There are few subjects on which a book could be written more interesting to thoughtful men than the experiences and confessions of a recovered lunatic. If such an one could remember with distinctness, and relate with perspicuity, the various phases of intellectual aberration and of emotional perversion through which he had passed, he might produce a work capable of competing for public favor with the confessions of an English Opium Ester. And if he had accelerated his own progress towards convalescence by energetic attempts to regain self-control, he might rival the lesson of self-victory taught in that astonishing production.

16 & 17 Victoria, cap. xcvii. An Act to Consolidate and Amend the Laws for the Provision and Regulation op Lonatic Asylums for Counties and Boroughs, and for the Maintenance and Care of Pauper Lunatics in England. (20th August, 1853.)

I. 8 and 9 Vict., c. 126, 9 and 10 Vict., c. 84, and 10 and 11 Vict., c. 43, repealed, but not to affect appointments, salaries, annuities, agreements, contracts, prosecutions, etc., entered into or made before the commencement of this Act.

When the future historian of the manners and customs of the present age shall seek for the most Prominent fact which in this country distinguishes the prevailing spirit as that of humanity, he will scarcely hesitate in awarding the post of honor to the Non-Restraint system of treating the insane. The change which the system of which the total abolition of mechanical restraint is the key stone has effected, has been, where adopted in its entirety, a total one. The change is so complete, that its extent is hard to realize; just as a denizen of this fair country experiences difficulty in picturing to his imagination the hill Sides clothed with dense forest, the postures occupied by poisonous fens, the whole inhabited by painted Celts and other Savage animals. But it has not taken ages nor even the brief space of one man's life, to substitute the most benign features of human gentleness for the savagery of the old mad house. In a public speech at Stafford, the Lord Bishop of the diocese stated, “He never came away from the asylum without a feeling of gratitude and thankfulness. Much had been said of the great improvement which had taken place in the treatment of the insane, he might, perhaps, be allowed to mention one fact which had been told him by Sir Charles Clarke, but which Sir Charles (who was present) had not stated to them. Sir Charles told him, that he remembered when a student, he had often passed Bethlem, and heard the rattling of the chains and the shrieks of the patients. Only think of that, in the crowded streets of the metropolis to hear the rattling of the chains and the shrieks of the patients ! And now, as had been stated by Lord Harrowby, they might go over their own asylum, containing between three and four hundred patients, and not see a single patient placed under restraint of any kind, but all enjoying the utmost possible comfort which their cases would admit of. What a contrast to the rattling of chains and the shrieks of the patients!”

The last Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy contains a series of suggestions to the Visiting Justices of asylums on the appointment and duties of officers to these institutions. In these suggestions the appointment of Visiting Physicians is commented on in the following terms:—

At the end of each year of labor, the workman, in whatever field his efforts may be expended, is accustomed to survey the results and to estimate his progress. The merchant takes stock of his goods, the agriculturist calculates his gains and re-values his cattle and crops, the politician counts his party, and the student contemplates the more noble acquisitions of mind.

The Eighth Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy to the Lord Chancellor has just been issued, and a more enlightened or satisfactory document has rarely come from the State Paper Office. It not only indicates like all preceding Reports, the amount of work done by the Commission in behalf of the helpless and afflicted class, over whose interests it presides, but in several important respects it also marks a considerable advancement of opinion.

I have been reminded that in my first notice, when I spoke of Dr. Davey, Dr. Nesbitt, and Dr. Hitchman, as having respectively introduced the Non-Restraint System into the asylums of Colney Hatch, Northampton, and Derby, it would appear that I overlooked the fact of that system having been adopted at Northampton by Dr. Nesbitt's predecessor, the late Dr. Thomas Prichard. Although my meaning was merely that the three physicians named had each left Hanwell convinced of the practicability and safety of the non-restraint system, and had steadily maintained it on their removal; I ought, perhaps, to have added, that at Northampton it had already been acted upon, and zealously and ably defended in the successive annual reports of the superintending physician. One or two occasional instances of the abandonment of the principle deprived this early and laudable example of full effect.

There is this difference between that which is in principle good and that which is evil: the former may by abuse or misuse be converted into evil, while the latter can by no conversion become other I than it is by nature from the beginning. One evil may mask or master a lesser one, but that which is bad in principle can never become good in practice.

If legislative enactments, having reference to the care and treatment of the insane in this kingdom, can, of late years, be said to have been grounded upon any one broad principle, it is this, that insane persons, whose maintenance is provided from public funds, shall receive care and treatment in public establishments, directed by salaried officials, and under the inspection and control of public bodies. On this principle it is that the recent Asylum's Act renders it compulsory upon every county and borough, to provide a public asylum for its poor, and invests the Secretary of State with large and summary powers to enforce compliance. It is the operation of this principle which has removed pauper lunatics from almost all licensed houses throughout the country, and has brought the latter, with a few exceptions, to the more legitimate condition of private asylums. The legislature has imposed this broad principle upon the community at large. It has left freedom of action to the Government alone, of which the Government has taken and is taking an advantage, which is by no means edifying.

The circumstances attending the dismissal of Br. Foote from the post of medical officer to the Norfolk County Asylum afford a striking proof that an extended publicity in matters affecting the welfare of the insane poor is much needed. A publicity which without delay may inform all who are entrusted with the care of the insane, of the most recent ameliorations in their treatment, and may thus remove from abuses the excuse of ignorance: a publicity which may expose abuses as they arise, and prevent their growth and their continuance: a publicity which can only be secured by a journal devoted to the purpose, and aided by the adherents of the new system throughout the kingdom. The new system of which non-restraint is the key stone, but only the key stone, and which comprises kindly treatment, sufficient diet, decent clothing, cleanly and wholesome lodging, and the skilful application of remedial agents; this system could not in every particular have been set at nought in the Norfolk County Asylum, had not its Visiting Justices been ignorant of the extent to which they betrayed the sacred duties they had accepted; nor could the abuses we shall describe have sheltered themselves under the ignorance of the Visitors, had the public been aware of their existence. Before the new treatment of insanity was discovered or at least developed into common practice, the immediate care, or to speak more correctly, the immediate control of the insane was entrusted to persons distinguished by strength of body, firmness of nerve, and inflexibility of temper. The governors also of the places in which the insane were immured, were selected without reference to their possession of any medical skill, or knowledge of mental diseases. They were, indeed, not unfrequently chosen from the ranks of those who were then rightly called keepers, but who are now more properly called attendants. Far be it from us to detract from the merits of any man who has raised himself by his own merits from a menial position to one of honor and responsibility. If the Superintendent of the Norfolk Asylum after having held the situation of attendant in the wards of Hanwell had studied medicine, and having so qualified himself to undertake the care and treatment of some hundreds of insane persons, had then been appointed to his present office, we should have admired and applauded his honorable ambition and his success. His appointment in default of such qualifications we refer to only as a proof that the Visiting Justices of the Norfolk Asylum were under the influence of opinions which are now recognized as erroneous, and which in other parts of the kingdom have become obsolete. In 1843, the Norfolk Asylum, with those for Bedford and Pembroke, were the only county asylums in England Wales without a resident medical officer. The following extract from the Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy for 1844, will shew the value which the Visiting Justices for the Norfolk Asylum then placed upon medical skill in the treatment of the unfortunate persons placed under their jurisdiction.

From the last Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy I have calculated the rates of recovery and mortality in the different county asylums, so as to obtain a mean average for the five years over which their enquiries in Appendix (H) extend. The results may be thought interesting to many readers of the Asylum Journal, who have not leisure or inclination to go through the detail of such matters for themselves.