When Homer described Thersites as ugly and deformed, with harsh or scanty hair, and a pointed head, like a pot that had collapsed to a peak in the baking—

The Abstract which has been made embraces fifteen hundred and sixty-five cases, and extends over a period of eleven years. Most of the autopsies, that is, the cerebrospinal portion of them, were performed by Sir J. Crichton-Browne, Drs. Herbert Major and Bevan Lewis. Such statements therefore as are made may be accepted as faithful representations of the existent conditions so far as means allowed. It must be premised that, although the reports show evidence throughout of careful and conscientious work, and mostly are very full and embracing, yet there is some indefiniteness conferred by the absence of an exact and systematic method in their compilation. Nevertheless, it must not be supposed that such was always omitted; but that often where special lines of investigation have been pursued the results have not been incorporated in the records.

A year ago this Association did four of us the honour of placing us on its Council as representatives of the large and ever-growing body of Assistant Medical Officers. Nowadays a good deal is expected of representatives; they are generally expected to give some account of their stewardship, and it occurred to us that we might make an effort to do something for our constituents by calling the attention of this Association to the status of Assistant Medical Officers in our specialty. We threw ourselves into the work the more readily because we felt strongly, and knew that we were supported in this feeling by not a few liberal-minded Superintendents, that Assistant Medical Officers, as a class, are not as well treated as they ought to be; that in many cases, indeed, considering their duties and responsibilities and the number of years they have devoted to the study of asylum work, they are neither accorded that consideration they deserve, nor are they adequately remunerated.

During the past twenty years I have visited many asylums in Great Britain and the Continent, in Canada and the United States. I believe I have never visited any asylum without learning something, though in a very few cases I may, perhaps, have only learned what to avoid.

Probably no form of insanity includes so many varieties, or is characterized by so peculiar and even contradictory symptoms as melancholia. Under this form of mental derangement most authors include a variety they term excited or active melancholia which is characterized by a motor excitement, sometimes equalling that of acute mania, and they also include another variety termed melancholia with stupor, in which the patient remains absolutely motionless and quiet. Two more strikingly different varieties of insanity it would be impossible to describe, and we are at once confronted by the question — What explanation is there of the existence of these symptoms in melancholia?