the famous Black Reaction, which, in the practice of histology, has since borne the name of the “reaction of Golgi.”

My first duty is to express my thanks to the members of the Royal Medico-Psychological Association for the great honour they have conferred on me in asking me to deliver the Maudsley Lecture.

Discussing experimental psychiatry Kraepelin observes that lack of comprehension of the experimental test, lack of ability to execute it, lack of interest, of co-operation, and of endurance, all conspire to increase the task of the experimenter and to modify the value of the results. The consequent demand for trustworthy experimental methods, which without too complicated technique and too unusual demands on the patient shall yield information of significant variations from the normal in quantitative terms, voices at once the need and the embarrassment of the experimental psychiatrist. The determination of the electrical conductivity of the skin is undoubtedly one valuable method of approach in this search after quantitative information, and this paper is the result of some months' investigation which I carried out at the Maudsley Hospital, when, through the kindness of the Medical Superintendent, Dr. E. Mapother, I had put at my disposal cases of psycho-neuroses and early psychoses.

A defence of insanity is frequently raised in answer to a serious criminal charge if the facts of the case clearly indicate the guilt of the accused. From time to time in such circumstances the jury are invited to exculpate the prisoner on the ground that the act was committed during a condition of epileptic automatism.

There is in the mind a mass of past experiences which cannot be readily remembered. We also know that while the individual is aware of some of the processes of elaboration going on in his mind, there are other mental processes which elude his observation. Both forgotten experiences and unrealized mental processes constitute material of which the individual was said to be “not personally conscious.” The modern psychologist says the forgotten memories and the hidden mental processes are in the unconscious or subconscious mind, a stratum of the mind below the threshold of personal consciousness. He bases this statement on the conception that while the mind is a complete entity, it is so disposed that while the contents of one portion can be at once investigated by the individual, the rest is not so easily explored. The accessible portion is called the conscious mind, the rest the unconscious. Dr. G. Stanley Hall compared the mind to an iceberg, floating in the ocean with one-ninth visible above the water and eight-ninths below, the visible ninth corresponding to the conscious mind, and the larger submerged portion to the unconscious mind. Before the time of Freud there was no satisfactory method of exploring the unconscious. Freud, when dealing with neurotic and mental patients, was dissatisfied with the results obtained by hypnotism. But he noticed that some experienced relief, and also improved, when encouraged to talk frankly about their anxieties and difficulties. He worked out a method of exploring the unconscious mind, called psycho-analysis, founded on the theory that dreams are not accidental or meaningless; interpreted by the method of free association, they constitute the royal road to the unconscious mind. Free association means that when the analysand is asked of what a particular item in the dream makes him think, he gives the idea that first occurs to him, however far-fetched or absurd it may seem, and then allows one idea to call up others without let or hindrance.

The studies which I wish to bring to your notice were begun with the object of finding some bacterial cause for manic-depressive insanity. This problem has, of course, engaged other laboratories. I would refer particularly to the work done in the Cardiff Laboratory, which has been described by Goodall in the Journal of this Association.

This is the Meinicke turbidity reaction (M.T.R.) for the serodiagnosis of syphilis improved and adapted to a microscope slide test; venous puncture is unnecessary, for sufficient serum is got from a drop of blood collected as for a Widal reaction.

This case was tried at Worcester Assizes on June 9, before Mr. Justice Avory. The prisoner was a crane driver, 24 years of age. He was accused of having murdered his half-brother, at Dudley, during the night of March 5–6, by smashing in his head with an axe. The prisoner's father had died when he (prisoner) was about 6 years of age. The mother had remarried about two years later, and the murdered lad was the only child of this second marriage. The family lived at a public-house owned by the mother. The prisoner and the murdered lad slept in one bedroom. On the evening of March 5 the prisoner came home at a late hour, and was rebuked by his mother, who told him that he must keep earlier hours or find another home. Nothing unusual was heard during the night. Next morning the prisoner came downstairs, and asked his mother to give him some money, saying that he was going away, and that if he did not have money he “would give himself up.” No questions appear to have been asked, but no money was given, and the prisoner left the house. Later, the body of the murdered lad was found in bed. The prisoner gave himself up, that same evening, to a police constable in Birmingham, to whom he used the words, “I had cause to do it.” The facts of the case were not disputed, and the defence raised was that of insanity.

On October 25 of this year falls the centenary of the death of Philippe Pinel, and we feel that we cannot let the occasion pass without paying a tribute to the fine character and great achievements of this illustrious physician and philosopher whose name is written indelibly in the annals of psychological medicine.

The lively hope expressed by our President at the Association's Commemoration Dinner on July 15 that the Report of the Royal Commission would recommend the abolition of the many anomalies and the relaxation of the legal restrictions which had for nearly a century handicapped the progress of psychiatry in England and Wales, has in a large measure been realized now that the Report is available to anyone who chooses to apply at H.M. Stationery Office—price 3s. 6d. At the same function the Rt. Hon. Hugh Macmillan, K.C., in a witty and cheerful speech, struck a vein of hopefulness respecting the future of psychiatry, as did also the speech of Sir Arthur Robinson.