Over 250 psychiatrists, lawyers and health professionals heard seven distinguished speakers present and defend their views concerning the proper role of psychiatrists in the courtroom and of lawyers in the fieid of mental health at the 1974 Isaac Ray Symposium held at Butler Hospital, Providence, Rhode Island earlier this year.

Dr. Jacques Quen of Cornell University Medical College reviewed the remarkable 19th century contributions of Isaac Ray. He concluded that Ray would have supported the Birnbaum and Wyatt v. Stickney expositions of the right to treatment, (although probably not Wyatt's explicit numerical requirements), but would have objected to the great power which judges possess to release involuntarily committed patients in habeas corpus actions.