Before proceeding with my Address I have a painful duty to perform. Instead of receiving the presidency from my predecessor, I have to join with you in lamenting his death. In full, vigorous manhood, energetic, sympathetic and kind, yet firm and full of purpose, he has passed from the active stage.

[The subject discussed in this article, and the facts stated in regard to the actual practice of the French Courts in reference to the claims of the insane under restraint, with a view to recover their liberty, are of such vital importance at the present time in our own country, that we have thought it well to reproduce Dr. Foville's paper, which was read before the Congress of Psychiatry and Neuro-pathology held at Antwerp, September 7, 1885. The deliberate opinion of so great an authority cannot fail to be of much practical value, in view of the changes in Lunacy Law which seem imminent.—Eds.]

The brain-tissue from which the sections used for these illustrations were made was hardened by Hamilton's process, which, when carefully carried out, secures firmness of substance without brittleness, and a minimum amount of shrinking.

In every civilised community, however imperfectly the wish may be fulfilled, the desire is to do equal justice to all; to up hold the law as a terror to evil-doers, and the protector of the innocent.

The striking events surrounding the end of King Louis of Bavaria attracted the attention of the whole civilized world. Much has already been published on the subject in the newspapers; but as the “Journal of Mental Science” will go down to the future as a record of what took place in the department of insanity, it has been thought proper that this great historical tragedy should be reviewed in our pages. It is likely that State considerations will prevent any of the physicians who took part in the proceedings from publishing what came to their knowledge. Our principal sources of information have been three German pamphlets,∗ the extra edition of the “Berliner-Börsen Zeitung,” of 15th June, 1886, and a collection of cuttings from English and American newspapers. A study worthy of the attention of psychologists is afforded, apart from the interest derived from the rank of the unfortunate prince and the pathetic character of the event which brought his life to a close. We see the evolution of an hereditary disposition to insanity helped instead of hindered by external circumstances. The family of Wittelsbach was one of the oldest amongst the ruling princes of Europe. The Duke of Bavaria, a prominent figure in the Thirty-Years' War, became an electoral prince of the German Empire in 1623. When Gustavus of Sweden entered Munich in 1632, he much approved of the taste displayed in the apartments of the palace of the fugitive Elector, and asked “Who was the architect?” “He is no other,” answered the attendant, “than the Elector himself.” “I should like to have him,” said the King, “to send him to Stockholm.” Thus a taste for decorative architecture seemed to have appeared at this early date in this princely family. Maximilian Joseph I. was made king by Napoleon after the battle of Austerlitz, at the same time receiving the Tyrol as the reward of his alliance. In this prince the family taste for art showed itself in many ways. He acquired the Aeginetan

marbles, the Dürer and the Düsseldorf gallery. His son, Louis I., spent millions of money in adorning Munich with splendid buildings in the Greek and Italian styles, and was the patron of Cornelius and the elder Kaulbach. The weaknesses of a virtuoso, and the scandals and imprudences into which he was led by his mistress, Lola Montes, brought about his deposition in the stormy year 1848. He was succeeded by his son, Maximilian II., whose rule was unpopular, owing to his reactionary tendencies. Maximilian's brother became King of Greece, till his subjects got rid of him without much ceremony or difficulty in 1862, when he returned to Bavaria.

The separate grouping of divers diseases in hospitals for their better treatment is a constant accompaniment of progress in medicine. Medical complaints have been separated from surgical ones; contagious diseases have been isolated from non-contagious diseases, and from one another; acute cases have been separated from chronic ones; those under medical treatment from those simply convalescent. But of late years, in the domain of mental science, so far from the separation of different groups becoming more and more definite, it might be held with some plausibility that for years back the tendency has been the other way. The asylum is becoming more and more an infirmary, a place for stowing away all the wreckage of our social system, all the flotsam and jetsam of disease and misfortune—a place where is thrown together everything in human nature troublesome and unsightly. Eccentric and dotard old people, deserted children whose feeble mental faculties made unusual demands upon the care of the poor-house matron, helpless paralytics, and many of the miscellaneous cases where bodily disease has brought with it mental feebleness, are all shoved into the District Asylum, to be kept till death walks them off.

In bringing before you the subject of the dietary in use in public asylums in this country, I have, in the first instance, to apologise for my inability to treat so great a subject in a manner in any way commensurate with its importance. I omit altogether touching on those fields for research as to the nature, quality, and quantity of food best suited in the treatment of acute insanity for the support of bodily strength, allaying excitement and producing sleep, as to the arguments for and against artificial alimentation, and as to the use and abuse of stimulants.

It has been said by some astute critic that “insanity has no pathology,” but it would be a nearer approach to scientific truth if he had said that, with our present imperfect means of investigation, there are many cases of insanity in which no pathological changes can be discovered as the cause of the mental phenomena. The microscope, for example, has as yet failed to differentiate the delicate alterations in the protoplasm of the cerebral cells which result in an outburst of maniacal excitement; nevertheless, the ophthalmoscope shows changes in the vascular supply of the brain in many such cases, and, with the aid of the sphygmograph, light has been thrown on many hitherto obscure conditions of the circulation.

I have chosen this title as inferring as little as possible any relation other than that of time between the states of disorder. Night follows day, but is not caused by it, and, as we shall see, in some cases one form of nervous disorder is followed by another form of disorder, both having probably a similar cause, but not the one depending on the other as its cause. It is only necessary to say that I use the term neurosis in a very general way, thereby meaning any well recognized disturbance of the nervous system which might be considered due to direct inheritance, or might itself start a morbid nervous series.

Till recently we believed that, however much, the members of the legal and medical professions might differ in regard to the definition of insanity, and to its relations to responsibility, they agreed in the main as to the question of drunkenness and its responsibilities.

In submitting the following short paper, I do so clearly realizing that deductions from limited observations present many sources of fallacy; also that even extended observations made in a limited area are very liable to error, and need correction by extended observation; that peculiarities of race, and circumstances connected with locality may even in such a matter as this exercise a marked influence. I trust, however, to hear the experience of others on the subject.

The supposition is that an asylum for the insane is a place where those who are mentally ill are received and treated according to the latest improved tenets of scientific medicine, and are so helped by all known means towards mental health—a place where disorders of the mind and diseases of the nervous system are specially studied and treated by men who have given up their whole time and energy to this one special branch of our profession, and where every opportunity is seized

As I take it, seclusion means the isolation of a patient from his fellows effected against his will and in spite of his remonstrances.

It is not proposed that the time of this meeting should be taken up by a monologue of mine in the shape of a set paper. I intend only to mark out the ground which can be profitably covered, and after dealing myself with one or two of the questions raised, I shall leave the remainder to other members present. After that it is hoped that there will follow a general discussion commensurate with the importance of the subject.

The questions set at the recent Matriculation Examination of the London University afford food for the student of mental science. The whole system of competitive examinations, as understood by our universities, is so much at variance with the true principles of mental development that it is somewhat difficult to judge the papers by the standard of the metaphysician. When the present system is tending to make of education an art rather than a science, when the test of a man's capabilities is rather to see how many pages of carefully prepared “Guides to University Students” he can assimilate rather than how much he has had called into play his powers of personal observation, and how much experience he has really mastered; when, in short, an undue importance is given to book knowledge to the detriment of mental wisdom, it is not to be wondered that we find the questions of the Matriculation Examination of the London University falling below the standard that we should like to see our universities set before them. If there is to be any reform in our educational systems (and it is sorely needed) one would naturally look to our universities for its genesis; but for the most part we look in vain. Perhaps the temptation to extol mere book learning, and to lose sight of the aims of education, beyond those merely of acquiring knowledge, is more likely to be experienced by the examiners of the London University than by any others. For in a university where residence for a certain academic course is not a sine qua non of becoming a graduate, and where elaborate crams and “examination papers worked out in full” are ready a few days after the conclusion of the examination, it may be a difficult matter for an examiner to avoid falling into the errors to which we have referred. On the other hand, no body of people in the whole country-have more opportunities for good or more facilities for raising the intellectual status of our teachers, and so of our educational systems, than have those gentlemen who draw up the questions of the London University Examinations. And let us say, at the outset, that we are fairly well pleased, on the whole, with the result of their efforts in the January matriculation questions. We shall have to point out errors and failings, but many of the questions strike us as a decided improvement on the general run of such questions, and may assist in opposing the vicious system of cramming that is decimating the ranks of the teaching profession of its best—because most independent and original—men.

Much attention having recently been given (in the pages of this Journal and elsewhere) to the subject of the systematic training of asylum attendants, it occurred to me last autumn that some advantage might be gained in this direction by the instruction of the staff of this institution in “first aid to the injured,” as prescribed in the scheme of the St. John Ambulance Association. I accordingly announced my willingness to give the necessary course of five lectures and demonstrations, and having obtained the moral and pecuniary support of my Committee, who granted £5 in aid of the project, two classes were speedily formed, the one consisting of 28 men and the other of 39 women (the rules of the Association forbidding mixed classes). The fees were fixed at 2s. for the men and 1s. 6d for the women (including an anatomical diagram), and each pupil was advised also to purchase Shepherd's Manual of “First Aid,” price 1s., and an illustrated triangular bandage, price 6d. The staff of attendants and nurses were so eager to enter the classes that the only difficulty I had was to exclude a sufficient number for the necessary service of the patients on lecture evenings, which were Thursdays, at 8 p.m. Each lecture occupied about an hour, and another half hour or so was subsequently devoted to practical work, in which I had the aid of the assistant medical officer, Dr. Taylor. The subjects embraced in the course included a general outline of the structure and functions of the body, with special reference to the formation of the skeleton, the course of the circulation, and the functions of respiration and the nervous system. The practical instruction was in the application of bandages, chiefly triangular, the various extemporary means of arresting hæmorrhages, and of protecting and securing fractured bones, and what to do in certain emergencies, such as suffocation, drowning, burns, scalds, &c.; also in the removal of the injured on ambulance stretchers and otherwise, and (for women) a cursory account of the principles of nursing. The classes were from time to time questioned on the subjects of the lectures, the matron undertaking the supervision of the practical work of the women. By these various means I think I may say that the pupils were well taught, and at the examination by Surgeon-Major Hutton, one of the Association examiners, out of 15 men and 19 women presenting themselves, 15 men and 18 women passed with credit. The examination was of a fair and specially practical character, the women having, in addition to vivâ-voce questioning, a paper of six questions to answer in writing, and the men being subjected to an extended examination in ambulance drill.