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The journal of mental science. 

London : Longman, Green, Longman & Roberts, 1859-1962. 

http://hdl.handle.net/2027/nj p.32101074924505 


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THE JOURNAL 

OF 

MENTAL SCIENCE. 


EDITORS: 

J. R. Lord, C.B.E., M.B. Thomas Drapes, M.B 

Assistant Editors: 

Henry Devine, M.D. 6. Douglas MoRae, M.D 

VOL. LXV. 



J. & A. CHURCHILL, 

7, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 

MDCCCCXIX. 


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" In adopting our title of the Journal of Mental Science, published by authority 
■ of the Medico-Psychological Association, we profess that we cultivate in our pages 
mental science of a particular kind, namely, such mental science as appertains 
to medical men who are engaged in the treatment of the insane. But it has 
been objected that the term mental science is inapplicable, and that the term 
mental physiology or mental pathology, or psychology, or psychiatry (a term 
much affected by our German brethren), would have been more correct and ap¬ 
propriate ; and that, moreover, we do not deal in mental science, which is pro¬ 
perly the sphere of the aspiring metaphysical intellect. If mental science is 
strictly synonymous with metaphysics, these objections are certainly valid ; for 
although we do not eschew metaphysical discussion, the aim of this Journal is 
certainly bent upon more attainable objects than the pursuit of those recondite 
inquiries which have occupied the most ambitious intellects from the time of 
Plato to the present, with so much labour and so little result. But while we 
admit that metaphysics may be called one department of mental science, we main¬ 
tain that mental physiology and mental pathology are also mental science under 
a different aspect. While metaphysics may be called speculative mental science, 
mental physiology and pathology, with their vast range of inquiry into insanity, 
education, crime, and all things which tend to preserve mental health, or to pro¬ 
duce mental disease, are not less questions of mental science in its practical, that 
is in its sociological point of view. If it were not unjust to high mathematics 
to compare it in any way with abstruse metaphysics, it would illustrate our 
meaning to say that our practical mental science would fairly bear the same rela¬ 
tion to the mental science of the metaphysicians as applied mathematics bears to 
the pure science. In both instances the aim of the pure science is the attainment 
of abstract truth; its utility, however, frequently going no further than to serve 
as a gymnasium for the intellect. In both instances the mixed science aims at, 
and, to a certain extent, attains immediate practical results of the greatest utility 
to the welfare of mankind ; we therefore maintain that our Journal is not inaptly 
called the Journal of Mental Science, although the science may only attempt to 
deal with sociological and medical inquiries, relating either to the preservation of 
the health of the mind or to the amelioration or cure of its diseases; and although 
not soaring to the height of abstruse metaphysics, we only aim at such meta¬ 
physical knowledge as may be available to our purposes, as the mechanician uses 
the formularies of mathematics. This is our view of the kind of mental science 
which physicians engaged in the grave responsibility of caring for the mental 
health of their fellow-men may, in all modesty, pretend to cultivate ; and while 
we cannot doubt that all additions to our certain knowledge in the speculative 
department of the science will be great gain, the necessities of duty and of danger 
must ever compel us to pursue that knowledge which is to be obtained in the 
practical departments of science with the earnestness of real workmen. The cap¬ 
tain of a ship would be none the worse for being well acquainted with the higher 
branches of astronomical science, but it is the practical part of that science as it 
is applicable to navigation which he is compelled to study.”— Sir J. C. Bucknill, 
M.D., F.R.S. 


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THE 

MEDICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION 
OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 


THE COUNCIL AND OFFICERS, 1918-19. 


BDITOKS OF JOURNAL. 


PKB8IUF.NT.— JOHN KEAY, M.D., C.M., F.R.C.P. 
president ELECT.— BEDFORD PIERCE, M.D., F.R.C.P. 
ex-president. —DAVID GEORGE THOMSON, M.D., C.M. 
treasurer. —JAMES CHAMBERS, M.A., M.D. 

r JOHN R. LORD, M.B. 

IT. DRAPES, M.B. 

DIVISIONAL SECRETARY FOR SOUTH-EASTERN DIVISION. 

J. NOEL SERGEANT, M.B. 

DIVISIONAL SECRETARY FOR SOUTH-WESTERN DIVISION. 

G. N. BARTLETT, M.B. 

DIVISIONAL SECRETARY FOR NORTHERN AND MIDLAND DIVISION. 

T. STEWART ADAIR, M.D. 

DIVISIONAL SECRETARY FOR SCOTTISH DIVISION. 

ROBT. B. CAMPBELL, M.D,, F.R.C.P. 


DIVISIONAL SECRETARY FOR IRISH DIVISION. 

RICHARD R. DEEPER, F.R.C.S. 

GENERAL SECRETARY. —R. U. STEEN, M.D., M.R.C.P. 
CHAIRMAN OF PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE. 

H. WOLSELEY-LEWIS, M.D., F.R.C.S. 


SECRETARY OP PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE. 

R. H. COLE, M.D , F.R.C.P. 

(both appointed by Parliamentary Committee, and with scats on Council). 

SECRETARY OF EDUCATIONAL COMMITTEE. 

J. G. PORTER PHILLIPS, M.IL, M.R.C.P. 

(appointed by Educational Committee, and with seat on Council). 
registrar.— ALFRED A. MILLER, M.B. 

MEMBERS OF COUNCIL. 


REPRESENTATIVE. 


R. ARMSTRONG-JONES 
DAVID BOWER 
MAURICE CRAIG 
A. W. DANIEL 
H. T. S. AVELINE 
H. C. MACBliYAN 
J. W. GEDDES 
H. J. MACKENZIE 
L. R. OSWALD 
J. H. SKEEN 


j-S.E. Div. 

}S.W. Div. 
}N.&M. Div 
} Scotland. 


REPRESENTATIVE. 


M. J. NOLAN 
J. MILLS 


- Ireland. 


NOMINATED. 

HELEN BOYLE 
RICHARD EAGER 
R. I). HOTCHKIS 

F. W. MOTT 
DAVID ORR 

G. E. SHUT1LEWORTH 


[The above form the Council.] 


ENGLAND 

SCOTLAND 

IRELAND 


EXAMINERS. 

R. II. STEEN, M.D., M.R.C.P. 

J. O. PORTER-PHILLIPS, M.D., B.S., M.R.C.P.Lond., 
M.P.C. 

H. do M. ALEXANDER, M.D., C.M.Edin. 

L. R. OSWALD, M.D., C.M. 

M. J. NOLAN, L.R.C.P.&S.I., M.P.C. 

F. E. RAINSFORD, M.D., B.A.Dubl., L.R.C.P.I., 
L.R.C.P.&S.E. 


Examiners for the Nursing Certificate of the Association : 

Final.- J. REDINGTON, F.R.C.S., L.R.C.F.I.; HENRY DEVINE, M.D., B S., 
M.R.C.P., M.R.C.S., M.P.C.; N. T. KERR, M.D., C.M.Edin. 
Preliminary .—GEORGE DUNLOP ROBERTSON, L.R.C.S. & P.F.din., Dipl. Psych.; 
A. W. DANIEL, B.A., M.D., B.C.Cantab., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond. ; 

H. BROUGHAM LEECH, M.D., B Ch.Dublin. 

AUDITORS. 



G. F. BARHAM, M.A., M.D.Camb. 

2W 


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PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE. 


T. S. ADAIR. 

SIR R. ARMSTRONG-JONES. 
H. T. S. AVEL1NE. 
FLETCHER BEACH. 

E. H. BERESFORD. 

JAMES V. BLACHFORD. 
DAVID BOWER. 

A. HELEN BOYLE. 

LEWIS C. BRUCE. 

R. B. CAMPBELL. 

JAMES CHAMBERS. 

R. H. COLE. 

M. A. COLLINS. 

MAURICE CRAIG. 

J. F. DIXON. 

J. O’C. DON ELAN. 

THOs. DRAPES. 

H. EAGER. 

J. It. OILMOUR. 

R. D. HOTCHKIS. 

P. T. HUGHES. 

D. HUNTER. 

THEO. B. HYSLOP. 

JOHN KEAY (ex officio). 

N. T. KERR. 

R. L. LANGDON-DOWN. 

R. R. LEEPER. 

J. R. LORD. 


P. W. MACDONALD. 

T. W. McDOWALL. 

W. F. MENZIES. 

CHAS. A. MERCIER. 
JOHN MILLS. 

W. F. NELIS. 

M. J. NOLAN. 

JAMES ORR. 

L. R. OSWALD. 

E. S. PASMORE. 
BEDFORD PIERCE. 
HENRY KAYNER. 

G. M. ROBERTSON. 

SIR GEO. II. SAVAGE. 

G. E. SHUTTLEWORTH. 
J. H. SKEEN. 

R. PERCY SMITH. 

J. G. SOUTAR. 

J. BEVERIDGE SPENCE. 
T. E K STANSFIELD. 
R. H. STEEN. 

ROTHSAY C. STEWART. 

F. R. P. TAYLOR. 

DAVID G. THOMSON. 
ERNEST W. WHITE 
J. R. WHIT WELL. 

H. WOLSELEY-LEW1S. 


EDUCATIONAL COMMITTEE. 


T. S. ADAIR. 

II. do M. ALEXANDER (ex officio). 
3. SIR R. ARMSTRONG-JONES. 

H. T. S. AVELINE. 

FLETCHER BEACH. 

J. V. BLACHFORD. 

,1. J. S. BOLTON. 

LEWIS C. BRUCE. 

R. B. CAMPBELL. 

22. JAMES CHAMBERS. 

18. R. H. COLE. 

M. A. COLLINS 

2. MAURICE CRAIG. 

A. W. DANIEL (txoffioio). 

H. DEVINE. 

J. FRANCIS DIXON. 

10. J. O'C. DONELAN. 

THOS. DRAPES. 

R. EAGER. 

C. C. EASTERBROOK. 

J. R. GILMOUR. 

17. B. HART. 

R. D. HOTCHKIS. 

16. P. T. HUGHES. 

12. JOHN KEAY. 

N. T. KERR. 

H. B. LEECH (ex officio). 

R. R. LEEPER. 

13. J. H. MACDONALD. 

P. W. MACDONALD. 

4 THOS. W. McDOWALL. 

16. W. TUACII MACKENZIE. 

21. E. 1). MACNAMARA. 

8. R. MACPHAIL. 


W. F. MENZIES. 

C. A. MERCIER. 

JAMES MIDDLEMASS. 
ALFRED MILLER (ex officio). 
W. F. NELIS. 

MICHAEL J. NOLAN. 

25. H. J. NORMAN. 

DAVID ORR. 

JAMES ORR. 

5. L. R. OSWALD. 

23. J. G. PORTER PHILLIPS. 
BEDFORD PIERCE. 

F. E. RAINSFORD (ex officio.)- 
J. REDINGTON (ex officio.) 

G. D. ROBERTSON (exofficio). 

6. GEORGE M. ROBERTSON. 

R. G. ROWS. 

20. W. SCOWCRUFT. 

E. B. SHERLOCK. 

G. E. SHUTTLEWORTH. 

J. H. SKEEN. 

R. PERCY SMITH. 

J. 0. SOUTAR. 

J. BEVERIDGE SPENCE. 

_ T. E. K. STANSFIELD. 

7. ROBERT H. STEEN. 

8. W. H. B. STODDART. 
FREDERICK R. P. TAYLOR. 
DAVID G. THOMSON. 

19. W. R. VINCENT. 

24. J. K. WILL 

H. WOLSELEY-LEWIS. 

9 JAMES COWAN WOODS. 


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LIBRARY COMMITTEE. 


FLETCHER BEACH. 
HELEN BOYLE. 

M. A. COLLINS. 
HENRY DEVINE. 
BERNARD HART. 
THEO. B. HYSLOP. 


JOHN KEAY (ex officio). 

K. MAPOTHER. 

HENRY KAYNER (Chairman). 
R. H. STEEN ( Secretary ). 

W. H. B. STODDART. 

DAVID G. THOMSON. 


RESEARCH COMMITTEE. 


T. STEWART ADAIR. 
J. SHAW BOLTON. 

J. CHAMBERS. 

M. A. COLLINS. 

H. DEVINE. 

T. DRAPES. 

E. GOODALL. 

JOHN KEAY. 


J. R. LORD. 

DAVID ORR. 

FORD ROBERTSON. 
R. G. ROWS. 

R. PERCY SMITH. 
R. H. STEEN. 

D. G. THOMSON. 

W. J. TULLOCH. 


Lectures at:—(1) University of Leeds , (2) Guy's Hospital; (3) St. Bartholomew’s 
Hospital; (4) University of Durham ; (5) University of Glasgow ; (61 University of 
Edinburgh and Medical College for Women, Edinburgh ; (7) King’s College Hospital; 
(8) St. Thomas’s Hospital; (9) St. George's Hospital; (10) University of Dublin and 
National University of Ireland ; .(11) Queen's University of Belfast; (12) Lecturer at 
School of Medicine, Royal Colleges and Medical College for Women, Edinburgh; 
(13) St. Mungo's College, Glasgow; (14) Aberdeen University; (15) St. Andrew’s 
University and Dundee University ; (16) Birmingham University ; (17) University 
College, London ; (18) St. Mary’s Hospital, London; (19) University of Sheffield ; 
(20) Victoria University, Manchester; (21) Charing Cross Hospital(22) Middlesex 
Hospital; (23) Royal Free Hospital; (24) London Hospital; (25) Westminster 
Hospital. 


LIST OF CHAIRMEN. 

1841. l)r. Blako, Nottingham. 

1842. Dr. de Vitre, Lancaster. 

1843. Dr. Conolly, Hanwell. 

1844. Dr. Thurnam, York Retreat. 

1847. Dr. Wintle, VVarneford House, Oxford. 

1861. Dr. Conolly, Hanwell. 

1862. Dr. Wintle, Warneford House. 


LIST OF PRESIDENTS. 

1854. A. J. Sutherland, M.D., St. Luke’s Hospital, London. 

1856. J. Thurnam, M.D., Wilts County Asylum. 

1866. J. Hitchinan, M.D., Derby County Asylum. 

1857- Forbes Winslow, M.D., Sussex House, Hammersmith. 

1858. John Conolly, M.D., County Asylum, Hanwell. 

1859. Sir Charles Hastings, D.C.L. 

1860. J. C. Bucknill, M.D., Devon County Asylum. 

1861. Joseph Lalor, M.D., Richmond Asylum, Dublin. 

1862. John Kirkman, M.D., Suffolk County Asylum. 

1863. David Skae, M.D., Royal Edinburgh Asylum. 

1864. Henry Munro, M.D., Brook House, Clapton. 

1865. Wm. Wood, M.D., Kensington House. 

1866. W. A. F. Browne, M.D., Commissioner in Lunacy for Scotland. 

1867. C. A. Lockhart Robertson, M.D., Haywards Heath Asylum. 

1868. W. H. 0. Sankey, M.D., Sandywell Park, Cheltenham. 

1869. T. Laycock, M.D., Edinburgh. 

1870. Robert Boyd, M.D., County Asylum, Wells. 

1871. Henry Maudsley, M.D., The Lawn, Hanwell. 

1872. Sir James Coxe, M.D., Commissioner in Lunacy for Scotland. 


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1873. Harrington Tuke, M.D., Manor House,Chiswick. 

1874. T. L. Rogers, M.D., County Asylum, Rainliill. 

1875. J. F. Duncan, M.D., Dublin. 

1876. W. H. Pnrsey, M.D., Warwick County Asylum. 

1877. G. Fielding Blandford, M.D., London. 

1878. Sir J. Crichton-Browne, M.I)., Lord Chancellor’s Visitor. 

1879. J. A. Lush, M.D., Fisherton House, Salisbury. 

1880. G. W. Mould, M.R.C.S., Royal Asylum, Cheadle. 

1881. D. Hack Tuke, M.D., London. 

1882. Sir W. T. Gairdner, M.D., Glasgow. 

1883. W. Orange, M.D., State Criminal Lunatic Asylum, Broadmoor. 

1884. Henry Rayner, M.D., County Asylum, Hanwell. 

1885. J. A. Eames, M.D., District Asylum, Cork. 

1886. Sir Geo. H. Savage, M.D., Bethlem Roynl Hospital. 

1887. Sir Fred. Needlmm, M.D., Barnwood House. Gloucester. 

1888. Sir T. S. Clouston, M.D., Royal Edinburgh Asylum. 

1889. H. Hayes Newington, F.R.C.P., Ticehurst, Sussex. 

1890. David Yellowlees, M.D., Gartnavel Asylum, Glasgow. 

1891. E. B. VVhitcombe, M.R.C.S., City Asylum, Birmingham. 

1892. Robert Baker, M.D., The Retreat, York. 

1893. J. Murray Lindsay, M.D., County Asylum, Derby. 

1894. Conolly Norman, F.R.C.P.I., Richmond Asylum, Dublin. 

1895. David Nicolson, C.B.,M.I)., State Criminal Lunatic Asylum, Broadmoor. 

1896. William Julius Mickle, M.D., Grove Hall Asylum, Bow. 

1897. Thomas W. McDowall, M.D., Morpeth, Northumberland. 

1898. A. R. Urquliart, M.D., James Murray’s Royal Asylum, Perth. 

1899. J. B. Spence, M.D., Burntwood Asylum, nr. Lichfield, Staffordshire. 

1900. Fletcher Beach, M.B., 79, Wimpole Street, W. 1. 

1901. Oscar T. Woods, M.D., District Asylum, Cork, Ireland. 

1902 J. Wiglesworth, M.D., F.R.C.P., Rainhill Asylum, near Liverpool. 

1903. Ernest W. White, M.B.,M.R.C.P., City of London Asylum, Dartford, Kent. 

1904. R. Percy Smith, M.D., F.R.C.P., 36, Queen Anne Street, Cavendish 

Square, Loudon, W. 1. 

1905. T. Outterson Wood, M.D., F.R.C.P., 40, Margaret Street, Cavendish 

Square, London, W. 1. 

1906. Sir Robert Armstroug-JoneF, M.D.Lond., B.S., F.R.C.P., F.R.C.S.Eng., 

Claybury Asylum, Woodford Bridge, Essex. 

1907. P. W. MacDonald, M.I)., County Asylum, Dorchester. 

1908. Clias. A. Mercicr, M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.C.S., 34, Wimpole Street, London, 
* W. 1. 

1909. W. Bevan-Lewis, M.Sc., L.R.C.P., late Medical Director, West Riding 

Asylum, Wakefield. 

1910. John Macpherson, M.D., F.R.C.P.Edin., Commissioner in Lunacy, 8, 

Darnaway Street, Edinburgh. 

1911. Wm. R. Dawson, B.A., M.D., F.R.C.P.I., D.P.H., Inspector of Lunatic 

Asylums, Dublin Castle, Dublin. 

1912. J. Greig Soutar, M.B., Barnwood House, Gloucester. 

1913. James Chambers, M.D., M.Ch., The Priory, Roehamptou, S.W. 

1914-18. David G. Thomson, M.D., C.M.Kdin., County Asylum, Thorpe, Norfolk. 
1918. John Keay, M.D., C.M., F.R.C.P., Edinburgh War Hospital, Baugour. 


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Honorary and Corresponding Members. v 

HONORARY MEMBERS. 

1896. Allbutt, Sir T. Clifford, K.C.B., M.D., D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S., 

Regius Professor of Physic, Uni v. Ciunl).,St. Radegund’s, Cambridge. 
1881. Beuedikt, Prof. M., Franciskaner Platz 6, Vienna. 

1918. Bevnn-Lewis, William, M.Sc.Leeds, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Elsinore, 
Dyke Road Avenue, Brighton. (President, 1909-10.) 

1907. Bianchi, Prof. Leonardo, Manicoinio Provinciale di Napoli. Musee N. 3, 
Naples, Italy. (Corr. Mem. , 1896.) 

1900. Blunier, G. Alder, M.D., L.R.C.P.Edin., Butler Hospital, Providence, 
U.8.A. (Ord. Mem., 1890.) 

1900. Bresler, Johannes, M.D., Obernrtzt, Liiben in Schlesien, Germany. 

(Corr. Mem. 1896.) 

1881. Brosius, Dr., 

1902. Brush, Edward N., M.D., Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital, Towson, 
Maryland, U.S.A. 

1917. Colies, John Mayue, LL.D. (Univ. Dub.), K.C., J.P., Registrar iu Lunacy 

(Supremo Court of Judicature in Ireland), Lunacy Office, Four 
Courts, Dublin. 

1909. Collins, Sir William J„ D.L., M.D., M.S., B.Sc.Loud., F.K.C.S.Eng., 
1, Albert Terrace, Regent’s Park, London, N.W. 1. 

1918. Cooke, Sir Edward Marriott, K.B.E., M.D., M.R.C.S.Eng., Commissioner 

in Lunacy, 69, Onslow Square, London, S.W. 7. 

1912. Considine, Thomas Ivory, F.R.C.S.I., L.R.C.P.I., Inspector of Lunatic 
Asylums, Ireland, Office of Lunatic Asylums, Dublin Castle, Dublin. 
1902. Coupland, Sidney. M.D., F.R.C.P.Lond., Commissioner of the Board of 
Control, “ Plan Gwyu,” Frognnl, Hampstead, Loudon, N.W. 3. 

1876. Orichton-Browne, Sir J., M.D.Edin., LL.D., D.Sc., F.R.S., Lord 
Chancellor’s Visitor, Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London, 
W.C. 2., and 45, Hans Place, London, S.W. 1. (President, 1878.) 
1911. Donkiu, Sir Horatio Bryan, M.A., M.D.Oxon., F.R.C.P.Lond. (Medical 
Adviser to Prison Commissioners and Director of Convict Prisons), 
28, Hyde Park Street, London, W. 2. 

1879. Echeverria, M. G., M.I). 

1895. Ferrier, Sir David, M.A., M.D., LL.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S., 34, Cavendish 
Square, London, W. 1. 

1872. Fraser, John, M.B., C.M., F.R.C.P.E., Formerly Commissioner in 
Lunacy, 54, Great King Street, Edinburgh. 

1909. Kraepelin, I)r. Emil, Professor of Psychiatry, The University, Munich. 
1887. Lentz, Dr., Asile d’Alilnes, Tournai, Belgique. 

1910. Macpberson, John, M.D., F.ll.C.P.Edin., Commissioner in Lunacy, 8, 

Darnaway Street, Edinburgh. (President, 1910-11.) ( Ordinary 

Member from 1886.) 

1911. Moeli, Prof. Dr. Karl, Director, Herzberge Asylum, Berlin. 

1897. Morel, M. Jules, M.D., 56. Boulevard Leopold, Ghent, Belgium. 

1889. Needham, Sir Frederick, M.D.St. And., M.R.C.P.Edin., M.R.C.S.Eng., 
Commissioner of the Board of Control, 19, Campden Hill Square, 
Kensington, London, W. 8. (President, 1887.) 

1909. Obersteiner, Dr. Heinrich, Professor of Neurology, The University, Vienna. 
1881. Peeters, M., M.D., Gheel, Belgium. 

1900. Ritti, Ant., 68, Boulevard Exelmans, Paris. (Corr. Mem., 1890.) 

1887. Schule, Heinrich, M.D., Illenau, Baden, Germany. 

1911. Semelaigne, R6ne, M.D.Paris, Secretaire des Stances de la Socifjte 
Medico-Psychologiqne de Paris, 16, Avenue de Madrid, Neuilly, 
Seine, France. ( Corresponding Member from 1893.) 

1881. Tamburini, A., M.I)., Reggio-Einilia, Italy. 

1901. Toulouse, Dr. Edouard, Dirccteur du Laboratoire de Psychologie experi¬ 

mental & l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes Paris et Medecin en chef de 
l’Asile de Villejuif, Seine, France. 

1910. Trevor, Arthur Hill, Esq.. B.A.Oxon., of the Inner Temple, Barrister at 

Law, Commissioner of the Board of Control, 4, Albemarle Street, 
London, W. 1. 


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CORRESPONDING MEMBERS. 

1904. Bierio, Caetauo, 48, Rua Formosa, Lisbonne, Portugal. 

1911. Boedeker, Prof. Dr. Justus Karl Edmund, Privat Docent and Director, 
Fichhenhof Asylum, Schlactensee, Berlin. 

1897. Buschan, Dr. G., Stettin, Germany. 

1904. CaroleS, Wilfrid, Manicomia de Sta. Crur, St. Andreo de Palamar, 
Barcelona, Spain. 

1896. Cowan, F. M., M.D., 107, Perponcher Straat, The Hague, Holland. 

1902. Estense, Benedetto Giovanni Selvatico, M.D., 116, Piazza Porta Pia, Rome. 

1911. Falkenberg, Dr. Wilhelm, Oberarzt, Irrenanstalt, Herzberge, Berlin. 

1907. Ferrari, Giulio Cesare, M.D., Director of the Manicoinio Provinciale, 
Iniola, Bologna, Italy. 

1911. Friedlander, Prof. Dr. Adolf Albrecht, Director of the Holie Mark Klinik, 
nr. Frankfort. 

1904. Koenig, William Julius, Deputy Superintendent, Dalldorf Asylum, Berlin. 

1880. Kornfeld, Dr. Hermann, Fr. Schlesien, Hauptpostluyerstr., Breslau. 

1889. Kowalowsky, Professor Paul, Kbarkoff, Russia. 

1895. Lindell, Emil Wilhelm, M.D., Sweden. 

1901. Manheimer-Gommfcs, Dr., 32, Rue de l'Arcade, Paris. 

1909. Moreira, Dr. Julien, M.D.Bahia, Professor and Director of the National 
Manicomium of Rio de Janeiro ( Editor of the Brazilian Archives oj 
Psychiatry, etc.). 

1886. Parant, M. Victor, M.D., Toulouse. 

1909. Pilcz, Dr. Alexander (Professor of Psychiatry in the University of 
Vienna), Superintendent Landcssanatorium fur Nerven und Geistes- 
kranke Steinhof, Vienna. 




Mevibers of the Association. 


Digitized by 


vii 


MEMBERS OF THE ASSOCIATION. 

Alphabetical Lift of Members of the Association on December 3 \st, 1918, with 
the x/ear in which they joined. 

1900. Abbott, Henry Kingsmill, B.A., M.D.Dub., D.P.H.Irel., Medical Superin¬ 
tendent, Hants County Asylum, Fareham. 

1891. Adair, Thomas Stewart, M.D., C.M.Ediu., F.R.M.S., Medical Superin¬ 
tendent, Stortlies Hall Asylum, Kirkburton, near Huddersfield. 
(Hon. Sec. N. and M. Division since 1908.) 

1910. Adam, George Henry, M.R.C.S., L.RC'.P. Loud., Manager and Medical 
Superintendent, West Mailing Place, Kent. 

1913. Adams, John Barfield, L.R.C.P.&S.Edin., M.P.C., 119, Redlmid Roud, 
Bristol. 

1868. Adams, Josiah O., M.D.Durli., F.R.C.S.Eng., J.P., 117, Cazenove Road, 

Stamford Hill, London, N. 16. 

1886. Agar, S. Hollingsworth, jun., B.A.Cantab., M.lLC.S.Eng., L.S.A., Hurst 
House, Henley-in-Arden. 

1869. Aldridge, Chas., M.D., C.M.Aber., L.lt.C.P.Lond., Bellevue House, 

Plympton, Devon. 

1899. Alexander, Hugh de Maine, M.D., C.M.Ediu., Medical Superintendent, 
Aberdeen City District Asylum, Kingseat, Newmaehar, Aberdeen. 
1899. Allmann, Dorah Elizabeth, M.B., B.Ch.R.U.l., Assistant Medical Officer, 
District Asylum, Armagh. 

1908. Anderson, James Richard Sumner, M.B., Ch.B.Glas., Senior Assistant 

Medical Officer, Cumberland and Westmorland Asylum, Garlands, 
Carlisle. 

1898. Anderson, John Sewell, M.R.C.S., L.lt.C.P.Lond., Senior Assistant 
Medical Officer, Hull City Asylum, Willerby, near Hull. 

1918. Anderson, William Kirkpatrick, M.B., Ch.B.Glas., Visiting Physician, 
Eastern District Hospital, Glasgow ; 3, Ashton Terrace, Glasgow. 
1912. Annandale, James Scott, M.B., Ch.B.Edin., Second Assistant Physician, 
District Asylum, Murthly, Perth. 

1912. Aplhorp, Frederick William, M.R.C.S.Eng., L.R.C.P.Edin., M.P.C., 

Senior Medical Officer, St. George’s Retreat, Itavensworth, Burgess 
Hill. 

1904. Arclidale, Mcrvyn Alex., M.B., B.S.Durh., Medical Superintendent, 
County Mental Hospital, Cambridge. 

1906. Archdall, Mervyn Thomas, L.R.C.P.&S.Edin., L.S.A.Lond., Brynn-y- 
Nenadd Hall, Llanfairfechan, N. Wales. 

1918. Archibald, Alexander John, M.B., Ch.B.Glas., Acting Medical Superin¬ 
tendent, Argyll and Bute District Asylum, Lochgilphead, Argyllshire. 
1918. Archibald, Madeline, L.R.C.P., L.R.C.S., Assistant Medical Officer, Argyll 
and Bute District Asylum, Lochgilphead. 

1882. Armstrong-Jones, Sir Robert, M.D.Lond., B.S., F.R.C.P., F.R.C.S.Eng., 
9, Bramhnm Gardens, London, S.W. 5 (and Pl&s Dinas, Carnarvon, 
North Wales). ( Gen. Secretary from 1897 to 1906.) (President, 
1906-7.) 

1910. Auden, G. A., M.A., M.D., B.C., D.P.H.Cautnb., M.R.C.P.Lond., F.S.A., 
Medical Superintendent, Educational Offices, Edmund Street, 
Birmingham. 

1891. Aveline, Henry T. S., M.D.Durli., M.lt.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., M.P.C., 
Medical Superintendent, County Asylum, Cotford, near Taunton, 
Somerset. (Eon. Sec. for S.W. Division, 1905-11.) 

1903. Bailey, William Henry, M.D.Lond., M.R.C.S.Eng., L.S.A., D.P.H.Lond., 
Featherstone Hall, Southall, Middlesex. 

1909. Bain, John, M.A., M.B., B.Ch.Glasg. (address uncommunicated). 

1913. Bainbridge, Charles Frederick, M.B., Ch.B.Edin., Assistant Medical 

Officer, Devon County Asylum, Exeter. 

1906. Baird, Harvey, M.D., Ch.B.Edin., Periteau, Winchelsea, Sussex. 


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Digitized by 


viii Members of the Association. 

1878. Baker, H. Morton, M.B., C.M.Edin., 7, Belsizo Square, London, N.W. 3. 
1888. Baker, John, M.D., C.M.Aberd., Medical Superintendent, State Asylum, 
Broadmoor, Berks. 

1916. Ballard, E. F., 13, Lynclhurst Road, Hove, Sussex. (Deceased.) 

1904. Barham, Guy Foster, M.A., M.D., B.C.Cantab., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., 
Acting Medical Superintendent, Claybury Asylum, Woodford 
Bridge, Essex. 

1913. Barkley, James Morgan, M.B., Ch.B.Edin. (Senior Medical Officer, 
Bracebridge Asylum, Lincolnshire); c/o Dr. J. B. Hunter, Brace- 
bridge Heath, Lincoln. 

1910. Bartlett, George Norton, M.B., B.S.Lond., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., 
Medical Superintendent, City Asylum, Exeter. 

1901. Baskin, J. Lougheed, M.D.Brux., L.R.C.P.&S.Edin., L.R.F.P.&S.Glas. 

1902. Baugh, Leonard D. H., M.B., Ch.B.Edin., The Pleasaunce, York. 

1874. Beach, Fletcher, M.B., F.R.C.P.Lond.,/brmeWy Medical Superintendent, 

Darenth Asylum, DartJord ; Cane Hill, Coulsdou, Surrey. (Secre¬ 
tary Parliamentary Committee, 1896-1906. General Secretary, 
1889-1896. President, 1900.) 

1892. Beadles, Cecil F., M.It.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Gresham House, Egham Hill, 
Egham. 

1902. Benle-Brownc, Thomas Richard, M.R.C.S.Eng., L.R.C.P.Lond., c/o 
P.M.O. Lagos, Nigeria, West Africa. 

1913. Bedford, Percy William Page, M.B., Ch.B.Edin., County Asylum, Lan¬ 

caster. 

1909. Beeley, Arthur, M.Sc.Leeds, M.D., B.S.Lond., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., 
D.P.H.Camb. (Assistant Medical Officer, JS. Sussex Educational 
Committee), Windybnnk, Kingston Road, Lewes. 

1914. Bennett, James Wodderspoon, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Marsden, Ilkley, 

Yorks. 

1912. Benson, Henry Porter D’Arcv, M.D., C.M.Edin., M.R.C.P., F.R.C.S. 

Edin., Medical Superintendent, Furnhum House, Fimrlas, Dublin. 
1914. Benson, John Robinson, F.R.C.S.Eng., L.R.C.P.Lond., Resident Physi¬ 
cian and Proprietor, Fiddington House, Market Lavington, Wilts. 

1899. Beresford, Edwyn H., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Medical Superintendent, 

Tooting Bee Asylum, Tooting, London, S.W. 17. 

1912. Berncastle, Herbert M., M.R.C.S.Eng., L.R.C.P.Lond., Assistant Medical, 

Officer, Croydon Mental Hospital, Warlingham, Surrey. 

1894. Blaeliford, James Vincent, M.D., B.S.Durh., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., 
M.P.C. (City Asylum, Fishponds, Bristol), Beaufort War Hospital, 
Bristol. 

1913. Black, Robert Sinclair, M.A.Edin., M.D., C'.M.Aberd., D.P.H., M.P.C., 

Medical Supt., Pietermaritzburg Mental Hospital, Natal, .South 
Africa. 

1898. Blair, David, M.A., M.D., C.M.Glaxg., County Asylum, Lancaster. 

1897. Blandf'ord, Joseph John Guthrie, B.A., D.P.H.Camb., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. 
Lond.; Rainliill Asylum, Lancashire. 

1918. Blandford, Walter Foliiott, B.A.Camb., M.1LC.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., 
Temporary Assistant Medical Officer, Caterham Asylum, Caterham, 
Surrey. 

1904. Bodvel-Roberts, Hugh Frank, M.A.Cantab., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., 
L.S.A., Middlesex County Asylum, Napsbury, near St. Albans, 
Herts. 

1900. Bolton, Joseph Shaw, M.D., B.S., I).Sc., F.It.C.P.Lond., Medical Super¬ 

intendent, West Riding Asylum, Wakefield. 

1892. Bond, Charles Hubert, D.Sc., M.D., C.M.Edin., M.R.C.P.Lond., M.P.C., 
Commissioner of the Board of Control, 66, Victoria Street, London, 
S.W. 1. (Hon. General Secretary, 1906-12.) 

1918. Bower, Cedric William, L.M.S.S.A., Joint Medical Officer, Springfield 
House, near Bedford. 

1877. Bower, David, M.D., C.M.Abcr.,Springfield House, Bedford. (Chairman 
Parliamentary Committee, 1907-1910.) 

1877. Bowes, John Ireland, M.R.C.S.Eng., L.S.A. (address uncomraunicated.) 


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ix 


1917. Bowie, Edgar Ormoud, L.A.H.Dnb., Dip. Grant Mod. Coll. Bombay, 

L.M.Coombe, Dublin; c/o W. II. Halliburton, Esq., 18, South 
Frederick Street, Dublin. 

1900. Bowles, Alfred, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., 10, South Cliff, East- 
bourne. 

1896. Boycott, Arthur N., M.D.Lond., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Medical 
Superintendent, Herts County Asylum, Hill End, St. Albans, Herts. 
(Hon. Sec. for S.-E. Division, 1900-05.) 

1898. Boyle, A. Helen A., M.D.Brux., L.R.C.P.&S.Edin., 9, The Drive, Hove, 
Brighton. 

1888. Boys, A. H„ L.R.C.P.Edin., M.R.C.S.Eng., L.S.A.Lond., The White 
House, St. Albans. 

1891. Braine-Hartnell, George M. P., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Medical 
Superintendent, County and City Asylum, Powick, Worcester. 

1911. Brander, John, M.E., C.B.Edin., Assistant Medical Officer, London 

County Meutal Hospital, Bexley, Kent. 

1918. Brend, William Alfred, M.D.Lond., 14, Bolingbroke Grove, London, 

S.W. 11. 

1905. Brown, Harry Egerton, M.D., Ch.B.Glasg., M.P.C., Mental Hospital, 
Fort Beaufort, Cape Province, S. Africa. 

1908. Brown, Robert Cunynghain, M.I)., B.S.Durh. (General Board of Lunacy, 
25, Palmerston Place, Edinburgh); Administrator, Spriugburn and 
Woodsido Central Hospital, Glasgow. 

1908. Brown, It. Dods, M.D., Ch.B., F.R.C.P., Dipl. Psych., D.P.H.Edin., 
Medical Superintendent, The Royal Asylum, Aberdeen. 

1912. Brown, William, M.D., C.M.Glas., M.P.C., District Medical Officer, 

Adviser in Lunacy to Bristol Magistrates (1, Manor Road, Fish¬ 
ponds, Bristol) ; 2nd Southern General Hospital, Southmead, Bristol. 

1916. Brown, William, M.A., M.B., B.Ch.Oxon., D.Sc.Lond., Reader in 

Psychology in the University of London (King’s College), (King’s 
College, Strand, London, W.C. 2); Craiglockhart War Hospital, 
Slateford, Midlothian. 

1917. Bruce, Alexander Ninian, M.D., D.Sc., F.R.C.P.E., Lecturer on Neuro- 

logy, University of Edinburgh, 8, Ainslie Place, Edinburgh. 

1893. Bruce, Lewis C., M.D., E.R.C.P.Edin., M.P.C. Medical Superintendent, 

District Asylum, Druid Park, Murthly, N.B.) (Co-Editor of 
Journal 1911-1916; Hon. Sec. for Scottish Division, 1901-1907.) 

1913. Bruuton, George Llewellyn, M.D., Ch.B.Edin., North Ridiug Asylum, 

Clifton, York. 

1912. Buchanan, William Murdoch, M.B., Ch.B.Glas., Kirklands Asylum, 
Bothwell, Lanarkshire. 

1908. Bullmore, Charles Cecil, J.P., L.R.C.P.&S.Ediu., L.R.F.P.&S.Glas., 

Medical Superintendent, Flower House, Catford, London, S.E. 6. 

1912. Burke, J. D., St. Amlry’s Hospital, Melton, Suffolk. 

1911. Buss, Howard Dccimus, B.A., B.Sc.France, M.D.Brux.&Cape, M.It.C.S., 
L.R.C. P., L.M.S.S.A.Lond., Assistant Medical Officer, Fort 
Beaufort Asylum, Cape Colony. 

1910. Cahir, John P., M.B., B.Ch.R.U.I., 198, Camberwell New Road, Camber¬ 
well, London, S.E. 5. 

1891. Culdecott, Charles, M.B., B.S.Lond., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Medical 
Superintendent, Earlswood Asylum, Redliill, Surrey. 

1913. Cameron, John Allan Munro, M.B., Ch.B.Glas., Pathologist, Scalebor 

Park Asylum, Burley-in-Wharfedale, Yorks. 

1894. Campbell, Alfred Walter, M.D., C.M.Edin., M.P.C., Macquarie Chambers, 

183, Macquarie Street, Sydney, Nerv South Wales. 

1909. Campbell, Donald Graham, M.B., C.M.Edin., “ Auchinellan,” 12, Reid- 

haven Street, Elgin. 

1914. Campbell, Finlay Stewart, M.D., C.M.Glas., Deputy Director of Medical 

Services, Ministry of National Service, Ayr, Scotland. 

1880. Campbell, Patrick E., M.B., C.M.Edin., Medical Superintendent, Metro¬ 
politan Asylum, Caterham, Surrey. 


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x Members of the Association . 

1897. Campbell, Robert Brown,M.D., C.M., F.R.C.P.E., 6, Abbotsford Crescent, 
Edinburgh. (Secretary for Scottish Division from 1910.) 

1905. Carre, Henry, L.R.C.P.&S.Irel., Woodilee Asylum, Lcnzie, Glasgow. 

1891. Carswell, John, L.R.C.P.Edin., L.R.F.P.&S.Glnsg., 43, Moray Place, 

Edinburgh ; Commissioner-General, Hoard of Control, Scotlnnd. 
1874. Cassidy, 1). M., M.D., C.M.McGill Coll., Montreal, D.Sc. (Public 
Health) F.R.C.S.Edin., Medical Superintendent, County Asylum, 
Lancaster. 

1888. Chambers, James, M.A., M.D.R.U.I., M.P.C., The Priory, Roeliampton, 
Loudon, S.W. 15. ( Co-Editor of Journal 1905-1914, Assistant 
Editor 1900-05.) (Phesident, 1913-14.) ( Treasurer since 

1917.) 

1911. Chambers, Walter Duncuuon, M.A., M.D., Ch.B.Edin., M.P.C., Crichton 
Royal Institution, Dumfries. 

1865. Chapman, Thomas Algernon, M.D.Glas., L.R.C.S.Edin., F.Z.S., Betula 
Reigate. 

1915. Cheyne, Alfred William Hnrper, M.B., Ch.B.Aber., Assistant Medical 
Officer, Royal Asylum, Aberdeen. 

1917. Chisholm, Percy, L.lt.C.P. A S.Edin., Assistant Medical Officer, Stirling 
District Asylum, Larbert. 

1907. Chislett, Charles G. A., M.B., Ch.B.Glasg., Medical Superintendent, 
Stouevetts, Chryston, Lanark. 

1880. Christie, J. W. Stirling, L.R.C.P.&S.Edin., Medical Superintendent, 
County Asylum, Stafford. 

1878. Clapham, Win. Crocliley S„ M.D., F.R.C.P.Ed., M.R.C.S.Eng., F.S.S., The 
Five Gables, Maj field, Sussex. (Eon. Sec. E. and M. Division, 
1897-1901.) 

1907. Clarke, Geoffrey, M.D.Lond., Senior Assistant Medical Officer, London 
County Mental Hospital, Bnnstead, Sutton, Surrey. 

1910. Clarke, James Kiliau P., M.B., B.Ch.R.U.I., D.P.H., High Street, 
Oakham. 

1907. Clarkson, Robert Durward, H.Sc., M.D., C.M.Edin., F.R.C.P.Edin. 

(Medical Officer, Scottish National Institute for the Education of 
Imbecile Children), The Park, Larbert, Stirling. 

1892. Cole, Robert Henry, M.D.Lond., F.R.C.P.Lond., 25, Upper Berkeloy 

Street, London, W. 1. ( Secretary of Parliamentary Committee 

since 1912.) 

1900. Cole, Sydney John, M.A., M.D., B.Ch.Oxon., Medical Superintendent, 
Wilts County Asylum, Devizes. 

1906. Collier, Walter Edgar, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Assistant Medical 

Officer, Kent County Asylum, Maidstone. 

1903. Collins, Michael Abdy, M.D., B.S.Lond., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., 
Ewell War Hospital, Ewell, Surrey. (Hon. General Secretary, 
1912-18.) 

1910. Conlon, Thomas Peter, L.R.C.P.&S.Irel., Resident Medical Superin¬ 
tendent, District Asylum, Monaghan. 

1914. Connolly, Victor Lindley, M.B., B.Cl).Belfast, Assistant Medical Officer, 
Colney Hatch Mental Hospital, London, N. 11. 

1910. Coombes, Percival Charles, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Medical Superin¬ 
tendent, Surrey County Asylum, Netherne. 

1905. Cooper, K. D., L.R.C.P.&S.Edin., L.R.F.P.&S.Glas., c/o Leopold & Co. 

Apollo, Bunder, Bombay. 

1903. Cormac, Harry Dove, M.B., B.S.Madias, Medical Superintendent, 
Cheshire County Asylum, Macclesfield. 

1891. Corner, Harry, M.D.Lond., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., M.P.C., 37, Harley 
Street, London, W. 1. 

1917. Costello, Christopher, M.B., Assistant Medical Officer, Portrane Asylum, 
Ireland. 

1906. Cotter, James, L.R.C.P.&S.E., L.R.F.P.&S.Glas., Down District Asylum, 

Downpatrick. 

1897. Cotton, William, M.A., M.D.Edin., D.P.H.Cantab., M.P.C., c/o D. N. 
Cotton, Esq., 9, St. David Street, Edinburgh. 


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Members of the Association. 

1910. Coupland, William Henry, L.R.C.S.&P.Edin., Medical Superintendent, 

Royal Albert Institution, Albert House, Hnverbreaks, Lancaster. 

1913. Court, E. Percy, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. Lond., Severalls Asylum, 

Colchester. 

1893. Cowen, Thomas Philip, M.D., B.S. M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Medical 
Superintendent, County Asylum, liuinhill, Lancashire. 

1911. Cox, Donald Maxwell, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., 2, Royal Park, Clifton, 

Bristol. 

1918. Cox, Francis Michael, M.D.,F.R.C.P.L., Physician, St. Vincent’s Hospital, 
Dublin; Lord Chancellor’s Consulting Visitor in Lunacy for County 
and City of Dublin; 20, Merrion Square, Dubliu. 

1893. Craig, Maurice, M.A., M.D., B.C.Cuntab., F.R.C.P.Lond., M.P.C., 87, 
Harley Street, London, W. 1. ( Hon. Secretary of Educational Com¬ 
mittee, 1905-8; Chairman of Educational Committee since 1912.) 
1897. Cribb, Harry Gifford, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Medical Superintendent, 
Winterton Asylum, Ferryhill, Durham. 

1911. Crichlow, Charles Adolphus, M.B., Ch.B.Glas. Roxburgh District 
Asylum, Melrose. 

1917. Crocket, James, M.D.Edin., D.P.H., Medical Superintendent, Colony of 
Mercy for Epileptics, Consumption Sanatoria of Scotland, Craigielea, 
Bridge of Weir. 

1914. Crookshank, Francis Graham, M.I)., M.R.C.P.Lond., 15, Harley Street, 

London, W. 1. 

1904. Cross, Harold Robert, L.S.A.Lond., F.R.G.S., Storthcs Hall Asylum, 
Kirkburton, near Huddersfield. 

1915. Crosthwaite, Frederick Douglas, M.B., Ch.B.Edin., D.P.H.Cantab., 

Assistant Physician, Pretoria Mental Hospital, South Africa. 

1914. Cruickshank, J., M.D., Ch.B.Glas., Pathologist, Crichton Royal Hospital, 
Dumfries. 


1907. Daniel, Alfred Wilson, B.A., M.D..B.C.Cantab., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., 
Acting Medical Superintendent, Loudon County Mental Hospital, 
Hanwell, London, W. 7. 

1896. Davidson, Andrew, M.D., C.M.Aber., M.P.C., Wyoming, Macquarie 
Street, Sydney, N.S.W. 

1914. Davies, Laura Katherine, M.B., Ch.B.Edin., Pathologist and Assistant 

Medical Officer, Edinburgh City Asylum, Bangour, Dechmont, 
Linlithgowshire. 

1891. Davis, Arthur N., L.R.C.P.&S.Edin., Medical Superintendent, County 
Asylum, Exminster, Devon. 

1894. Dawson, William R., B.A.,M.D.,B.Ch.Dubl., F.R.C.P.I..D.P.H., Inspector 
of Lunatics in Ireland, 7, Ailesbury Road, Dublin. (Son. Sec. to 
Irish Division, 1902-11; Prbsidbnt, 1911-12.) 

1901. De Steiger, Ad&le, M.D.Lond., County Asylum, Breutwood, Essex. 

1905. Devine, Henry, M.D., B.S., M.R.C.P.Lond., M.R.C.S.Eng., M.P.C., 
Medical Superintendent, The Asylum, Milton, Portsmouth. (A«w- 
tant Editor of the Journal since 1916.) 

1904. Devon, James, L.R.C.P. & S.Ediu., 1, North Park Terrace, Hillhead, 

Glasgow. 

1903. Dickson, Thomas Graeme, L.R.C.P. & S.Ediu., The Merse Cottage, 
Bakcwel), Derbyshire. 

1915. Dilion, Frederick, M.B., Ch.B.Edin. (Clinical Assistant, West End 

Hospital for Nervous Diseases; Assistant Medical Officer, Northum- 
btrlund House, Green Lanes, Finsbury Park, London, N. 4); Craigen- 
hall, Falkirk, N.B. 

1909. Dillon, Kathleen, L.R.C.P.&S.I., Assistant Medical Officer, District 
Asylum, Mullingar. 

1905. Dixon, J. Francis, M.A., M.D., B.Ch.Dubl., M.P.C., Medical Super¬ 

intendent, Borough Mental Hospital, Humberstone, Leicester. 

1879. Dodds, William J., M.D., C.M., D.Sc.Edin., Glencoila, Bellahouston, 
Glasgow. 


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xii Members of the Association. 

1908. Donald, Robert, M.D., Ch.B.GIas., 3, Gilmour Street, Paisley. 

1889. Donaldson, William Ireland, B.A., M.D., B.Cli.Dubl., Medical Superin¬ 

tendent, London County Mental Hospital, Cane Hill, Coulsdon, 
Surrey. 

1892. Donelan, John O’Conor, L.R.C.P.AS.l., M.P.C., St. Dyinpbna’s, North 
Circular Road, Dublin (Med. Supt., Richmond Asylum, Dublin). 

1890. Douglas, William, M.D.R.U.I., M.R.C.S.Eng., F.R.G.S., Brandfold, 

Goudhurst, Kent. 

1905. Dove, Augustus Charles, M.D., B.S.Durh., M.R.C.S.Eng., “ Brightside,” 
Crouch End Hill, London, N. 2. 

1897. Dove, Emily Louisa, M.B.Lond., 11, Jenner House, Hunter Street, 
Brunswick Square, London, W.C. 1. 

1910. Downey, Michael Henry, M.B., Ch.B.Melb., L.R.C.P. & S.Edin., 

L.R.F.P. & S. Glasg., Medical Superintendent, Parkside Asylum, 
Adelaide, South Australia. 

1884. Drapes, Thomas, M.B.Dubl., L.R.C.S.I., Medical Superintendent, District 
Asylum, Enuiscorthy, Ireland. (Peesidhnt-elect, 1910-11; Co- 
Editor of Journal since 1912.) 

1916. Drummond, William Blackley, M.B., C.M.Edin., F.R.C.P., Medical 

Superintendent, Baldovan Institution, Dundee. 

1907. Dryden, A. Mitchell, M.B., Ch.B.Edin., Senior A.M.O., Woodilee Mental 
Hospital, Lenzie. 

1902. Dudgeon, Herbert Win., M.D., B.S.Durh., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Loud., 

Medical Super 5 ntendent, Khanka Government Asylum, Egypt. 
1899. Dudley, Francis, L.R.C.P.AS.I., Senior Assistant Medical Officer, 
County Asylum, Bodmin, Cornwall. 

1915. Duff, Thomas, L.R.C.P., L.R.C.S.Edin., L.R.F.P.&S.Glasg., Colliugton 
Rise, Bexhill-on-Sea. 

1917. Dunn, Edwin Lindsay, M.B., B.Ch.Dub., Medical Superintendent, Berks 

County Asylum, Wallingford, Berks. 

1903. Duuston, John Thomas, M.D., B.S.Loud., Medical Superintendent, West 

Koppies Asylum, Pretoria, South Africa. 

1911. Dykes, Percy Armstrong, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., c/o Messrs. Holt 

and Co., 3, Whitehall Place, London, S.W. 1. 


1899. Eades, Albert I., L.R.C.P. A S.I., Medical Superintendent, North Riding 
Asylum, Clifton, Yorks. 

1906. Eager, Richard, M.D., Ch.B.Aber., M.P.C., Assistant Medical Officer, 

The Devon Mental Hospital, ExmiiiBter. 

1881. Earle, Leslie M., M.I)., C.M.Edin., 108, Gloucester Terrace, Hyde Park, 
London, W. 2. 

1891. Earls, James Henry, M.D., M.Ch.R.U.I., D.P.II., L.S.A.Loud., M.P.C., 
Barrister-at-Law, Fenstanton, Christchurch Road, Stieatliam Hill, 
London, S.W. 2. 

1907. East, Wm. Norwood, M.D.Lond., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., M.P.C., 

H.M. Prison, Manchester; 17, Walton Park, Liverpool. 

1895. Easterbrook, CharlesC., M.A..M.D., F.R.C.P.Ed., M.P.C., J.P., Physician 
Superintendent, Crichton Roval Institution, Dumfries. 

1914. Eder, M. I)., B.Sc.Loud., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond. (Medical Officer, 
Deptford School Clinic), 37, Welbeck Street, London, W. 1. 

1895. Edgerley, Samuel, M.A., M.D., C.M.Edin., M.P.C., Medical Superinten¬ 
dent, West Riding Asylum, Menston, nr. Leeds. 

1897. Edwards, Francis Henry, M.D.Brux., M.R.C.P.Lond., M.R.C.S.Eng., 

Medical Superintendent, Camberwell House, London, S.E.5. 

1901. Klgee, Samuel Charles, L.R.C.P.&S.l. (Colney Hatch Mental Hospital, 
New Southgate). The Manor (County of London) War Hospital, 
Epsom, Surrey. 

1898. Elkins, Frank Ashby, M.D., C.M.Edin., M.P.C., Medical Superintendent, 

Metropolitan Asylum, Leavesden, Herts. 

1912. Ellerton, John Frederick Heise, M.D.Brux., M.R.C.S.Eng., L.R.C.P. 
Edin., Rotherwood, Leamington Spa. 


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Member* of the Association. xiii 

1917. Ellis,VincentC., M.B., Assistant Medical Officer, Portrane Asylum, Ireland. 

1908. Ellison, Arthur, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Eng., Deputy Medical Officer, H.M. 

Prison, Leeds, 120, Domestic Street, Holbeck, Leeds. 

1899. Ellison, F. C., B.A., M.D., B.Cli.Dub., Resident Medical Superintendent, 
District Asylum, Castlebar. 

1911. Emslie, Isabella Galloway, M.D., Ch.B.Edin., West House, Royal Asylum, 
Morningside, Edinburgh. 

1911. English, Ada, M.B., B.Ch.R.U.I., Assistant Medical Officer, District 
Asylum, Ballinasloe. 

1901. Erskinc, Wrn.J. A., M.D., C.M.Edin., Medical Superintendent, County 
Asylum, VVhitecroft, Newport, 1. of W. 

1895. Euricb, Frederick Wilhelm, M.D., C.M.Edin., 8, Morningtou Villas, 
Maningham Lane, Bradford. 

1894. Eustace, Henry Marcus, B.A., M.D., B.Ch.Dubl., M.P.C., Medical 
Superintendent, Hampstead and High field Private Asylum, 
Glasnevin, Dublin. 

1909. Eustace, William Ncilson, L.R.C.S. & P.Irel., Lisronagh, Glasnevin, 

Co. Dublin. 

1918. Evans, A. Edward, M.B., B.S.Lond., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., D.P.H. 

Liverp., Inspector, Board of Control, 3, Rotherwick Court, Golders 
Green, London, N.W. 4. 

1909. Evans, George, M.B.Lond., Senior Assistant Medical Officer, Severalls 
Asylum, Colchester. 

1918. Evans, Tudor Benson, M.B., Cli.B.Liverp., Lord Derby War Hospital, 
Warrington. Home address : The Pharmacy, Denbigh. 

1891. Ewan, John Alfred, M.A. St. And., M.D., C.M.Edin., M.P.C., Greylees, 
Sleaford, Lines. 

1914. Ewing, Cecil Wilmot, L.R.C.P.I.& L.R.C.S.I. (Socond Assistant Medical 
Officer, Chartham Asylum, near Canterbury), Lord Derby War 
Hospital, Warrington. 

1907. Exley, John, L.R.C.P.I., M.R.C.S.Eng., Medical Officer, H.M. Prison; 
Grove House, New Wortley, Leeds. 

1894. Farquharson, William F., M.D., C.M.Edin., M.P.C., Medical Superin¬ 
tendent, Counties Asylum, Garlands, Carlisle. 

1907. Farries, John Stotlmrt, L.R.C.P.&S.Edin., L.R.F.P.&S.Glas., Yrthington, 

Carlisle. 

1917. Fearnsides, Edwin Greaves, M.D.Camb., B.C'., M.A., 46, Queen Anne 
Street, Cavendish Squaro, London, W. 1. 

1903. Fennell, Charles Henrv, M.A.. M.D.Oxon, M.R.C.P.Lond., Reform Club, 

Pall Mall, London, S.W. 1. 

1908. Fenton, Henry Felix, M.B., Ch.B.Edin., Assistant Medical Officer, 

County and City Asylum, Powick, Worcester. 

1907. Ferguson, J. J. Harrower, M.B., Ch.B.Edin., Senior Assistant Medical 

Officer, Fife and Kinross Asylum, Cupar, Fife. 

1906. Fielding, Saville James, M.B., B.S.Durh., Medical Superintendent, 
Bethel Hospital, Norwich. 

1873. Finch, John E. M., M.A., M.D.Cantab., M.R.C.S.Eng.. L.S.A.Lond., 
Holmdnle, Stoneygate, Leicester. 

1889. Finlay, David, M.D., C.M.Glasg., Medical Superintendent, County 
Asylum, Bridgeud, Glamorgan. 

1906. Firth, Arthur Harcus, M.A., M.D., B.Cli.Edin., Deputy Medical Super¬ 
intendent, Barnsley Hall, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. 

1908. Fitzgerald, Alexis, L.R.C.P. & S.I., Medical Superintendent, District 

Asylum, Waterford. 

1888. Fitz-Gerald, Gerald C., B.A., M.D., B.C.Cautab., M.P.C., Medical Superin¬ 
tendent, Kent County Asylum, Chartham, nr. Canterbury. 

1908. Fitzgerald, James Francis, L.R.C.P.&S.Irel., Assistant Medical Officer, 
District Asylum, Clonmel, co. Tipperary, Ireland. 

1904. Fleming, Wilfrid Louis Remi, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Suffolk House, 

Pirbright, Surrey. 

1894. Fleury, Eleonora Lilian, M.D., B.Ch.R.U.I., Assistant Medical Officer, 
Richmond Asylum, Dublin. 


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xiv Members of the Association. 

1908. Flynn, Titos. AloyMus, L.R.C.P.AS.)., County Asylum, Thorpe, Norwich. 
1902. Forde, Michael J., M.D., B.Ch.U.U.l., Assistant Medical Officer, Rich¬ 
mond Asylum, Dublin. 

1911. Forrester, Archibald Thomas William, M.D., B.S., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. 

Loud., Senior Assistant Medicnl Officer, Leicester and Rutlaud 
Counties Asylum, Narborough. 

1916. Forsyth, Charles Wesley, M.B.Lond., M.R.C.S., L.U.C.P., Assistant 
Medical Officer, Kesteven County Asylum, Sleaford, Lines. 

1913. Forward, Ernest Lionel, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond. (Assistant Medical 
Officer, The Coppice, Nottingham); 2/2 East Lancs] Field 
Ambulance. 

1913. Fothergill, Claude Francis, B.A., M.B., B.C.Cantab., M.R.C.S., L.lt.C.P. 

Loud.; Hensol, Chorley Wood, Herts. 

1912. Fox, Charles J., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., The Moat House, Alnechurch 

Birmingham. 

1881. Fraser, Donald, M.D., C.M.Glasg., F.R.F.P.S., 13, Royal Terrace 
West, Glasgow. 

1901. French, Louis Alexander, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., “Locksley,” 

Willingdon, Eastbourne. 

1902. Fuller, Lawrence Otway, M.R.C.S.Eng., L.R.C.P.Lond., Medical Super¬ 

intendent, Three Counties’ Asylum, Arlesey, Beds. 

1914. Gage, John Munro, L.R.C.P.AS.I., M.P.C., Royal Earlswood Institution, 

Redhill, Surrey. 

1906. Gnnc, Edward Palmer Steward, M.D.Durh., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., 
Cane Hill Mental Hospital, Conlsdon, Surrey. 

1912. Garry, John William, M.B., B.Ch., N.U.I., Assistant Medical Officer 
Ennis District Asylum, Ireland. 

1912. Gavin, Lawrence, M.B., Cli.B.Edin,, L.R.C.P.AS.Edin., L.R.F.P.AS. 
Glasg., Superintendent, Mullingar District Asylum, Ireland. 

1896. Geddes, John W., M.B., C.M.Edin., Medical Superintendent, Mental 

Hospital, Middlesbrough, Yorks. 

1892. Gemmcl, James Francis, M.B.Glasg., Medical Superintendent, County 
Asylum, Whittingham, Preston. 

1899. Gilfillan, Samuel James, M.A., M.B., C.M.Edin., Medical Superintendent, 
London County Mental Hospital, Colney Hatch, London, N. 11. 
1912. Gill, Eustace Stanley Hayes, M.B., Ch.B.Liverp., Shaftesbury House, 
Formby, Liverpool. 

1889. Gill, Stanley A., B.A.Dubl., M.D.Durh., M.R.C.P.Lond., M.R.C.S.Eng., 
Shaftesbury House, Formby, Liverpool. 

1904. Gillespie, Daniel, M.D. B.Ch.R.U.I., Dipl. Psych. (Wadsley Asylum, 

near Sheffield); Wharncliffe War Hospital, Middlewood Road, 
Sheffield. 

1897. Gilmour, John Rutherford, M.B., C.M., F.R.C.P.Edin., M.P.C., Medical 

Superintendent, West Riding Asylum, Scalebor Park, Burley-in- 
Wharfedale, Yorks. 

1906. Gilmour, Richard Withers, M.B., B.S.Durh., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., 
Homewood House, West Meon, Hants. 

1878. Glendinning, James, M.D.Glasg., L.R.C.S.Ediu. Hill Crest, Lansdown 
Road, Abergnvenny. 

1897. Good, Thomas Saxty, M.R.C.S.Eng., L.R.C.P.Lond., Medical Superin¬ 
tendent, County Asylum, Littlemore, Oxford. 

1889. Goodall, Edwin, M.D., B.S., F.R.C.P.Lond., M.P.C. (Medical Superin¬ 
tendent, City Mental Hospital, Cardiff); The Welsh Metropolitan 
War Hospital, Whitchurch, nr. Cardiff. 

1918. Goodfellow, Thomas Ashton, M.D.Lond., B.Sc., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., 
60, Palatine Road, West Didsbury, Manchester. 

1899. Gordon, James Leslie, M.D., C.M.Aberd. (Medical Superintendent, 
Fountain Temporary Asylum, Tooting Grove, Tooting Graeeney, 
London, S.W. 17). 

1905. Gordon-Munn, John Gordon, M.D.Edin., F.R.S.E., Heigham Hall, 

Norwich. 


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XV 


Members of the Association. 

1901. Gostwyck, C. H. G., M.B., Ch.B., F.R.C.P.Edin., M.P.C., Dipl. Psych., 
Stirling Diitrict Asylum, Larbert. 

1912. Graham, Gilbert Malise, M.B., Ch.B.Edin., R.N., H.M.S. “ Emperor of 
India.” 

1914. Graham, Norman Bell, B.A., R.U.I., M.B., B.Ch.Belfast, Assistant 

Medical Officer, District Asylum, Belfast; 24, Ocean Buildings, 
Belfast. 

1894. Graham, Samuel, L.It.C.P.Lond., Resident Medical Superintendent, 
District Asylum, Antrim. 

1918. Graham, Samuel John, L.R.C.P., L.R.C.S.Edin., L.R.F.P.S.Glasg., 
Resident Medical Superintendent, Villa Colony Asylum .Purdys- 
burn, Belfast. 

1908. Graham, William S., M.B., B.Ch.R.U.I., Assistant Medical Officer, 

Somerset and Bath Asylum, near Taunton. 

1915. Graves, T. Cbivers, M.B., B.S., B.Sc.Lond., F.R.C.S.Eug., Medical Super¬ 

intendent, City and County Asylum, Burgliill, Hereford. 

1916. Gray, Cyril, L.R.C.P.&.S.Edin., Gateshead Borough Asylum, Stannington, 

Newcastle-on-Tyne. 

1909. Greene, Thomas Adrian, L.R.C.S.&P.Irel., J.P., Medical Superintendent, 

District Asylum, Carlow. 

1886. Greenlees, T. Duncan, M.D., C.M.Edin., F.R.S.E., Rostrevor, Kirtleton 
Avenue, Weymouth. 

1912. Greeson, Clarence Edward, M.D., Ch.B.Aberd., c/o Messrs. Holt & Co., 
3, Whitehall Place, London, S.W. 1. 

1915. Grigsby, Hamilton Maiie, L.R.C.P.&S.Edin., 79, Victoria Road North, 

Southsea. 

1901. Grills, Galbraith Hamilton, M.D., B.Ch.R.U.I., Dipl. Psych., Medical 
Superintendent, County Asylum, Chester. 

1916. Grimbly, Alan F., B.A., M.A., M.D.Trin.Coll.Dublin, B.Ch., B.A.O., 

L.M.Rot.Dub. (Assistant Medical Officer, St. Edmondsbnry, Lucan, 
Ireland); R.N., H.M.S. “Indomitable,” Naval Post Office B, c/o 
G.P.O., Edinburgh. 

1900. Grove, Ernest George, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Bootham Park, York. 
1894. Gwynn, Charles Henry, M.D., C.M.Edin., M.R.C.S.Kng., co-Licensee, 
St. Mary’s House, Whitchurch, Salop. 

1894. Halsted, Harold Cecil, M.D.Durh., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Manor 
Road, Selsey, Sussex. 

* 1901. Harding, William, M.D.Edin., M.R.C.P.Lorid., Medical Superintendent, 

Northampton County Asylum, Berry Wood, Northampton. 

1899. Harmer, W. A., L.S.A., Resident Superintendent and Licensee, Redlands 

Private Asylum, Tonbridge, Kent. 

1904. Harper-Smith, George HaBtie, B.A.Cantab., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., 

(Senior Assistant Medical Officer, Brighton County Borough 
Asylum, Haywards Heath), May Cottage, Loughton, Essex. 

1898. Harris-Liston,L., M.D.Brux.,M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., L.S.A., Middleton 
Hall, Middleton St. George, Co. Durham. 

1905. Hart, Bernard, M. D.Lond., M.R.C.S.Eng., 29 b, Wirapole Street, London, 

W. l.aud Northumberland House, Finsbury Park, London, N. 4. 
1886. Harvey, Bagenal Crosbie, L.R.C.P.&S.Edin., L.A.H.Dubl., Resident 
Medical Superintendent, District Asylum, Clonmel, Ireland. 

1892. Haslett, William John H., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., M.P.C., Resident 
Medical Superintendent, Halliford House, Sunbury-on-Thames. 
1891. Havelock, John G., M.D., C.M.Edin., Little Stodham, Lies, Hants. 

1890. Hay, J. F. S., M.B., C.M.Aberd., Inspector-General of Asylums for New 
Zealand, Government Buildings, Wellington, New' Zealand. 

1900. Haynes, Horace E., M.R.C.S.Eng., L.S.A., J.P., Littleton Hall, Brent¬ 

wood, Essex. 

1911. Heffernan, P., B.A., M.B., B.Ch.C.U.I. 

1916. Henderson, David Kennedy, M.D.Edin., (Senior Assistant Physician, 
Royal Asylum, Gartnavel, Glasgow); c/o John Henderson and Sons, 
Solicitors, Dumfries, Scotland. 



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xvi Members of the Association. 

1905. Henderson, George, M.A., M.B., Cli.B.Edin., 25, Commercial Road, 
Peckham, London, S.K. 15. 

1877. Hetherington, Charles E., B.A., M.B., M.Ch.Dubl., Medical Superin¬ 
tendent, District Asylum, Londonderry, Ireland. 

1877. Hewson, R. W., L.R.C.P.&S.Edin., Medical Superintendent, Coton Hill, 
Stafford. 

1914. Hewson, R. W. Dale, L.R.C.P.&S.Edin., L.R.F.P.&S.Glas., Coton Hill 
Hospital, Stafford. 

1912. Higson, William Davis, M.B., Ch.B.Liverp., D.P.H., Deputy Medical 
Officer, H.M. Prison, Brixton; 7, Clovelly Gardens, Upper Tulse 
Hill, London, S.W. 2. 

1882. Hill, H. Gardiner, M.R.C.S.Eng., L.S.A., Pentillic, Leopold Road, 
Wimbledon Park, London, S.W. 19. 

1914. Hills, Harold William, B.S., M.B., B.Sc.Loud., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond.; 
Lord Derby War Hospital, Warrington. 

1907. Hine, T. Guy Macaulay, M.A., M.D., B.C.Cantab., 37, Hertford Street, 

Mayfair, Loudon, W. 1. 

1909. Hodgson, Harold West, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Assistant Medical 
Officer, Severalls Asylum, Colchester. 

1908. Hogg, Archibald, M.B., Ch.B.Glas., 54, High Street, Paisley, N.B. 

1900. Hollander. Bernard, M.D.Freib., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond, 57, Wimpolc 

Street, London, W. 1. 

1912. Holyoak, Walter L., M.D., B.S.Lond., 45. Welbeck Street, London, W. 1. 

1903. Hopkius, Charles Leighton, B.A., M.B., B.C.Cantab., Medical Superin¬ 

tendent, York City Asylum, Fulford, York. 

1918. Horton, Wilfred Winnall, M.D.Edin., Medical Superintendent, Wye 
House Asylum, Buxton. 

1894. Hotchkis, Robert D., M.A.Glasg., M.D., B.S.Durh., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. 

Lond., M.P.C., Renfrew District Asylum, Dykebar, Paisley 
N.B. 

1912.' Hughes, Frank Pereira], M.B., B.S.Lond., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., The 
Grove, Pinner, Middlesex. 

1900. Hughes, Percy T., M.B., C.M.Edin., D.P.H., Medical Superintendent, 
Worcestershire County Asylum, Barnesley Hall, Bromsgrovc. 

1904. Hughes, William Stanley, M.B., B.S.Lond., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., 

Medical Superintendent, Shropshire County Asylum, Bicton Heath, 
Shrewsbury. 

1897. Hunter, David, M.A., M.1L, B.C.Cantab., L.S.A., Medical Superintendent, 
The Coppice, Nottingham. {Secretary for S. K. Division, 1910-1913.) 

1909. Hunter, Douglas William, M.B., Ch.B.Glasg., Assistant Medical Officer, 

10, Halllield Road, Bradford. 

1912. Hunter, George Yeates Cobb, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., M.P.C., 

c/o Messrs. Grindlay & Co., 54, Parliament Street, London, 
S.W. 1. 

1904. Hunter, Percy Douglas, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Three Counties 
Asylum, Arlesey, Beds. 

1888. Hyslop, Theo. B., M.D., C.M.Edin., M.R.C.P.E., L.R.C.S.E., F.R.S.E., 
M.P.C., 5, Portland Place, London, W. 1. 


1915. Ingall, Frank Ernest, F.R.C.S.Eng., L.R.C.P.Lond., D.P.H., Tue Brook 
Villa, Liverpool. 

1908. Inglis, J. P. Park, M.B., Cli.B.Edin., Assistant Medical Officer, 
Caterham Asylum, Caterham, Surrey. 

1906. Irwin, Peter Joseph, L.R.C.P.&S.I., Assistant Medical Officer, District 
Asylum, Limerick. 

1914. James, George William Blomfield, M.B., B.S.Lond., c/o 20, Homesgarth, 
Letchworth, Herts. 

1908. Jeffrey, Geo. Rutherford, M.D., Ch.B.Glas., F.R.C.P.E., M.P.C., 
Medical Superintendent, Boothnm Park, York. 


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Members of the Association. xvii 

1910. Johnson, Cecil Webb, D.S.O., M.B., Ch.B.Vict. (“ Cricklewood,” East 
Sheen, London, S.VV. 14) j 10th Middlesex Regiment, Fort William, 
Calcutta, India. 

1893. Johnston, Gerald Herbert, L.R.C.P.&S.Edin., L.R.F.P.&S.Glas., Brooke 
House, Upper Clapton, London, N. 6. 

1905. Johnston, Thomas Leonard, L.R.C.P.&S.Ediu., L.R.F.P&.S.Glas., Medical 
Superintendent, Bracebridge Asylum, Lincoln. 

1912. Johnstone, Emma May, L.R.C.P. & S.Ediu., L.R.F.P.&S.Glas., M.P.C., 
Dipl. Psych., Holloway Sanatorium, Virginia Water, Surrey. 

1878. Johnstone, J. Carlyle, M.D., C.M.Glas., Melrose, Roxburgh. 

1903. Johnstone, Thomas, M.D., C.M.Edin., M.R.C.P.Lond., Annandale, 
Harrogate. 

1880. Jones, D. Johnston, M.D., C.M.Edin. 

1879. Kay, Walter S., M.D., C.M.Edin., M.R.C.S.Eng., The Grove, Starbech, 

Harrogate. 

188C, Keay, John, M.D., C.M.Glasg., F.R.C.P.Ediu. (Medical Superintendent, 
Bangour Village, Uphall, Linlithgowshire); Edinburgh War 
Hospital, Bangour. (President, 1918.) 

1909. Keith, William Brooks, M.B., Ch.B.Aberd., M.P.C.,81st Field Ambulance, 
27th Division. 

1908. Kelly, Richard, M.D., B.Ch.Dub., Assistant Medical Officer, Storthes 

Hall Asylum, Kirkburton, near Huddersfield. 

1907. Keene, George Henry, M.D., The Asylum, Goodmayes, Ilford, Essex. 
1899. Kennedy, Hugh T. J., L.R.C.P.&S.L, Assistant Medical Officer, District 
Asylum, Enuiscorthy, Co. Wexford. 

1897. Kerr, Hugh, M.A., M.D.Glasg., Medical Superintendent, Bucks County 
Asylum, Stone, Aylesbury, Bucks. 

1902. Kerr, Neil Thomson, M.B., C.M.Ed., Medical Superintendent, Lanark 

District Asylum, Hartwood, Shotts, N.B. 

1893. Kershaw, Herbert Warren, M.R.C.S.Eng., L.R.C.P.Loud., Dinsdale Park, 
near Darlington. 

1897. Kidd, Harold Andrew, M.R.C.S.Eng., L.It.C.P.Lond. (Medical Superin¬ 

tendent, West Sussex Mental Hospital, Chichester) ; Graylingwell 
War Hospital, Chichester. 

1916. Kilgarriff, Joseph O’Loughlin, A.B., M.B., B.Ch., B.A.O.Univ., Dublift, 
Assistant Medical Officer, County Asylum, Prestwich, Lancs. 

1903. King, Frank Raymond, B.A.Cantab., M.R.C.S.Eng., L.R.C.P.Lond., 

Medical Superintendent, Peckham House, Peckham, London, S.E. 

1902. King-Turner, A. C., M.B.,C.M.Edin., The Retreat, Fairford, Gloucester. 

■hire. 

1916. Kirwan, Richard R., M.B., B.Ch. R.U.I., Assistant Medical Officer, 
West Riding Asylum, Menston, Leeds. 

1915. Kitson, Frederick Hubert, M.B., Ch.B.Leeds, Assistant Medical Officer, 
West Riding Asylum, Wakefield. 

1903. Kotigh, Edward Fitzadam, B.A., M.B., B.Ch.Dubl., Senior Assistant 

Medical Officer, County Asylum, Gloucester. 

1898. Labey, Julius, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., L.S.A.Lond., Medical Superin¬ 

tendent, Public Asylum, Jersey. 

1902. Laugdon-Down, Percival L., M.A., M.B..B.C.Cantab., Dixland, Hampton 
Wick, Middlesex. 

1896. Langdon-Down, Reginald L.. M.A., M.B., B.C.Cantab., M.R.C.P.Lond., 
Normansfield, Hampton Wick. 

1914. Ladell, R. G. Macdonald, M.B., Ch.B.Vict., The Gables, Killinghall, 
Harrogate. 

1909. Laurie, James, M.B., Ch.M.Glasg. ( Medical Officer, Smithston Asylum), 

(Red House, Ardgowan Street, Greenock); 3rd Scottish Hospital. 
1902. Laval, Evariste, M.B., C.M.Edin., The Guildhall, Westminster, London, 
S.W. 1. 

1898. Lavers, Norman, M.D.Brux., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond. (Medical Super¬ 
intendent, Bailbrook House, Bath); Red Cross Military Hospital, 
Moss Side, Maghull, near Liverpool. 

b 


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Digitized by 


xviii Members of the Association. 

1892. Lawless, George Robert, F.R.C.S.I., L.R.C P.I., Medical Superintendent, 
District Asylum, Armagh. 

1870. Lawrence, Alexander, M.A., M.D., C M.Aberd., 26, Hough Green, 
Chester. 

1883. Layton, Henry A., M.R.C.S.Eng., L.R.C. I’.Edin., 26, Kimbolton Road, 
Bedford. 

1916. Leech, H. Brougham, M.D., B.Ch.Dublin, Assistant Medical Officer, 
County Asylum, Hatton, Warwick. 

1909. Leech, John Frederick Wolseley, M.D., B.Ch.Dubl., Assistant Medical 
Officer, County Asylum. Devizes, Wilts. 

1899. Leeper, Richard It., F.R.C.S.I., L.R.C.P.I., M.P.C., Medical Super¬ 

intendent, St. Patrick’s Hospital, Dublin. ( Hon. Sec. to the Irish 
Division since 1911.) 

1883. Legge, Richard J., M.D., R.U.I., L.R.C.S.Edin., " Comeragb,” Leek- 

liampton Road, Cheltenham. 

1906. Leggett, William, B.A., M.D., B.Ch.Dubl., Assistant Medical Officer, 
Royal Asylum, Sunnyside, Montrose). 

1916. Lewis, Edward, L.R.C.P., L.R.C.S.Edin., L.F.P.S.Glasg., Cwirlai, Ty- 
Cross, Anglesey. 

1914. Lindsay, David George, L.R.C.P.&S.Edin., Senior Assistant Medical 
Officer, Dundee District Asylum, West Green, Dundee. 

1908. Littlejohn, Edward Salteine, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Acting Medical 
Superintendent, London County Mental Hospital, Cane Hill, Surrey. 
1916. Lloyd, Brindley Richard, M.B., B.S.Loud., D.P.H.Lond., Assistant 
Medical Officer, Monmouthshire Asylum, Abergavenny. 

1898. Lord, John R., M.B., C.M.Edin. (Medical Superintendent, Horton Mental 
Hospital, Epsom); Horton County of London War Hospital, Epsom, 
Surrey. ( Co-Editor oj Journal since 1911; Assistant Editor 
of Journal, 1900-11.) 

1906. Lowry, James Arthur, M.D., B.Ch., R.U.I., Medical Superintendent, 
Surrey County Asylum, Brookwood. 

1904. Lyall, C. H. Gibson, L.R.C.P.&S.Edin., Leicester Borough Asylum, 

Leicester. 

1872. Lyle, Thomas, M.D., C.M.Glasg., 34, Jesinond Road, Newcastle-on-Tyne. 

1906. Macarthur, John, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., (Assistant Medical Officer, 
Coluey Hatch Mental Hospital, London, N. 11); Mediterranean 
Expeditionary Force. 

1880 MucBryau, Henry C., L.R.C.P. & S. Edin., Kingsdown House, Box, Wilts. 

1900. McCliutoek, John, L.R.C.P.&S.Edin., Resident Medical Superintendent, 

Grove House, All Stretton, Church Stretton, Salop. 

1901. MacDonald, James H., M.B., Ch.B., F.R.F.P.&S.Glasg., Govan District 

Asylum, Hawkhead, Paisley, N.B. 

1884. MacDonald, P. W., M.D., C.M.Aberd., Grasmere, Spa Rond, Weymouth. 

(First Hon. Sec. S. W. Div. 1894 to 1905.) (President, 1907-8.) 
1911. MacDonald, Ranald, M.D., Ch.B.Edin., London County Mental Hospital, 
Bexley, Kent. 

1906. MacDonald, William Frpser, M.B., Ch.B.Edin., M.P.C., 96, Polworth 
Terrace, Edinburgh. 

1905. McDougall, Alan, M.D., Ch.B.Vict., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Medical 

Director, The David Lewis Colony, Snndle Bridge, near Aldcrley 
Edge, Cheshire. 

1911. McDougall, William, M.A., M.B., B.C.Cantab., M.Sc.Vict., 89, Banbury 
Road, Oxford. 

19u6. McDowall, Colin Francis Frederick, M.D., B.S.Durh., Medical Superin¬ 
tendent, Ticehurst House, Ticehurst, Sussex. 

1870. McDowall, Thomas W., M.D.Edin., L.R.C.S.E., Wadhurst, Ticehurst, 
Sussex. (President, 1897-8.) 

1895. Macfarlane, Neil M., M.D., C.M.Aber., Medical Superintendent, Govern¬ 
ment Hospital, Thlotse Heights, Leribe, Basutoland, South Africa. 

1902. McGregor, John, M.B., Ch.B.Edin., Senior Assistant Medical Officer, 

County Asylum, Bridgend, Glam. 


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Members of the Association. xix 

1917. Mclver, Colin, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., I.M.S., c/o Messrs. Grindlay & Co., 
Bombay, India. 

1914. Mackny, Magnus Ross, M.D., Ch.B.Edin., British Expeditionary Force, 
France. 

19L7. Mackay, Norman Douglas, M.D., B.Sc., D.P.H., Dall-Avon, Aberfeldy, 
Perthshire. 

1916. McKenna, Edward Joseph, M.B., B.Ch., R.U.I., Assistant Medical 

Officer, Carlow District Asylum. 

1911. Mackenzie, John Cosserat, M.B., Ch.B.Edin., County Mental Hospital, 
Burutwood, near Lichfield. 

1891. Mackenzie, Henry J., M.B., C.M.Edin., M.P.C., Assistant Medical Officer, 
The Retreat, York. 

1903. Mackenzie, Theodore Charles, M.D., Ch.B., F.R.C.P.Edin., M.P.C., 

Medical Superintendent, District Asylum, Inverness. 

1914. Macleod, Jan R„ L.R.C.P.&S.Edin., L.R.F.P.&S.Glasg., 7, Mayfield 
Gardens, Edinburgh. 

1917. McMaster, Albert Victor, B.A., M.R.C.S.Eng., “ The Mount," Hills Road, 

Cambridge. 

1904. Macnamara, Eric Danvers, M.A.Camb., M.D., B.C., F.R.C.P.Lond., 87, 

Harley Street, London, W. 1. 

1914. Macneill, Celia Mary Colquhoun. M.B., Ch.B.Edin. (Pathologist, North- 
field, Prestonpans); Leith War Hospital, Seafield, Leith. 

1910. MacPhail, Hector Duncan, M.A., M.D., Ch.B.Edin. (Assistant Medical 
Officer, City Asylum, Gosforth, Newcastle-on-Tyne); Northumber¬ 
land War Hospital, Newcastle. 

1882. Macpbnil, S. Rutherford, M.l)., C.M.Edin., Derby Borough Asylum, 
Rowditch, Derby. 

1896. Macplierson, Charles, M.D.Glas., L.R.C.P.&S., D.P.H.Edin., Deputy 
Commissioner in Lunacy, 25, Palmerston Place, Edinburgh. 

1901. McRae, G. Douglas, M.D., C.M.Edin., F.R.C.P.Ed., Medical Super¬ 

intendent, District Asylum, Ayr, N.B. (Assistant Editor of the 
Journal since 1916). 

1902. Macrae, Kenneth Duncan Cameron, M.B., Ch.B.Edin. (Bangour Village, 

Dechmont, Linlithgowshire); M.E.F. 

1894. McWilliam, Alexander, M.A., M.B., C.M.Aber., Waterval, Odihara, 
Winchfield, Hants. 

1916. Manifold, Robert Fenton, M.B., D.Ch.Dub., Senior Assistant Medical 
Officer, Denbigh Asylum, North Wales. 

1908. Mapother, Edward, M.D., B.S.Lond., F.R.C.S.Eng., Assistant Medical 
Officer, Loudon County Mental Hospital, Long-Grove, Epsom. 

1903. Marnan, John, B.A., M.B., B.Ch.Dubl., Medical Superintendent, County 

Asylum, Gloucester. 

1896. Marr, Hamilton C., M.D., C.M., F.R.F.P.&S.Glasg., M.P.C., Commis¬ 
sioner in Lunacy (10, Succoth Avenue, Edinburgh). (Hon. Sec. 
Scottish Division, 1907-1910). 

1913. Marshall, Robert, M.B., Ch.B.Glas. (Assistant Medical Officer, Gartloch 

Mental Hospital, Gartcosh, N.B.) ; 19tli General Hospital, British 
Expeditionary Force. 

1905. Marshall. Robert Macnab, M.D., Ch.B.Glasg., M.P.C., 2, Clifton Place, 

Glasgow. 

1908. Martin, Henry Cooke, M.B., Ch.B.Edin., Assistant Medical Officer, 
Newport Borough Asylum, Caerleon. 

1896. Martin, James Charles, L.R.C.S. & P.I., J.P., Assistant Medical Officer, 
District Asylum, Letterkenny, Donegal. 

1908. Martin, James Ernest, M.B., B.S.Lond., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., 
Assistant Medical Officer, London County Mental Hospital, Long- 
Grove, Epsom. 

1907. Martin, Mary Edith, L.R.C.P.&S.Edin., L.R.F.P.&S.Glas., L.S.A.Lond., 
M.P.C.Lond., Bailbrook House, Bath. 

1914. Martin, Samuel Edgar, M.B., B.Ch.Edin., Barrister-at-Law (Senior 

Assistant Medical Officer, St. Andrew’s Hospital, Northampton) ; 
British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. 


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XX 


Members of the Association. 

1911. Martin, William Lewis, M.A., B.Sc., M.B., G.M.Edin., D.P.H., M.P.C., 
Dipl. Psych. ( Certifying Physician in Lunacy, Edinburgh Parish 
Council), 56, Bruntsfield Place, Edinburgh. 

1911. Mathieson, James Moir, M.B., Ch.B.Aber. (Assistant Medical Officer, 

Wndsley Asylum, Sheffield) ; The Wharncliffe War Hospital, 
Sheffield. 

1904. May, George Francis, M.D., C.M.McGill, L.S.A., Winterton Asylum, 
Ferryhill, Durham." 

1912. Melville, William Spence, M.B., Ch.B.Glas., Woodilee Mental Hospital, 

Lenzie, Glasgow. 

1890. Menzies, William F., M.D.,B.Sc.Edin., M.B.C.P.Lond., Medical Superin¬ 

tendent, Stafford County Asylum, Cheddlcton, near Leek. 

1891. Mercicr, Charles A., M.D.Lond., F.R.C.P., F.R.C.S.Eng., late Lecturer 

on Insanity, Westminster Hospital; Moorcroft, Parkstone, Dorset. 
(Secretary Educational Committee, 1893-1905. Chairman do. from 
1905-12.) (President, 1908-9.) 

1877. Merson, John, M.A., M.D., C.M.Aber., Medical Superintendent, Borough 
Asylum, Hull. 

1893. Middlemass, James, M.A., M.D., C.M., B.Sc.Edin., F.R.C.P., M.P.C., 
Medical Superintendent, Borough Asylum, llyhope, Sunderland. 

1910. Middlemiss, James Ernest, M.R.C.S.Eng., L.R.C.P.Lond.; 131, North 

Street, Leeds. 

1883. Miles, George E., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., D Block, Royal Victoria 
Hospital, Netley, Hants; British Empire Club, St. James’ Square, 
London, S.W. 1. 

1887. Miller, Alfred, M.B., B.Ch.Dubl., Medical Superintendent, Hatton 
Asylum, Warwick. (Registrar since 1902.) 

1912. Miller, Richard, M.B., B.Ch.Dubl. 

1893. Mills, John, M.B., B.Ch., Dipl. Ment. Dis., R.U.I., Medical Superinten¬ 
dent, District Asylum, Ballinasloe, Ireland. 

1913. Milner, Ernest Arthur, M.B., C.M.Edin., Assistant Medical Officer, Royal 

Albert Institution, Lancaster. 

1911. Moll, Jan. Marins, Doc. in Arts and Med, Utrecht Univ., L.M.S.S.A. 

Lond., M.P.C., Box 2587, Johannesburg, South Africa. 

1913. Molyneux, Benjamin Arthur, B.A., M.D., B.Ch.Dubl., St. Helens 

House, St. Helens, Hastings. 

1910. Monnington, Richard Caldicott, M.D., Ch.B., D.l’.H.Edin. (Daronth 
Industrial Colony, Hartford, Kent) ; c/o Rev. T. P. Monnington, 
Lowick Green, Ulverston, Lancs. 

1915. Monrad-Krohn, G. II., M.B., B.S., M.R.C.P.Lond., M.R.C.S.Eng., 
Assistant Medical Officer, Rikshospitalet, Christiauia. 

1914. Montgomery, Edwin, F.R.C.S.I., L.R.C.l’.l. Dipl. Psych. Mancli. 

(Prestwich Asylum, Lancs.); 77th Field Ambulance, British 
Expeditionary Force. 

1899. Moore, Win. D., M.D., M.Ch.R.U.I., Medical Superintendent, Holloway 
Sanatorium, Virginia Water, Surrey. 

1914. Morres, Frederick, M.R.C.S.Eng., L.R.C.P.Lond. (Assistant Medical 
Officer, Cane Hill Mental Hospital, Coulsdon, Surrey); Lord 
Warden Hotel, Dover. 

1917. Morris, Bedlington Howel, M.B., B.S. Durh., Iuspector*-General of 
Hospitals, South Australia; Pembroke Street, College Park, 
St. Peter’s, S. Australia. 

1896. Morton, W. B., M.D.Lond., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Medical Super¬ 
intendent, Wonford House, Exeter. 

1896. Mott, F. W., M.D., B.S., F.R.C.P.Lond., LL.D.Edin., F.R.S., 25. 
Nottingham Place, Marylehone, London, W. 1. 

1896. Mould, Gilbert E., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., The Grange, Rotherham, 

Yorks. 

1897. Mould, Philip G., M.R.C.S.Eng., L.R.C.P.Lond., Overdale, Whitefield, 

Manchester. 

1914. Moyes, John Murray, M.B., Ch.B.Edin., D.P.M.Leeds, Crichton Royal 
Institution. Dumfries. 

1907. Mules, Bertha Mary, M.D., B.S.Durh., Court Hall, Kenton, S. Devon. 



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XXI 


Mevibers of the Association. 

1011. Muneaster, Anna Lilian, M.H., B.Ch.Edin. (County Asylum, Ciiester); 

Lome address, 8, Craylockliail Terrace, Edinburgh; at present 
serving with Serbian Red Cross Society. 

1917. Munro, Robert, M.B., Ch.B.Aberd., Assistant Medical Officer, Dorset 

County Asylum, Dorchester. 

Murray, Jessie M., M.B., B.S.Durham, 14, Endsleigh Street, Tavistock 
Square, London, W.C. 1. 

1909. Myers, Charles Samuel, M.A., D.Sc., M.D., B.C.Cantab., M.R.C.S., 

L.R.C.P.Lond., Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire. 

1903. Navarra, Norman, M.lt.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., City of London Mental 
Hospital, near Dartford, Kent. 

1910. Neill, Alexander W., M.D., Ch.B.Edin., Warneford Mental Hospital, 

Oxford. 

1903. Nelis, William F..M.D.Durh.,I,.R.C.P.Edin.,L.R.F.P.&S.Glasg.,Medical 
Superintendent, Newport Borough Asylum, Caerleon, Mon. 

1869. Nieolson, David, C.B., M.D., C.M.Aber., M.R.C.P.Edin., F.S.A.Scot., 
201, Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London, W.C. 2. (Pbksidhnt, 
1895-6.) 

1888. Nolan, Michael J., L.R.C.P.&S.L, M.P.C., Medical Superintendent, 
District Asylum, Downpatrick. 

1913. Nolan, James Noel Green, M.B., B.Cli., A.B.Dub., The Hospital, Hel- 

lingly Asylum, Sussex. 

1909. Norman, Hubert James, M.B., Ch.B., D.P.H.Edin., Assistant Medical 

Officer, Camberwell House Asylum, Peckhain Road, London, S.E. 5. 
(Home address: 61, Crystal Palace Park Road, Sydenham, London, 
S.E. 26.) 

1916. O’Carroll, Joseph, M.D., F.R.C.P., Physician Richmond and Whitworth 
Hospitals; Lord Chancellor’s Medical Visitor in Lunacy; 43, 
Merrion Square, Dublin. 

1903. O’Doherty, Patrick, B.A., M.B., B.Ch.R.U.I., District Asylum, 
Omagh. 

1918. Ogilvie, William Mitchell, M.B., C.M.Aberd., Medical Superintendent, 

Ipswich Mental Hospital, Ipswich. 

1901. Ogilvy, David, B.A., M.I)., IS.Ch.Dub., Medical Superintendent, London 

County Asylum, Long Grove, Epsom, Surrey. 

1911. Oliver, Norman H., M.lt.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Barrister-at-Law, Officer 

in Charge, No. 4 Special Hospital for Officers, Latchmere, Ham 
Common, Surrey. 

1892. O’Mara, Francis, L.R.C.P.&S.I., District Asylum, Ennis, Ireland. 

1902. Orr, David, M.I)., C.M.Edin., M.P.C., Pathologist, County Asylum, 

Prestwick, Lancs. 

1910. Orr, James H. C., M.D., Ch.B.Edin., Rosslynlee Asylum, Midlothian. 
1899. Osburne, Cecil A. P., F.It.C.S., L.lt.C.P.Edin., The Grove, Old Catton, 

Norwich. 

1914. Osburne, John C., M.B., B.Ch.Dubl., Assistant Medical Officer, Lindville, 

Cork. 

1890. Oswald, Landel R., M.B., C.M.Glasg., M.P.C., Physician Superin¬ 
tendent, Royal Asylum, Gartnavel, Glasgow. 

1916. Overbeck-Wright, Alexander William, M.I)., Ch.B., M.P.C., D.P.H., 
Superintendent, Lunatic Asylum, Agra, U. P., India (at present on 
military duty); Lecturer on Mental Diseases, King George’s Hos¬ 
pital, Lucknow, and Agra Medical School, Agra. Address 12, 
Rubislaw Terrace, Aberdeen. 

1905. Paine, Frederick, M.D.Brux., M.R.C.S.,M.R,C.P.Lond., Claybury Mental 
Hospital, Woodford Bridge, Essex. 

1898. Parker, William Arnot, M.B., C.M.Glasg., M.P.C., Medical Super- 
iutendent, Gartloch Asylum, Gartcosh, N.B. 

1898. Pasmore, Edwin Stephen, M.D., M.Il.C.P.Lond., Chelslmm House, 
Chelsbam, Surrey. 



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xxii Members of the Association. 

1916. Patch, Charles James Lodge, L.R.C.P.&S.Edin., Assistant Medical 
Officer, Renfrew District Asylum, Dykehar, Paisley. 

1899. Patrick, Jolm, M.B., Cli.B., R.U.I., Medical Superintendent, Tyrone 
Asylum, Omagh, Ireland. 

1907. Peacheli. George Ernest, M.D., B.S.Lond., M.H.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., 

M.P.C.. Medical Superintendent, Dorset County Asylum, Herrison, 
Dorchester. 

1910. Pearu, Oscar Phillips Napier, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., L.S.A.Loud., (Assis¬ 

tant Medical Officer, London County Mental Hospital, Horton, 
Epsom) ; Lord Derby’s War Hospital, Warrington, Lancs. 

1915. Pennant, Dyfrig Huws, D.S.O., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Barn wood 

House, Gloucester. 

1913. Penny, Robert Augustus Greenwood, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Devon 
County Asylum, Exmiuster. 

1893. Perceval, Frank, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Medical Superintendent, 
County Asylum, Prestwich, Manchester. Lancashire. 

1911. Petrie, Alfred Alexander Webster, M.D., B.S.Lond., Cli.B., F.R.C.S. 

Edin., Assistant Medical Officer, Epileptic Colony, Ensom. 

1878. Philipps, Sutherland Rees, M.D., C.M.Q.U.I., F.R.G.S., Bredon, Fisher 
Street, I’aignton. 

1908. Phillips. Joiin George Porter, M.D., B.S.Lond., M.R.C.S., M.R.C.P.Lond,, 

M.P.C., Resident Physician and Superintendent, Bethleui Royal 
Hospital, Lambeth, London, S.E. 1. {Secretary of Educational 
Committee tine* 1912.) 

1910. Phillips, John Robert Parry, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond. (Assistant Medical 
Officer, City Asylum, Bristol); Beaufort War Hospital, Bristol. 
1906. Phillips, Nathaniel Richard, M.D.Brux., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Assis¬ 
tant Medical Officer, Couuty Asylum, Abergavenny, Monmouthshire. 
1905. Phillips, Norman Routh, M.D.Brux., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., 67, 
Billing Road, Northampton. 

1891. Pierce, Bedford, M.D., F.R.C.P.Lond., Medical Superintendent, The 
Retreat, York. {Hon. Secretary N. and M. Division 1900-8.) 
( Preside n t-Elbot. ) 

1888. Pietersen, J. F. G., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Ashwood House, Kingswin- 

ford, near Dudley, Stafford. 

1896. Planck. Charles, M.A.Caiub., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Medical Super¬ 
intendent, Brighton County and Borough Asylum, Haywards 
Heath. 

1912. Plummer, Edgar Curnow, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond. (Medical Superin¬ 

tendent, Laverstock House. Salisbury); British Expeditionary Force. 

1889. Pope, George Stevens, L.R.C.P.AS.Edin., L.lt.F.P.&S.Glasg., Medical 

Superintendent, Somerset and Bath Asylum, “ Westfield,” near 
Wells, Somerset. 

1913. Potts, William A, M.A.Camb., M.D.Edin.&Birm., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. 

Lond., Medical Officer to the Birmingham Committee for the Care 
of the Feeble-minded , 118, Hagley Road, Birmingham. 

1876. Powell, Evan, M.R.C.S. Eng., L.S.A., Medical Superintendent, City 
Lunatic Asylum, Nottingham. 

1910. Powell, James Farqulmrson, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., D.P.H.Lond., M.P.C., 
Assistant Medical Officer, The Asylum, Caterliam, Surrey. 

1916. Power, Patrick William, L.R.C.P., L.R.C.S., Senior Assistant Medical 

Officer, County Asylum, Chester. 

1908. Prentice, Reginald Wickham, L.M.S.S.A.Lond., Beauworth Manor, 
Airesford, Hunts. 

1918. Prideaux, John J >seph Francis Engledtie, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., 
Resident Medi' al Officer, GraylingweR War Hospital, Chichester. 
1901. Pugh, Robert, M.D., Cli.B.Edin., Medical Superintendent, Brecon and 
Radnor Asylum, Talgarth, S. Wales. 

191)4. Race, John Percy, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., L.S.A.Loud., Journals and 
notices to Winterton Asylum, Ferryhill, Durham (IVheatley Hill, 
Doncaster). 


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Members of the Association. xxiii 

1890. Ruinsford, F. E., M.D., B.A.Dubl., L.R.C.P.I., L.R.C.P.&S.E., Resident 
Physiciau, Stewart Institute, Palmerston, co. Dublin. 

1894. Rambaut, Daniel F., M.A., M.D., B.Ch.Dub., Medical Superintendent, 

St. Andrew’s Hospital, Northampton. 

1910. Raukinc, Surg. Roger Aiken, R.N., M.B., B.S., M.R.C.S.,L.R.C.P.Lond., 

M.P.C. 

1889. Raw, Nathan, M.P., M.D., B.S.Durh., L.S.Sc., F.R.C.S.Edin., M.R.C.P, 
Lond., M.P.C. (66, Rodney Street, Liverpool) ; Liverpool Merchants’ 
Hospital, A.P.O.S. 11, British Exped. Force, France. 

1870. Rayner, Henry, M.D.Aberd., M.R.C.P.Edin., Upper Terrace House, 
Hampstead, Loudon, N.W. 3. (President, 1884.) ( General 

Secretary, 1887-89.) ( Co-Editor of Journal 1895-1911.) 

1913. Read, Charles Stanford, M.B.Lond., M.R.C.S.. L.R.C.P.Lond. (Assistant 

Medical Officer, Fisherton House, Salisbury); Royal Victoria 
Hospital, Netley. 

1903. Read, George F., L.R.C.S.&P.Edin., Hospital for the Insane, New 
Norfolk, Tasmania. 

1899. Redington, John, F.R.C.S.&L.R.C.P.I., Portrane Asylum, Donabate, 
Co. Dublin. 

1911. Reeve, Ernest Frederick, M.B., B.S.Lond., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., 

Senior Assistant Medical Officer, County Asylum, Rainhill, Lancs. 
1911. Reid, Daniel McKinley, M.D., Ch.B.Glasg., Royal Asylum, 'Gartnavel, 
Glasgow. 

1910. Reid, William, M.A.St. And., M.B., Ch.B.Edin., Senior Assistant Medical 

Officer. Burntwood Asylum, Liclifiold. 

1886. Revington, George T„ M.A.. M.D., B.Ch.Dubl., M.P.C., Medical Superin¬ 

tendent, Central Criminal Asylum, Dundrnm, Ireland. 

1899. Rice, David, M.D.Brux., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., D.P.H., Medical 
Superintendent, City Asylum, Hillesdon, Norwich. 

1897. Richard, William J.,M.A.,M.B.,Ch.M.Glasg.,Merryflats,Govnn, Glasgow. 

1899. Richards, John, M.B., C.M.Edin., K.H.C.S.E., Medical Superintendent, 

Joint Counties Asylum, Carmarthen. 

1911. Robarts, Henry Howard, M.D., Ch.B.Edin., D.P.H.Glasg., Ennerdale, 

Haddington, Scotland. 

1914. Roberts, Ernest Theophilus, M.D., C.M.Edin., D.P.H.Camb., M.P.C., 

Hawkstone, 58, South Brae Drive, Jordanhill, Glasgow. 

1903. Roberts, Norcliffe, M.D., B.S.Durh. (Senior Assistant Medical Officer, 
Horton Mental Hospital, Epsom, Surrey); Horton County of 
Loudon War Hospital, Epsom. 

1887. Robertson, Geo. M„ M.D., C.M., F.R.C.P.Ediu., M.P.C., Physician-Super¬ 

intendent, Royal Asylum, Morningsidc, Edinburgh. 

1908. Robertson, George Dunlop, L.R.C.S.&P.Edin., Dipl. Psych., Assistant 
Medical Officer, District Asylum, Hartwood, Lanark. 

1916. Robertson, Jane I., M.B., Ch.B.Glasg., Gartnavel Asylum, Glasgow. 

1895. Robertson, William Ford, M.D., C.M.Edin., 60, Northumberland Street, 

Edinburgh. 

1900. Robinson, Harry A., M.D., Ch.B.Vict., 140, Edge Lane, Liverpool. 

1911. Robson, Cupt. Hubert Alan Hirst, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Puujaub 

Asylum, India. 

1914. Rodger, Murdoch Mann, M.D.. Ch.B.Glas., The Rowans, Bothwell, 
Scotland. 

1908. Rodgers, Frederick Millar, M.D., Ch.B.Vict., D.P.H. (Senior Medical 
Officer, County Asylum, Wimviek, Lancs.); Lord Derby’s War 
Hospital, Winwick. 

1908. Rolleston, Charles Frank, B.A., M.B., Ch.B.Dub., Assistant Medical 
Officer, County of London Manor Mental Hospital, Epsom. 

1895. Rolleston, Lancelot W., M.B., B.S.Durh. (Medical Superintendent, Mid¬ 
dlesex County Asylum); Napsbury War Hospital, Napsbury, near 
St. Albans. 

1888. Ross, Chisholm, M.D.Syd., M.B., C.M.Edin., 151, Macquarie) Street, 

Sydney, New South Wales. 

1913. Ross, Derind Maxwell, M.B., Ch.B.Edin., Morningside Asylum, Edinburgh. 


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XXIV 


Members of the Association. 

1910. Ross, Donald, M.B , Ch.B.Edin., Argyll and Bute Asylum, Lochgilphead. 

1905. Ross, Sheila Margaret, M.D., Ch.B.Edin., 83 a, Friar Oate, Derby. 

1899. Rotherham, Arthur, M.A., M.B., B.C.Cantab., Commissioner under 

Ment. Defec. Act, Board of Control, 66, Victoria Street, West¬ 
minster, London, S.W. 1. 

1906. Rowan, Marriott Logan, B.A., M.D.R.U.I., Medical Superintendent, 

Derby County Asylum, Miekleover. 

1883. Rowland, E. D., M.B., C.M.Edin., 71, Main Street, George Town, 
Demernra, British Guiana. 

1902. Rows, Richard Gundry, M.D.Lond., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond. (Patho¬ 
logist, County Asylum, Lancaster), British Red Cross Military 
Hospital, Maghull, Liverpool. 

1877. Russell, Arthur P., M.B., C.M., M.lt.C.P.Edin., The Lawn, Lincoln. 

1912. Russell, John Ivisou, M.B., Ch.B.Glasg., Jean ft eld, 18, Woodend Drive, 
Jordan Hill, Glasgow. 

1915. Russell, William, M.B., Ch.B.Kdin., Dip.Psych.Edin., D.T.M.Edin., 
Assistant Physician, Pretoria Mental Hospital, S. Africa. 

1912. Rutherford, Cecil, M.B., B.Ch.Dubl. (Assistant Medical Officer, Holloway 

Sanatorium, Virginia Water, Surrey); No. 16 Standard Hospital, 
Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. 

1907. Rutherford, Henry Richard Charles, F.R.C.S.I., L.R.C.P.I., D.P.H., St. 

Patrick’s Hospital, James’s St., Dublin. 

1896. Rutherford, James Mair, M.B., C.M.,F.It.C.P.Edin., M.P.C., Brislington 
House, Bristol. 

1913. Ryan, Ernest Noel, B.A., M.D., B.Ch.Dub., 6th London Field 

Ambulance (T.). 

1902. Sail, ErneBt Frederick, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Medical Superinten¬ 
dent, Borough Asylum, Canterbury. 

1908. Samuels, William Frederick, L.M.&L.S.Dubl., Medical Superintendent, 

Central Asylum,Tangong, Rambutan,Perak,Federated Malay States. 
1894. Sankey, Edward H. O., M.A., M.B., B.C.Cantab., Resident Medicnl 
Licensee, Boreal ton Park Licensed House, Bnschurch, Salop. 
Sankey, It. II. Heurtlev, M.R.C.S.Eng., 3, Marston Ferry Road, Oxford. 
1873. Savage, Sir Geo. H., M.D., F.lt.C. P.Lond., 26, Devonshire Place, 
London. W. 1. {Late Editor of Journal.) (President, 1886.) 
1906.^Scanlan, John J., L.It.C.P.&S.Edin., L.R.F.P.&S.Gl»sg.,D.P.H. (1 Castle 
Court, Coruhill, London, E.C. 3) ; 5th London Field Ambulance, 
47th (Loudon) Division, British Expeditionary Force. 

1896. Scott, James, M.B., C.M.Edin.. 98, Baron’s Court Road, West Kensing¬ 
ton, London, W. 14. 

1915. Scott, James McAlpine, M.D., Ch.B.Glasg., Junior Assistant Medical 
Officer, Stirling District Asylum, Larbert. 

1889. Scowcroft, \Valt3r, M.lt.C.S., L.R.C.P.I., Medical Superintendent, Royal 
Lunatic Hospital, Cheadle, near Manchester. 

1911. Scroope, Geoffrey, M.B., B.Ch.Dub., Assistant Medicnl Officer, Central 

Asylum, Dundrnm. 

1880. Seccombe, George S., M.Il.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., c/o Messrs. H. S. King 
and Co., 65, Coruhill, London, E.C. 3. 

1912. Sergeant, John Noel, M.B., B.S.Lond., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Medical 

Superintendent, Newlands House, Tooting Bee Common, London, 
S.W. 17. (Secretary South-Eastern Division since 1913.) 

1913. Shand, George Ernest, M.D., Ch.B.Aberdeen ; (Senior Assistant Medicnl 

Officer, City Mental Hospital, Winsou Green, Birmingham). Tem¬ 
porary address: 4, Odessa Road, Harlesdcn, London, N.W. 10. 
Permanent address : 307, Gilottt Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham. 
1901. Shaw, B. Henry, M.B., B.Ch.R.U.I., Assistant Medical Officer, County 
Asylum, Stafford. 

1909. Shaw, William Samuel J., M.B., B.Ch.R.U.I., Superintendent, North 

Veravola, Poona, India. 

1905. Shaw, Charles John, M.D., Ch.B., F.R.C.P.E., Medical Superintendent, 
. Royal Asylum, Montrose. 



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Members of the Association. 


xxv 


1916. Shaw, Huel) Kirkland, M.B., Ch.B.Edin., Assistant Medical Officer, 

Stirling District Asylum, Larbert. 

1917. Shaw, John Cnstance, M.R.C.S.Eng., L.R.C.P.Lond., Medical Superin¬ 

tendent, West Ham Borough Asylum, Goodmnyes, Essex. 

1904. Slrnw, Patrick, L.R.C.P.&S.Ediu., Senior Medical Officer (Hospital for 

tlie Insane, Kew, Victoria, Australia); “ Lingerwocd,” Wills Street, 
Kew, Victoria, Australia. On active service. 

1909. Shepherd, George Ferguson, F.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Irel., D.P.H., 9, Ogle 

Terrace, South Shields. 

1900. Sliera, John E. P., M.D.Brux., L.R.C.P.&S.Irel., Somerset County Asylum, 

Wells, Somerset. 

1912. Sheridan, Gerald Brinsley, M.B., B.Ch.R.U.I., Assistant Medical 

Officer, Portrane Asylum, Donabate, Co. Dublin. 

1914. Sherlock, Edward Burhall, M.D., B.Sc., D.P.H.Lond., Medical Superin¬ 
tendent, Dareuth Industrial Colony, Dartford. 

1914. Shield, Hubert, M.B., B.S.Durli. (Assistant Medical Officer, Gateshead 
Borough Asylum, Stannington.Newcastle-on-Tyne); 1st Nottingham 
Field Ambulance, British Expeditionary Force, France. 

1877. Shuttleworth, George E., B.A.Loud., M.D.Heidelb., M.R.C.S. and L.S.A. 

Loud., 25, New Cavendish Street, London, W. 1; 36, Lambolle 
Roud, Hampstead, London, N.W. 3. 

1901. Simpson, Alexander, M.A., M.D., C.M.Aber. (Medical Superintendent, 

County Asylum, Winwick, Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire); Lord 
Derby War Hospital, Warrington. 

1905. Simpson, Edward Swan, M.D., Ch.B.Edin., East Riding Asylum, 

Beverley, Yorks. 

1888. Sinclair, Eric, M.D., C.M.Glasg., Inspector-General of Insane, Richmond 
Terrace, Domain, Sydney, N.S.W. 

1891. Skeen, James Humphry, M.B., Ch.M.Aber., M.P.C., Medical Super¬ 
intendent, Fife and Kinross District Asylum, Cupar, N.B. 

1900. Skinner, Ernest W., M.D., C.M.Edin., J.P., Mountstield, Rye, Sussex. 
1914. Slaney, Clrns. Newnlinm, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., The Elms, Parkhurst, 

I.W. 

1901. Slater, George N. O., M.D.Lond., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Assistant 

Medical Officer, Essex County Asylum, Breutwood. 

1914. Smith, Charles Kelrnan, M.B., Ch.B.Abcrd., Assistant Medical Officer, 
Parkside Asylum, Macclesfield. 

1910. Smith, Gayton Warwick, M.D.Lond., B.S.Durli., D.P. II.Cantab., 

M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Assistant Medical Officer, Middlesex 
County Asylum, Tooting, Loudon, S.W. 17. 

1905. Smith, George William, M.B., Ch.B.Edin. (Assistant Medical Officer, 
Holloway Sanatorium, Virginia Water, Surrey). 

1907. Smith, Henry Watson, M.D., Ch.B.Aberd., Medical Superintendent, 
Lebanon Hospital for the Insane, Asfurujeb, near Beyrout, 
Syria. 

1899. Smith, John G., M.D., C.M.Edin., Herts County Asylum, Hill End, St. 
Albans, Herts. 

1885. Smith, R. Percy, M.D., B.S., F.R.C.P.Lond., M.P.C., 36. Queen 
Anne Street, Cavendish Square, London, W. 1. ( General Secretary, 
1896-7. Chairman Educational Committee, 1899-1903.) (Phksi- 
dent, 1904-5.) 

1913. Smith, Thomas Cyril, M.B., B.Ch.Edin., County Asylum, Gloucester. 

1911. Smith, Thomas Waddelow, F.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., M.P.C., Assistant 

Medical Officer, City Asylum, Mappcrloy Hill, Nottingham. 

1884. Smith, W. Beattie, F.R.C.S.Edin., L.R.C.P.Edin., 4, Collins Street, 
Melbourne, Victoria. 

1914. Smith, Walter II., B.A., M.D., B.Ch.Dub., Seuior Assistant Medical 

Officer, County Asylum, Shrewsbury. 

1899. Smyth, Walter S., M.B., B.Ch.R.U.I., Assistant Medical Officer, County 
Asylum, Antrim. 

1913. Somerville, Henry, B.Sc., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., F.C.S., Harrold, 
Sharnbrook, Bedfordshire. 


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xxvi Members of the Association. 

1885. Soutar, James Greig, M.B., C.M.Ediu., M.P.C., Barn wood House, Glou¬ 
cester. (President, 1912-13.) 

1906. Spark, Percy Charles, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Medical Superintendent, 

London County Asylum, Banstead, Surrey. 

1876. Spence, J. Beveridge, M.D., M.C.Q.U.I., Medical Superintendent, Burnt- 
wood Asylum, near Lichfield. {First Registrar, 1892-1899; Chair¬ 
man Parliamentary Committee, 1910-12.) (President, 1899-1900.) 
1891. Stansfield, T. E. K., M.B.. C.M.Ediu., Medical Superintendent, London 
County Mental Hospital, Bexley, Kent. 

1901. Starkey, William, M.B., B.Ch.R.U.I., Medical Superintendent, Borough 
Asylum, Blackadon, Ivybridge, S. Devon. 

1907. Steele, Patrick, M.D., Ch.B., M.R.C.P.Edin., Assistant Medical Officer, 

District Asylum, Melrose. 

1898. Steen, Robert H., M.D.Lond., M.R.C.P.Lond., Medical Superintendent, 

City of London Mental Hospital, Stone, Dartford. {Hon. Sec. S.E. 
Division, 1905-10; Acting Oen. Sec. and Oen. Sec. since 1915.) 
1914. Stephens, Harold Freize, M.R.C.S. Lond., L.R.C.P.Eng., 9, Belmont 
Avenue, Palmer’s Green, Middlesex. 

1914. Stevenson, George Henderson, M.B., Ch.B.Edin., D.P.H.Lond., Joyce 

Green Hospital, Dartford, Kent. 

1912. Stevenson, William Edward, M.B., B.S.Durh., Winncell Down Camp, 

Winchester. 

1909. Steward, Sidney John, M.D., D.S.O., B.C.Cantab., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. 

Loud., Assistant Medical Officer, Langton Lodge, Farncombe, 
Surrey. 

1915. Stewart, A. H. L., M.R.C.S., 72, Wimpole Street, London, W. 1. 

1868. Stewart, James, B.A.Belf., F.R.C.P.Ed., L.R.C.S.I., “Donegal,” 32, 
Kingsmead Road, Tulse Hill, Londou, S.W. 2. 

1913. Stewart, Ronald, M.B., Ch.B.Glasg. (Gartlocb Asylum, Gartcosh, 

Glasgow) ; No. 38 Hospital, Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. 
1887. Stewart, Rotbsay C., M.R.C.S.Eng., L.S.A.Lond., Medical Superinten¬ 
dent, County Asylum, Narborough, near Leicester. 

1914. Stewart, Roy M., M.B., Ch.B.Edin. (Assistant Medical Officer, County 

Asylum,Prestwich); Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, c/o G.P.O., 
E.C. 1. 

1905. Stiiwell, Henry Francis, L.R.C.P.&S.E., Hayes Park, Hayes, Middlesex. 

1899. Stiiwell, Reginald J., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Moorcroft House, Hil¬ 

lingdon, Middlesex. 

1897. Stoddart, William Henry Butter, M.D., B.S., F.R.C.P.Lond., M.R.C.S. 

Eng., M.P.C., Harconrt House, Cavendish Square, London, W. 1. 
{Hon. Sec. Educational Committee, 1908-1912.) 

1909. Stokes, Frederick Ernest, M.B., Ch.B.Glasg., D.P.H.Cantab. (Assistant 
Medical Officer, Borough Asylum, Portsmouth); 2/3 Wessex Field 
Ambulance. 

1905. Strathearn, John, M.D., Ch.B.Glasg., F.R.C.S.E., 23, Magdalen Yard 
Road, Dundee. 

1903. Stratton, Percy Haughton, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., 10, Hanover 
Square, London, W. 1. 

1885. Street, C. T„ M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Huydoek Lodge, Ashton, 

Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire. 

1909. Stuart, Frederick J., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond. (Senior Assistant Medical 
Officer, Northampton County Asylum, Berrywood); War Hospital, 
Dunston, Northampton. 

1900. Sturrock, James Prain, M.ASt.And., M.D., C.M.Edin., 25, Palmerston 

Place, Edinburgh. 

1886. Sufferu, Alex. C., M.D., M.Ch.R.U.I. (Medical Superintendent, Rubery 

Hill Asylum, near Bromsgrove, Worcestershire); 1st Birmingham 
War Hospital, Rubery Hill, Worcestershire. 

1894. Sullivan, William C., M.D., B.Ch.R.U.I., Hampton Criminal Lunatic 
Asylum, Retford, Notts. 

1918. Sutherland, Francis, M.B., Ch.B.Ed., Senior Assistant Physician, Royal 
Asylum, Aberdeen. 


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Members of the Association. xx\ii 

1910. Sutherland, Joseph Roderick, M.B., Ch.B.Glasg., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. 

Loud., D.P.H., County Sanatorium, Stonehouse, Lanarkshire. 

1908. Swift, Eric W. 1)., M.B.Lond., Medical Superiutendent, Government 
Asylum, Bloemfontein. 

1908. Tattersall, John, M.D.Lond., M.R.C.S., M R.C.P.Lond., Assistant 
Medical Officer, London County Asylum, Hanwell, London, W. 7. 

1910. Taylor, Arthur Loudoun, B.Sc., M.B., Ch.B., M.R.C. P.Edin., 30, 

Hartiugtou Place, Edinburgh. 

1897. Taylor, Frederic Ryott Percival, M.D., B.S.Lond., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. 

Loud., Medical Superintendent, East Sussex Asylum, Hellingly. 
1918. Thienpont, Rudolph, M.D., Temporary Assistant Medical Officer, Cane 
Hill Mental Hospital, Coulsdon, Surrey. 

1908. Thomas, Joseph D., B.A., M.B., B.C.Cantab., Northwoods House, Winter¬ 
bourne, Bristol. 

1911. Thomas, William Rees, M.D., B.S.Lond., M.R.C.S., M.R.C.P.Lond., 

M.P.C. (Mosside, Maghull, near Liverpool) ; British Red Cross War 
Hospital, Maghull, near Liverpool. 

1880. Thomson, David G., M.D., C.M.Edin. (Medical Superintendent, County 

Asylum, Thorpe, Norfolk); Norfolk War Hospital, Thorpe, 
Norwich. (Prksidbnt, 1914-18.) 

1903. Thomson, Herbert Campbell, M.D., F.R.C.P.Lond., Assist. Physician 
Middlesex Hospital, 34, Queen Anne Street, London, W. 1. 

1905. Tidbury, Robert, M.D., M.CIi. R.U.I., Heathlands, Foxhall Road,Ipswich. 
1901. Tighe, John V. G. B., M.B., B.Ch.R.U.I., Medical Superintendent, 

Gateshead Mental Hospital, Stannington, Northumberland. 

1914. Tisdall, C. J., M.B., Ch.B., Crichton Royal Institution, Dumfries. 

1903. Topham, J. Arthur, B.A.Cantab., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., County 

Asylum, Chartlmm, Kent. 

1896. Townsend, Arthur A. I)., M.D., B.Ch.Birm., M.R.C.S,, L.K.C.P.Loud., 
Medical Superintendent, Hospital for Insane, Barnwood House, 
Gloucester. 

1904. Treadwell, Oliver Fereira Naylor, M.R.C.S.Eng., L.S.A.Lond., 90, St. 

George’s Square, London, S.W.l. 

1903. Tredgold, Alfred F., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond. (6, Dapdune Crescent, 

Guildford, Surrey). 

1908. Tuach-MacKeuzie, William, M.D., Ch.B.Aberd., Medical Superintendent, 

Royal and District Asylums, Dundee. 

1881. Tuke, Charles Molesworth, M.R.C.S.Eng., Chiswick House, Chiswick. 

1888. Tuke, John Batty, M.I)., C.M., F. ICC.P.Edin., Resident Physician, 

New Saughton Hall. Polton, Midlothian. 

1916. Tulloch, William John, M.I).St. Andrews, Director Western Asylums 

Research Institute, 10, Claython Road, Glasgow. 

1906. Turnbull, Peter Mortimer, M.B., B.Ch.Aberd., Tooting Bee Asylum, 

Tooting, London, S.W. 17. 

1909. Turnbull, Robert Cyril, M.D.Lond., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Medical 

Superintendent, Essex County Asylum, Colchester. 

1889. Turner, Alfred, M.D., C.M.Edin., Plympton House, Plympton, S. Devon. 
1906. Turner, Frank Douirlas, M.B.Lond., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Medical 

Officer, Royal Eastern Counties Institution, Colchester. 

1890. Turner, John, M.B., C.M.Aberd., Medical Superintendent, Essex County 

Asylum, Brentwood. 

1917. Vevers, Oswald Henry, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Acting Medical Superin¬ 

tendent, Laverstock House, Salisbury. 

1904. Vincent, George A., M.B., B.Ch.Edin.,Assistant Medical Superintendent, 

St. Ann’s Asylum, Port of Spain, Trinidad, B.W.I. 

1894. Vincent, William James N., M.B., B.S.Durh., M.R.C.S„ L.R.C.P.Lond. 

(Medical Superiutendent, Wadsley Asylum, near Sheffield); Wliarn- 
cliffe War Hospital, Sheffield. 

1914. Vining, Charles Wilfred, M.D., B.S.Lond., M.R.C.P.Lond., D.P.H., 
M.P.C., Assistant Physician, Leeds General Infirmary, 40, Park 
Square, Leeds. 



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Digitized by 


xxviii Members of the Association. 

1913. VVull'oril, Harold U. S., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Assistant Medical 

Officer, Kent Comity Asylum, Barmins: Heath, Maidstone. 

1914. Walker, Robert Clive, M.B., Ch.B.Edin., West Riding Asylum, Menston, 

near Leeds. 

1908. Wallace, John Andrew Leslie, M.D., Ch.B.Edin., M.P.C., Mental 
Hospital, Callan Park, Sydney, N.S.W. 

1912. Wallace, Vivian, L.R.C.P. & S.I., Assistant Medical Officer, Mullingar 

District Asylum, Mullingar. 

1889. Warnock, John, C.M.G., M.D., C.M., B.Sc.Edin., Medical Superintendent, 
Abbasiyeh Asylum, nr. Cairo, Egypt. 

1895. Waterston, Jane Elizabeth, M.D.Brux., L.R.C.P.I.,L.R.C.S.Edin., M.P.C., 
85, Parliament Street, Box 78, Cape Town, South Africa. 

1902. Watson, Frederick, M.B., C.M.Edin., Elm Lodge, Clay Hill, Enfield. 
1891 Watson, George A., M.B., C.M.Edin., M.P.C., Lyons House, Rainhill, 

Liverpool. 

1908. Watson,H. Ferguson,M.D..Ch.B.G!as., L.R.C.P.&S.E., L.R.F.P.&S.Glas., 
D.P.H., Northcote, Edinburgh Rond, Perth. 

1911. Webber, Leonard Mortis, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Assistant Medical 
Officer, Netherne, Merstliam, Surrey.! 

1911. White, Edward Barton C., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond. (Senior Assistant 

Medical Officer, Cardiff City Mental Hospital, Whitchurch) ; Welsh 
Metropolitan War Hospital, Whitchurch. 

1884. White, Ernest William, M.B.Lond., M.R.C.P.Lond., Betley House, nr. 

Shrewsbury. {lion. Sec. South-Eastern Division, 1897-1900.) 
{Chairman Parliamentary Committee, 1904-7.) (President 
1903-4.) 

1905. Whittington, Richard, M.A., M.D.Oxon., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., 
(Downford, Montpelier Road, Brighton); 2nd East General 
Hospital, Brighton. 

1889. Whitwell, James Richard, M.B., C.M.Edin., Medical Superintendent, 
Suffolk County Asylum (St. Audry’s Hospital), Melton, Suffolk. 

1903. Wigan, Charles Arthur, M.D.Durh., M.R.C.S.Eng., L.S.A.Lond., Deep- 

dene, Portisliead, Somerset. 

1883. Wiglesworth, Joseph, M.D., F.R.C.P.Lond., Springfield House, Wins- 
cornbe, Somerset. (President, 1902-3.) 

1913. Wilkins, William Douglas, M.B., Ch.B.Vict., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. 

Lond., County Mental Hospital, Cheddleton, Leek, Staffs. 

1900. Wilkinson, H. B., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Assistant Medical Officer, 
Plymouth Borough Asylum, Blackadon, Ivybridge, South Devon. 
1887. Will, John Kennedy, M.A., M.D., C.M.Aberd., M.P.C., Bethnal House, 
Cambridge Road, London, N.E. 1. 

1914. Williams, Chnrles, L.R.C.P. &. S.Edin., L.S.A.Lond., Assistant Medical 

Officer, The Warneford, Oxford. 

1907. Williams, Charles E. C., M.A., M.D., B.Cb.Dubl.; Greystones, Caruford 
Cliffs, Bournemouth; No. 12 General Hospital, British Expedi¬ 
tionary Force, France. 

1905. Williams, David John, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., Medical Superintendent, 
The Asylum, Kingston, Jamaica. 

1915. Williams, Gwilym Ambrose, L.R.C.P.Lond., M.R.C.S.Eng. (Pathologist 

and Assistant Medical Officer, 1 East Sussex County Asylum, 
Helliugly) ; 27th General Hospital, Mediterranean Expeditionary 
Force. 

1916. Wilson, Marguerite, M.B., Cli.B.Glasg., c/o Messrs. Wilson and Baird, 

372, Scotland Street, Glasgow. 

1912. Wilson, Samuel Alexander Kinnier, M.A., M.D., B.Sc.Edin., F.R.C.P. 

Lond., Registrar, National Hospital, Queen’s Square, 14, Harley 
Street, London, W. 1. 

1897. Winder, W. H., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., D.P.H.Cautab., Deputy 
Medical Officer, H.M. Borstal Institution, Borstal, Kent. 

1899. Wolseley-Lewis, Herbert. M.D.Brux., F.R.C.S.Eng., L.R.C.P.Lond., 
Medical Superintendent, Kent County Asylum, Banning Heath, 
Maidstone. {Secretary Parliamentary Committee, 1907-12. Chair¬ 
man of same since 1912.) 


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XXIX 


Members of the Association. 

1869. Wood,^ T. Outtersou, M.D.Durli., M.R.C.P.Lond., F.R.C.P., F.R.C.S. 

Edin., 7, Abbey Crescent, Torquay. (President, 1905-6.) 

1912. Woods, James Cowan, M.D., B.S.Lond., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., 
10, Palace Green, Kensington, London, W. 8 . 

1885. Woods, J. F., M.D.Durh., M.R.C.S.Eng., 7, Harley Street, Cavendish 
Square, London, W. 1 . 

1912. Wootton, John Charles, M.R.C.S.Eng., L.R.C.P.Lond., Havdoek Lodze 
Newton-le-Willows, Lancs. 

1900. Worth, Reginald, M.B., B.S.Durli., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.PL.ond., Medical 
Superintendent, Middlesex Asylum, Tooting, London, S.W.17. 
1917. Wright, Maurice Beresford, M.l)., C.M. (118, Harley Street, London, 
W. 1) ; 10, Palace Green, Keusington, London, W. 8 . 

1862. Yellowlees, David, LL.D.Glas., M.D.Edin., F.R.F.P.&S.Glasg., 6 , Albert 
Gate, Dowan Hill, Glasgow. (President, 1890.) 

1914. Yellowlees, Henry, M.B..Ch.B.Glas., 6 , Albert Gate Dowan Hill, Glasgow ; 

26th British General Hospital, British Expeditionary Force. 

1910. Younger, Edward George, M.D.Brux., M.R.C.P., M.R.C.S., L.S.A.Lond., 
D.P.H., Physician to the Finsbury Dispensary, 2, Mecklenburgh 
Square, London, W.C. 1 . 

Oedinary Members . 626 

Honorary Members . 32 

Corresponding Members . 17 

Total. (575 

Members are particularly requested to send changes of address, etc to The 
General Secretary, 11 , Chandos Street,' Cavendish Square London 
W. 1, and in duplicate to the Printers of the Journal, Messrs Adlard 
& Son S' West Newman, Ltd., 23, Bartholomew Close, London EC 1 


OBITUARY. 

Honorary Members. 

1887. Chapin, John B., M.D., Canandnigna, N.Y., U.S.A. 

1912. Maudsley, Henry, LL.D.Edin. (Hon.), M.D.Lond., F.R.C.P.Lond, 
Heathboumo, Bushey Heath, Herts. (President, 1871.) (Formerly 
Editor, Journal of Mental Science.) y 

Corresponding Member. 

1890. R 6 gis, Dr. E., 54, Rue Huguerie, Bordeaux. 

Members. 

1894. Baily, Percy J., M.B., C.M.Edin., 24, Barrack Road, Bexhill-on-Sea. 

1914. Gettiugs,Harold Salter, L.R.C.P. & S.Edin.,L.R.F.P.&S.G., D.P.H.Birin., 

Inoculation Dept., St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington. 

1915. Griffith, Alfred Hume, M.D.Edin., D.P.H.Camh., Medical Superinten¬ 

dent, Lingfleld Epileptic School Colony, The Homestead, Lingfield, 
Surrey. 

1906. Herbert, Thomas, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond., York City Asylum, Fulford, 
York. 

1903. Logau, Thomas Stratford, L.R.C.P.&S.Edin., L.R.F.P.&S.Glas., D.P.H., 
Stone Asylum, Aylesbury, Bucks. 

1914. O’Flynn, Dominick Thomas, L.R.C.P. & S.I., Assistant Medical Officer, 
London County Asylum, Hanwell, Middlesex. 

1875. Philipson,Sir George Hare, M.A., M.D.Cantab., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.C.P. 
Loud., 7, Eldon Square, Ncwcastle-ou-Tyne. 



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xxx Obituary. 

1887. Reid, William, M.D., C.M.Aberd., Physician Superintendent, Royal 
Asylum, Aberdeen. 

1882. SewArd, William J., M.B.Lond., M.R.C.S.Eng., 15, Chandoa Avenue, 
Oakleigh Park, London, N. 11. 

1913. Spensley, Prank Oswold, M.R.C.S.. L.R.C.P.Lond., Senior Medical 
Officer, Darenth Asylum, Dartford, Kent. 

1875. Winslow, Henry Forbes, M.D.Lond., M.R.C.P.Lond., M.R.C.S.Eng., 
164, Marine Parade, Brighton. 


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THE 


JOURNAL OF MENTAL SCIENCE 


[.Published by Authority of the Medico-Psychological Association 
of Great Britain and Ireland.~\ 


No. 268 [ToTU] JANUARY, 1919. Vol. LXV. 


Part I.—Original Articles. 


Presidential Address.Q) By James V. Angun, M.D., Medical Super- 
tendent, the Provincial Hospital, St. John, New Brunswick. 

[The following address has reached us through the kindness of 
I)r. Brush, Managing Editor of the American Journal of Insanity. 

The American Medico-Psychological Association includes members 
from both the United States and from Canada, and Dr. Anglin’s address 
is an indication of the cordial feeling which exists between the members 
of the specialty in the old Dominion and in the great Republic of the 
West. 

That Dr. Anglin is worthy of the honour no one who reads the 
address can possibly doubt, which in literary vigour and freshness, 
patriotic spirit and cheery optimism it would be difficult to match. Of 
Dr. Anglin Dr. Brush writes : 

“ Dr. Anglin is a most loyal subject of Great Britain. He lost a son 
last spring, who died leading his men in a charge at Vimy Ridge; 
another son has been invalided home a permanent cripple from gunshot 
wounds received in the trenches; a third son is now in the ranks in 
France with the Canadian forces, and a fourth is just getting prepared 
to leave for overseas’ military service. 

“ The address reflects the spirit which has animated the whole of 
Canada, with the exception of some of the French-Canadians in the 
province of Quebec, who, curiously, are not interested in the fate of the 
land of their French ancestors. 

“ I make the following quotation from a letter received from Dr. Anglin 
when sending me proof-slips for the Journal of Insanity : 1 It (referring to 
the address) was put together under very trying circumstances. There 
were uppermost the anxieties about my boys. Then, I had to work on 
a military tribunal for months past. Help was so scarce I was worried 
LXV. I 


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2 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, [Jan., 

to death, and scarcity of coal through an unusually severe winter 
deprived me of sleep. Everything seemed to militate against the 
preparation of an address.’ 

“ The address awoke an enthusiastic response from the Association, 
and will, it seems to me, be appreciated on your side of the ocean.” 

With this anticipation on the part of Dr. Brush we cordially agree. 
—Eds., J.M.S .] 

To this, the seventy-fourth annual meeting of our Association, opened 
so auspiciously, it is my privilege to welcome you officially. 

It was with trepidation that preparations for it were proceeded with 
in this year of stress, but its carrying on will be justified if our coming 
together enlarges the common store of useful knowledge ; increases our 
mutual understanding; helps to sweep away obstacles to the advance 
of the healing art, and quickens us to do our bit in freedom’s cause, 
whose battle-line reaches to our homes, our gardens, and our pockets. 

Last year at the closing of the meeting, I took opportunity to thank 
the members there for selecting me for the presidency of this venerable 
body, and I now repeat how sincere is my appreciation of this distinc¬ 
tion. It is most gratifying to have bestowed on one your best gift, as it 
expresses what all men covet earnestly—the goodwill of one’s associates. 
And yet there wells up in mind the thought that when in the sunny 
south I was placed in line for the chair I may now occupy, it was—in 
part at least—because I was a citizen of no mean country, and the 
majority of you, holding allegiance to another, sought in some measure 
to show your younger brother of the north that your heart was with him 
when he rushed into the fray to fight for the liberty championed by 
Great Britain, and thrilled that fond mother who had thrown her pro¬ 
tecting arms about him from his tenderest years, without other return 
than his loyalty and love. 

Fifty years ago Canada had her first Dominion Day, when from the 
position of a group of provinces lying on the banks of a magnificent 
waterway she stepped into self-conscious nationhood, embracing a 
territory which now stretches from sea to sea, and from the river, 
St. Lawrence, to the end of the earth. Britain’s tenure of Canada 
depends neither on the strength of her battalions nor on the might of 
her fleets. Within her borders there has not been stationed since my 
earliest recollection a single soldier nor a single cannon over which 
Britain claimed control. Yet her influence in her great colony has grown 
more and more powerful. The Canadian people are animated by the 
same sentiments of loyalty as are found in the isles of their fathers, 
and British interests are as secure in their keeping as in the very core of 
the Empire. 

I need not recount Canada’s contribution to the present conflict. 


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BY JAMES V. ANGLIN, M.D. 


I9I9.] 


3 


Everywhere in this country you have been generous in the extreme in 
expressing admiration of the spirit of the Dominion. 

Germany did not believe that the lion would be able to obtain effec¬ 
tive assistance from its whelps in the event of a European war. This 
opinion must have been derived from the Victorian era, when knowledge 
of the colonies was vague. 

It is only within recent years that British statesmen have shown any 
real understanding of their dominions beyond the seas. There was a 
day when one can imagine their welcoming the news that every colony 
of the Empire had issued a declaration of independence, fashioned on 
the model of that with which Washington confounded the politicians 
who surrounded the King. 

Canada got on the British map during the Boer War, appealingly and 
permanently. Over in England they sat up and took notice then, though 
many who are fighting with us now were not quite sure we were doing 
the right or chivalrous thing. But most people outside of Germany 
and Britain did not realise that the Kaiser’s cable to Kruger was the 
formal shying of his helmet into the ring, and the existence of the 
British Empire was at stake in South Africa. In the darkest period of 
the Boer War Canada had sprung to arms, which should have been an 
augury to Germany of what the colonies would do when their mother 
was in trouble. 

It is a part of our national creed that what the nineteenth century 
was to this great neighbouring republic the twentieth will be to my 
country. Canada’s soil is destined to support teeming millions. With 
boundless acres, enriched by wastefulness while the lone Indian scoured 
the plains, capable of providing the world with the finest of the wheat, 
with mineral stores of wonders untold, with unrivalled natural forces 
and virgin forests, with a stern yet invigorating climate, one would 
indeed be bold who would picture the meridian splendour of the nation 
which possesses such an heritage. 

The most important purpose of such an Association as ours is the 
mutual improvement of its members by advancement in knowledge. 
No class stands in greater need of getting together frequently than do 
men of our profession. We are called on to decide complicated 
problems involving the well-being—yea, the very lives of our fellows. 
The experience of the greatest is limited. It is easy to stray from the 
narrow path. There is no corrective equal to discussions with others. 
In this matter our Association has accomplished much. We have a 
journal to link us together through the year. It gives an account of 
our meetings, which is a boon for those who cannot attend. Experi¬ 
menters through this medium can convey information as to their hopes, 
aims, and accomplishments directly, without filtering through foreign 
publications. That man deceives himself, however, who fancies he can 

1* 


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4 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, [Jan., 

derive the same benefit from a perusal of the journal as he would from 
coming to our meetings. He misses the second object to be attained 
in a society like this—the binding together of its members by means of 
social intercourse. 

Ample time should be allowed for interchange of opinion over the 
tea-cups, or any place as congenial. While there is room for reminis¬ 
cences not purely scientific, mental stimulus is to be derived from 
contact one with another, quietly discussing problems about our life-work. 

" Our discords, quenched by meeting harmonies, 

Die in the large and charitable air.” 

The present time is for all of us one of deepest anxiety, with a great 
sense of unrest. The angry clouds of war have hung heavily over us 
for nearly four years, and show no signs of lifting. Many friends are 
overseas, to mitigate suffering, liable and ready to give their lives, if 
need be, in behalf of country, liberty, and our ideals of honour, truth, 
and justice. Some dearer to us than tongue can tell are in the fighting 
ranks, in jeopardy every hour. 

With such distraction it was impossible to focus the mind on such 
an address as you have usually had from the long line of my forerunners, 
even were such timely, and I capable of keeping to the beaten path. 
The constitution says your President shall prepare an inaugural. He is 
not to come here, open his mouth, and expect the Lord to fill it. In 
an effort to obey I shall occupy further time while you become accli¬ 
mated to this lake region with an endeavour to discover some silver 
lining to the leaden clouds on which Mars is riding so recklessly. For 
myself, I was born beside these waters after they had laved Chicago, 
and so am quite at home. The horrors of war are so constantly present 
that there may be some consolation in looking for another side. 

I remember how in the first days of the war we stood aghast and said 
it could not endure more than a few weeks; how David Starr Jordan 
proved conclusively, we thought, that the bankers would never permit 
a world war to begin; how Samuel Gompers said that Labour would 
prevent the rupture of international peace; and how that brilliant 
wielder of the pen, Goldwin Smith, had declared that Canadians would 
never face a bayonet for England’s sake. We have lived to see how far 
astray were such surmises. The greatest conflict in history not only 
began but has extended over weary years. Labouring men, who had 
pledged their word to protect their alien brothers, flew to the colours 
of the greatest autocrat of all time, and the best of Canadian youth are 
over there, where they have proved themselves of such stuff that no 
troops have put greater fear into the hearts of the foe. They have 
shown invaluable initiative, innate to the new world, and your boys will 
do the same. 

So, though the future may not bear one out in taking the optimist’s 


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BY JAMES V. ANGLIN, M.D. 


1919] 


5 


view-point, no harm can follow “reaching a hand through time to catch 
the far-off interest of tears.” 

Every evil thing is followed by some good, and every achievement of 
good only uncovers some further ill for men to combat. Early in the 
war, in nearly all the belligerent countries, there was a sudden decrease 
of crime due to the absorption of many lawbreakers into the armies and 
fewer idle hands for Satan to get busy with. A few months later, how¬ 
ever, juvenile crime increased from lack of parental control, the fathers 
having gone to war, the mothers to work. 

Likewise, war found work for everybody. Thousands of families 
who were never far from the starvation line now earn wages they never 
dreamed they could command. That is a good thing, but it, too, has 
its demoralising side. Money thus unexpectedly possessed threw men 
and women off their moral balance, and the saloon has flourished. 

It is in these contradictory elements in our progress that ammunition 
is found for optimists and pessimists. The pessimists claim that the 
evil counterbalances the good. The optimists take the opposite view, 
and history seems to favour the latter. 

Medicine itself is likely to gain little from the experience of war. It 
has taught the surgeons much about the proper application of Listerian 
principles; physicians, the efficacy of inoculations against diseases which 
formerly decimated armies; alienists, the effects of shell-shock. But 
such advances in knowledge, valuable as they are in themselves, have 
comparatively little application to ordinary life. The practical humanity 
of the medical officers, shown in so many ways, is indeed a relief to a 
contest in which angry nations use every means of destruction to exter¬ 
minate each other. But the blast of war that blows on our ears makes 
the still small voice of science inaudible. 

Some comfort comes from learning that there is no evidence, in 
Great Britain at least, that since the outbreak of the war the amount of 
insanity has increased. There has actually been a decrease in hospital 
admissions, due mainly to the absence of so many men in the Army, 
who are dealt with by the military if they become insane. Among 
women, the higher wages earned, and the separation allowances 
regularly received, have relieved domestic uncertainties. Many who 
had nothing to do previous to the war have forgotten self by throwing 
their energies into active work for others. Rich and poor alike are now 
busy all the time. The result is a vast improvement in the nation’s 
mental stability. People whose lives were empty are interested from 
morning till night. Work is the surest consolation for the grievous 
sorrow of war. 

Even among the soldiers mental disorders have not been as prevalent 
as expected. The French conclude that with a few exceptions, in 
which a pre-existent organic taint was always to be found, the war has 


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6 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, [Jan., 

not been productive of insanity. It were well, quoth the observer, if 
the opposite could be said, namely, that insanity has not produced the 
war. What was chiefly feared was mental disorder among men worn 
out by the fatigue of the campaign, but such cases have been rare. 
The circumstances of service in the field react on the mind in so many 
ways and so differently from the influences of peace that new forms of 
mental trouble may result. 

The experience of the war is certain to lead to better lunacy laws. 
There has long been complaint that mental disorders have been 
regarded on a different basis from physical. Though in no department 
of medicine is the need greater for the earliest treatment, yet the 
tendency of existing laws is to cause remedial treatment to lie post¬ 
poned. The trouble arises from the fact that the laws governing these 
matters were framed by lawyers who are concerned in arranging how 
people are to be protected. But public health asks how mental sufferers 
are to be best treated so that they may be cured. The lawyers’ view¬ 
point, though important, has been allowed to outweigh all others. The 
war has made it necessary to deal with the problem in a fresh, untram¬ 
melled way. Hitherto the law 7 has hindered early treatment in many 
cases by making certification necessary for admission to an institution, 
by inflicting the stigma of pauperism, and by branding the recent case 
with insanity with all the disastrous consequences that flow therefrom, 
unjust though they be. The Army has brushed these difficulties aside. 
Numerous cases of recent mental disturbance among the soldiers have 
been dealt with in special hospitals without being certified insane in 
the usual way. Out of nearly 4,000 such cases among the British 
troops less than 200 had to be transferred to an insane institution. 
The soldiers suffer from the stigma neither of insanity nor of pauperism, 
and there is no obstacle to the earliest and best treatment. A civilian 
should have the same advantages when a mental breakdown threatens. 
There is no essential difference between the case of the soldier who 
becomes insane in the defence of his country, and that of a woman who 
suffers from mental symptoms brought on by producing her country’s 
defenders. 

The maxim that medical science knows no national boundaries has 
been rudely shaken by the war. The Fatherland has been preparing 
for isolation from the medical world without its confines. Just as, 
years ago, the Kaiser laid his ban on French words in table menus, so, 
as early as 1914, German scientists embarked on a campaign against 
all words which had been borrowed from an enemy country. A purely 
German medical nomenclature was the end in view. The rest of the 
world need not grieve much if they show their puerile hate in this way. 
It will only help to stop the tendency to Pan-Germanism in medicine 
which has for some years past been gaining headway. 


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1 9 1 9*1 


BY JAMES V. ANGLIN, M.D. 


7 


The Germans excel all other nations in their genius for advertising 
themselves. They have proved true the French proverb that one is 
given the standing he claims. On a slender basis of achievement they 
have contrived to impress themselves as the most scientific nation. 
Never was there greater imposture. They display the same cleverness 
in foisting on a gullible world their scientific achievements as their 
shoddy commercial wares. The two are of much the same value, 
made for show rather than endurance—in short, made in Germany. 

While they were preparing men and munitions for their intended 
onslaught for world dominion, they were spending millions of dollars to 
win the admiration of both the working classes and the intellectuals of 
other nations, extolling the superior conditions of the Fatherland, 
picturing it a paradise, with model homes, short hours and high wages. 
This was but a cloak for the sinister plans of Prussian autocracy. 
But how great has been the disillusionment 1 The facts are its working 
classes laboured longer hours than in any other country and for 
starvation wages, the women and children toiled like beasts of burden 
in most strenuous trades, sweat-shops abounded, many suffered from 
lack of fuel and food, farmers were oppressed with a rigid caste system 
so arranged that a peasant child could never become other than a 
peasant. Instead of the villas embowered with flowers, the general 
mass of workers lived in barrack tenements, gloomy and foul, lacking 
baths and heat, but with gaudy exteriors as camouflage. 

In the earliest months of the war it was pointed out that there are 
tendencies in the evolution of medicine as a pure science as it is 
developed in Germany which are contributing to the increase of 
charlatanism of which we should be warned. A medical school has 
two duties—one to medical science, the other to the public. The 
latter function is the greater, for out of every graduating class 90 percent. 
are practitioners and less than 10 per cent, are scientists. The conditions 
in Germany are reversed. There, there were ninety physicians dawdling 
with science to every ten in practice. Of these 90, fully 75 per cent. 
were wasting their time. In Germany the scientific side is over-done, 
and they have little to show for it all, while the human side is neglected. 
Even in their new institutions, splendid as they are in a material sense, 
it is easy to be seen that the improved conditions were not for the 
comfort of the patients. 

Out of this war some modicum of good may come if it leads to a 
revision of the exaggerated estimate that has prevailed in English- 
speaking countries of the achievements of the Germans in science. We 
had apparently forgotten the race that had given the world Newton, 
Faraday, Stephenson, Lister, Hunter, Jenner, Fulton, Morse, Bell, 
Edison, and others of equal worth. German scientists wait till a 
Pasteur has made the great discovery, on which it is easy for her 


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trained men to work. She shirks getting for herself a child through 
the gates of sacrifice and pain ; but steals a babe, and as it grows 
bigger under her care, boasts herself as more than equal to the mother 
who bore it. Realising her mental sterility, drunk with self-adoration, 
she makes insane war on the nations who still have the power of creative 
thought. 

Alienists have been infatuated with German pseudo-discoveries. 
Novelty of terminology has been taken for originality of thought, and 
their works on insanity have been accorded undue authority. We 
ignored the substance in our own and the Motherland, and chased the 
mirage on the Continent. 

Since the German army was successful in 1870, it has since been 
idolised, and the admiration bestowed on it has extended, so that in 
spite of the fact that the Germans themselves have gone to other 
countries for their ideas, we have cultivated a superstition of German 
pre-eminence in everything, but especially in science. There might be 
some excuse for this if they had made any discoveries comparable with 
those of the circulation of the blood, of vaccination, of asepsis—all 
made by men who speak our language ; or if German names were 
identified with important lesions or diseases as are those of Colles, Pott, 
Bright, Addison, Hughlings Jackson, Hutchinson, Argyll-Robertson, 
and others. 

But it is especially in mental science that the reputation of the 
Germans is most exalted and is least deserved. For every philosopher 
of the first rank that Germany has produced, the English can show at 
least three. And in psychiatry, while we have classical writings in the 
English tongue, and men of our own gifted with clinical insight, we need 
seek no foreign guides, and can afford to let the abounding nonsense 
of Teutonic origin perish from neglect of cultivation. 

The Germans are shelling Paris from their Gothas and their new gun. 
Murdering innocents, to create a panic in the heart of France ! With 
what effect ? The French army cries the louder, “They shall not pass ” ; 
Paris glows with pride to be sharing the soldiers’ dangers, and increases 
its output of war material ; and the American army sees why it is in 
France, and is filled with righteous hatred. Panic nowhere. Vengeance 
everywhere. What does the Hun know of psychology ? His most 
stupid, thick-witted performance was his brutal defiance of the United 
States with its wealth, resources, and energy. That revealed a mental 
condition both grotesque and pitiable. 

After the war a centre of medical activity will be found on this side 
the Atlantic, and those who have watched the progress medical science 
has made in the United States will have no misgivings as to your 
qualifications for leadership. If we learn to know ourselves, great good 
will come out of this war. 


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1 9 1 9-] 


BY JAMES V. ANGLIN, M.D. 


9 


Since 1914 there has been an awakening of the public conscience 
regarding health. An impetus has been given by the wonderful results 
of sanitation in the armies. In this we are interested because bodily 
disorder often foreruns mental, and many cases we treat are due to an 
infectious disease usually avoidable. Long ago Disraeli declared that 
public health is the foundation on which rests the happiness of the 
people and the strength of the nation. Statesmen generally are only 
now recognising that not only is the well-being of many millions of 
workers involved, but that the development of a country is checked if 
due attention is not given to the many problems associated with the 
maintenance of health. 

In my home province this spring the Government has created a 
health department to give at least as much attention to human beings 
as it has done to domestic animals or the moose that attracts sportsmen 
to the wilderness. The more grave the situation in France becomes, 
the more vigorously should we strive to shield those who can assist in 
greater protection from preventable disease and lessened efficiency. 
The war has impressed us with the fact that the childhood of the nation 
is the second great line of defence, and every child must be saved not 
alone for its own sake or its parents, but for the continuance of the 
nation. 

This war has shown us the value of developing the bodies of our 
young people. Wherever soldiers have been in the making there has 
been demonstrated what a change military training brings about in the 
recruits, converting youths of poor physique into erect, strapping, ruddy 
athletes. It is hard to realise they are the same human material, but 
for the first time in the lives of most of them they learned how to 
live. When compelled to endure hardships such as they never knew 
before, or lie in hospital recovering from wounds, the fitness secured by 
training is a decided factor in their favour. When the cruel war is over 
and welcome peace has stilled the stirring drum, shall the call for this 
physical fitness be no longer made ? The need of it will not pass 
away. The demands of peace make it necessary that every youth be 
made as perfect as possible. And this applies equally to girls. The 
country which would produce a hardy race must have strong women as 
well as strong men. 

Nationally, we had almost completely ignored the cultivation of the 
body. We make it compulsory for every child to submit to years at 
school for the sake of intellectual training. But its physical develop¬ 
ment has been left largely to chance and nature, and then when we 
call for soldiers we find a third of our youth unfit. It must be the 
State’s business to attempt in every possible way to develop the physical 
life of our young people. Even if it meant the taking of a whole year 
for necessary training it would be a national boon, adding as it would 


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five or ten years to the life of the individual. The time for trusting to 
luck and letting things slide has surely passed. Benjamin Franklin said 
wars are not paid for in war time. The bill comes later. This 
is the sad truth, but the bill will be settled the sooner if we make the 
most of the rising race. 

The war will hasten some scheme to provide all who need it with 
medical care. Often among the working classes disease leads to 
distress, and distress to disease, and charity in some form has been 
obliged to assist in destroying this vicious circle. Free hospitals have 
arisen, but this condition is not ideal, yet the man with meagre income 
must accept this charity. A better plan appears to be that of an 
insurance under which all wage-earners are compelled while well to 
accumulate a reserve which will defray part, at least, of the expense 
during periods of disability. Some such plan has just been pressed on 
the British to provide in case of illness or injury adequate care for 
all persons whose income is less than $800 a year. Nine-tenths of 
the general practitioners in the British Isles have entered into the 
scheme. 

On this Continent little attention has been given to a measure of 
this kind, but it seems probable that, whether medical men like it or 
not, a similar one will become law on this side of the Atlantic. 

The war has brought about a curtailment in the abuse of alcoholic 
drinks. For some years past there has been a revolution going on in 
regard to intoxicants. T he world-wide attack on liquor at the outbreak 
of the war was simply the crystallisation of an antagonistic sentiment 
which had been slowly forming, based on scientific evidence of the 
physiological and social effects of alcohol drinking. 

There is no reason to suppose that the great temperance wave is 
a passing thing which will ebb when the excitement of the war is 
over. Unless all signs fail, it represents a permanent gain, whose far- 
reaching benefits members of this Association will be the first to 
appreciate. It is not the moral reformers who have brought prohibition 
to pass. There is now a solid body of educated sentiment behind the 
law. Business corporations are roused against the liquor traffic as they 
certainly were not twenty-five years ago, because they now recognise 
that whiskey and efficiency make a poor team. The world has travelled 
a long way since that first teetotaler applied for life insurance, and was 
charged an extra premium because total abstinence was so dangerous 
to health. 

Social standards even in England, which still retains a bad pre¬ 
eminence in drunkenness, have marvellously changed since the days of 
Charles Dickens, who was quite unconscious that intemperance was 
anything more than an amiable weakness of generous and convivial 
hearts. 


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We are abolishing the bar. We still have the bottle. The quack- 
me dicinevendor is busier than ever. Money is plenty and he wants 
some of it. He uses mental suggestion and interests us. He is a 
specialist in distortion who probes into the ordinary sensations of 
healthy people and perverts them into symptoms. Every bill-board, 
newspaper, fence-rail, barn and rock thrusts out a suggestion of sickness 
as never before. The only vulnerable point to attack the vicious traffic 
is the advertising. If governments forbid that as they should, the next 
generation will be healthier and richer. If we are going to let imagina¬ 
tion play, let us exercise it on suggestions and symptoms of health. 

The world is moving rapidly in these days, and to women is being 
granted their rightful place. They are being given the ballot, not as a 
reward for what they had done in the war, but because they possessed 
the patriotism and the intelligence which entitle them to share in the 
conduct of public affairs. 

We have been struck by the readiness with which our boys have 
responded to the country’s call, and have admired their cheerfulness, 
but more impressive has been the heroism of the mothers, the wives, 
the sweethearts, and the sisters, who have sent forth the best we breed 
without a murmur. Theirs is the harder task to go quietly on with the 
daily routine while the heart is in France with the boys they love. 
While many talented ones have been prominent in public service, 
behind them lies a great army of women who are not known outside 
of their own small circle, and who are yet the nation’s richest possession, 
its most sacred trust, who make life attractive, and freedom possible and 
worth while. We would never have had such valiant armies in France 
if it had not been for the brave women at home. The advent of 
women into political life means purer government, and the coming 
of long overdue reforms in the laws of the land. 

Even our religion will be a better brand because of the war. Creeds 
count for little over there, and will never again divide men as they have 
done. Less and less emphasis is put on the sweet by-and-bye, and 
men’s thoughts are turning to the service of their fellows here and now. 
They are recognising the practical unity of religion, and the square 
deal all round. 

And so it will come to pass, 

" That mind and soul, according well 
May make one music as before, 

But vaster.” 

The war is teaching us the value of thrift—that exceedingly useful virtue 
which most men practise only when they must. But unpopular as it has 
been, stern national necessity is now helping to restore it to its rightful 
place. On this continent we have not as yet gone far in this direction. 


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But in the Motherland there is another story. For over two years not 
a single new pleasure auto has been manufactured. Big social functions 
are not merely bad form—they have ceased altogether. 

The traffic in luxuries in certain cases has been entirely wiped out. 
Everybody is wearing old clothes and saving the wool for the boys in 
the trenches, and saving the food that the Army may be properly fed. 
England is practising economy such as she never did before, and the 
strange thing is that apparently business is better than it was in the days 
of more luxurious living. One reason for this condition is undoubtedly 
the fact that everybody is working. The scale of living for the rich has 
been lowered, but the scale of living for the poor has been raised. 
This is probably a help to both classes. The pinch really comes, how¬ 
ever, on the middle classes, whose salaries have not increased, but 
whose expenses have gone up by leaps and bounds. And yet there is no 
grumbling. The men who grumbled at everything in pre-war times are 
now silent when they have really something to grumble about. England 
in prosperity may sometimes be hard to put up with, but England in 
adversity is magnificent. 

The war has done much for us if it has done nothing more than to 
reveal men to us. Before the war we judged them by their petty virtues 
or petty faults, and we thought we judged correctly ; but now we see that 
under it all lay a capacity and a willingness for self-denial and cheerful 
self-sacrifice that we had never suspected. The real nature of men has 
come to the surface, and we stand amazed at the goodness and grandeur 
of it. On this side the Atlantic we have not yet seriously tackled the 
luxury question, but we shall have to deal with it in radical fashion 
before our war debts are paid. Luxuries, whether they be costly, or the 
smaller ones in which poorer men indulge, are not a necessity to national 
development or to individual happiness, and their abolition does not 
either ruin trade or make men discontented and unhappy. If the war 
teaches us this it will mean much for our future national and individual 
well-being. 

Hospital superintendents, who are responsible for maintaining 
hundreds of lives and the operation of many acres, may be vital factors 
in both saving and producing, and thus play the game. It may be the 
only war service some of us can render. 

With France all the time within a few days of starving; with Great 
Britain relying on us for 65 per cent, of her essential foods ; with the 
wheat of Argentina and Australia too distant to be available, Northern 
America must step into the breach to avert famine for a warring world, 
and the fate that has overwhelmed the greatest empires of the past. 
A time of food shortage is at the door. It is hard to take it to heart 
while money is plenty. But money will not take the place of bread. 
By eating no more than we need, and by stopping waste, a good deal 


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can be done to relieve the situation. At any rate, a good habit will 
have been formed. 

But the common-sense way of undertaking to prevent famine is to 
increase the food supply. This cannot be done in every land. Some 
nations are cultivating every foot that has not a building on it. But 
on this Continent the case is different. Here there are yet countless 
acres waiting for the breaking plough. In Great Britain they are 
tilling every available plot, and it is of just as vital importance to us 
that we increase production here as there. We are equally concerned 
in the outcome of the war. 

Recently governments passed a law enacting that every able-bodied 
adult must be engaged in some useful occupation. If enforced without 
fear or favour it would set to work the tramp and the pampered son of 
the foolish rich man alike. Everyone would become a producer of 
wealth. It would be good for the country, and still better for the idler 
himself. Idleness, whether of the rich or poor, is a crime against the 
State, and is also the fruitful parent of vice and degeneracy. Ideals 
are changing : the gentleman is now a respectable citizen who toils in 
his country’s service. 

Distant though we be from the din and smoke of the battlefields, 
there is opportunity for us to prove ourselves heroes in the strife. 
These stars must not be left to do it all.( 2 ) Each should take to heart 
that— 

“ It isn’t the task of the few— 

The pick of the brave and the strong ; 

It’s he and it’s I and it's you 
Must drive the good vessel along. 

Will you save ? Will you work ? Will you fight? 

Are you ready to take off your coat ? 

Are you serving the State ? 

Are you pulling your weight— 

Are you pulling your weight in the boat?" 

There are not a few who, over three years ago, were almost wishing 
that they had never lived to see such a dire day as was then dawning, 
but who have come to see through the years that the dark day of 
tragedy was also a day glorious with opportunity and destiny. It is 
even now said that had the war been won two years ago, it would have 
been the worst thing for our nation, as its lessons had not been learned. 

A new and better day is coming for this war-wrecked world. The 
sea before us is uncharted, and there may be much that differs radically 
from the past, but we can only do as Columbus did—sail on. 

A new spirit is moving in the masses of society. Men’s ways of 
thinking are changing more rapidly than at any other time in history. 
Before the war it was said that to spend twenty-five millions yearly on 


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social reforms in Great Britain would mean national bankruptcy. Now 
it is found that more than that can be spent in a day to ensure the 
national safety. It will be found after the war that great expenditures 
to improve social conditions will come as a matter of course. 

The soldiers will return with enlarged views of democracy and social 
justice. The rich and the poor, the learned and the ignorant, have 
together looked death in the face. The sense of brotherhood and 
comradeship has been immensely strengthened. Those who were less 
favoured under the old social system will be inclined to demand justice 
and equality. Those who were more favoured will be inclined to concede 
the demand. Artificial distinctions of rank, and even distinctions 
founded on superior capacity and learning, fade away before the proof 
of the common virtues of manhood. The equality that is sought is the 
equality of brotherhood and of rights. 

Just as in war time, so it must be in time of peace—the good of the 
country, the well-being of the many, must prevail against the privileges 
and over the rights of few. This is good politics. It is true patriotism 
The world is going to be a better place for the great masses of men. 
If we can but keep up the habit that we are to-day learning of being 
world-citizens, interested in great enterprises outside of ourselves, then 
we would be helping to build the democracy of the future, which must 
more and more become a society in wdiich duties are greater than 
rights, and to serve a finer thing than to get. 

If in these introductory remarks I have not been able to detach 
myself from the world’s most serious business at the present time, 
perhaps on reflection they may not have gone very far afield from the 
subject which binds us together in an association. If there is to be a 
change in the conditions under which we live this must have its effect 
on the minds of men ; whether for good or ill, I will not stop to specu¬ 
late. We are intensely concerned with environment. This war itself 
is entangled with it. 

England’s greatness, her devotion to honour, truth, and fidelity, is 
due to the environment in which her children are trained and grow to 
manhood. 

The ivy-grown wall, the vine-clad hills and the rose-covered bowers 
constitute the birth-place of English character. 

Gerard tells us the cause of the war is the uncongenial environment 
in which the German youth is cradled and reared. The leaden skies 
for which Prussia is noted, its bleak Baltic winds, the continuous cold, 
dreary rains, the low-lying land, and the absence of flowers have tended 
to harden the spirit and rob it of its virtue, produce a sullen and morose 
character, curdling the milk of human kindness. 

It is a greater pleasure than usual for Canadians to meet with their 
American cousins in this year, when our two countries are joined in the 


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BY JAMES V. ANGLIN, M.D. 


15 


grim but glorious comradeship of war in defence of the heritage and 
aspirations that belong to us both. Our fathers came from common 
soil, their veins flow common blood. For over a century we have lived 
as good neighbours in the friendly rivalries of peace. Through proximity 
we have adopted more and more your ways without becoming a whit 
less true to the British flag. 

After this war we will be still better friends. We will have been in a 
fight together and on the same side. We will carry flowers across the 
seas to lay on mounds in the same clime. The boys who come back 
will have the same stories to tell of struggles and triumphs. Let us 
hope that the present is the dark hour that precedes the dawn, and that 
ere long the sky may be fired with the red glow of the rushing morn ; 
that soon the shot that brings victory—the last one—may be heard, and 
if it come from an American gun, no Canadian will begrudge you the 
lucky honour. 

The war has achieved much in cementing the two great English- 
speaking nations of the world as nothing else could possibly have done. 

Great Britain and the United States have never before fought shoulder 
to shoulder, but they are doing it now, and the fact is one ominous to 
their enemies. A common peril has united them, and a common aim 
will perpetuate the union. To no group of people will success in the 
war mean more than to the Anglo-Saxons, and the fact that this great 
family will in future dwell together in undisguised confidence and good¬ 
will is worth in itself all that the war has cost. 

The Allies are depending on this land for food and men, for ships 
and guns, for ammunition and aeroplanes, and this is leading Britain to 
recast its views of the United States, and is leading the latter to regard 
Britain in a more favourable light than ever before. The old suspicions 
and the ancient grudges are being melted away. Years of misunder¬ 
standing were trodden underfoot when American boys marched through 
the streets of an amazed and admiring London. 

It had long been a reproach that on this Continent men cared for 
nothing but the almighty dollar and made gold their hope, but when 
the call came to sacrifice for the good of the Allies no nation ever 
responded more gladly or liberally. Britain asked for meat, all you 
could spare, and you answered with meatless days, with the result that 
the United States has been able to supply millions of pounds more of 
bacon and beef than were expected. To-day the British workman has 
his normal supply of meat, thanks to America’s response. 

Germany never played more clearly into the hands of her foes than 
when she scornfully defied the world’s greatest republic, in the mistaken 
conviction that while the United States was of great potential strength, 
she would not dare to challenge the mightiest military machine that 
ever cursed the world. But Germany’s blunder will prove the world’s 


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salvation if it succeeds in binding together in friendship the two great, 
peace-loving, freedom-cherishing, English-speaking democracies—Great 
Britain and America. 

In 1493, a tiny barque, frail and scarred by many a storm, the first 
craft from America, returned to the shores of Europe. She bore what 
was then termed the richest freight that ever lay upon the bosom of the 
deep—the tidings of a new world beyond that vast waste of w-ater which 
rolled in untamed majesty to the west. That was a year of good news 
for the people of Europe. The thirst for gold was as keen in the 
15th century as it is to-day, and the discovery of Columbus disclosed 
to monarchs and adventurers alike visions of wealth. 

Little could they reck that in this year infinitely more precious freight 
would be borne across the same pathway, when ship after ship, leviathans 
of the deep, would bring from that new world to somewhere in Europe 
offspring of the sturdy pioneers from the old land, who in braving the 
savage forces of Nature had found liberty, legions of brave and noble men, 
in martial array, with the star-spangled banner at the mast-head, to reveal 
to the war-bound nations visions of something with which those of the 
wealth of the boundless West or the gorgeous East could not compare— 
visions of freedom for all mankind. 

Thank God ! “ Our fathers’ God, to whom they came in every storm 
and stress,” America did not turn a deaf ear to the laureate’s apostrophe : 

“ Gigantic daughter of the West, 

We drink to thee across the flood; 

We know thee most, we love thee best, • 

For art not thou of British blood ? 

Should War’s mad blast again be blown, 

Permit not thou the Tyrant Powers 
To fight thy mother here alone, 

But let thy broadsides roar with ours.” 

(') Delivered at the Seventy-fourth Annual Meeting of the American Medico- 
Psychological Association, Chicago, Ill., June 4th~7th, 1918.—( ! ) Referring to the 
"service flag” behind the speaker's desk with more than ninety stars, representing 
members of the Association in the Army Medical Service. 


The Infective Factors in Some Types of Neurasthenia. By W. 

Ford Robertson, M.D., Pathologist to the Scottish Asylums. 

The distinctive signs and symptoms of neurasthenia are capable of 
fairly precise definition, and there need rarely be any doubt, or difference 
of opinion, as to whether a particular case is to be classed as of this 
nature or not. The chief symptoms are a constant feeling of fatigue, 
not relieved by rest, and the occurrence of various forms of hyper- 
resthesia, parsesthesia, and localised pain. Two important physical 
signs constantly occur—exaggeration of the patellar reflex and tremor 


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BY W. FORD ROBERTSON, M.D. 


17 


of the eyelids when the eyes are half closed. Added to these, there are, 
in greater or less degree, characteristic mental features which constitute 
the picture of psychasthenia, namely, incoercible ideas, obsessions, and 
monophobias. 

Predisposing to the occurrence of neurasthenia there is a particular 
type of constitution—the neurasthenic diathesis. Under the same 
adverse conditions some persons will develop neurasthenia, while 
others will not. Slight degrees of the malady are extremely common. 
Indeed, to have the signs of neurasthenia in its mild form is a distinction, 
for it is certain that it is chiefly the people who have a neurasthenic 
constitution who are the most brilliant, original, energetic,and influential. 
It is they who do the intellectual work of the world. 

The severe and distinctly pathological manifestations of neurasthenia 
are those alone with which I have to deal. It is important to recognise 
that neurasthenia may be a prelude of serious organic disease, such as 
general paralysis, dementia praecox, other forms of insanity, pernicious 
anaemia, rheumatoid arthritis, and tuberculosis, the onset of which may 
obscure, but rarely obliterates, the characteristic features of the less 
serious malady. 

With regard to the causation of neurasthenia, the evidence has 
hitherto been lacking in precision, or altogether defective. The only 
assigned cause having any definiteness is traumatism, and this, at 
most, accounts for only a small proportion of the cases. Nevertheless, 
this factor is of special interest at the present time. The trauma may 
be physical, or it may operate by vivid and painful mental impressions 
as shock. It is my purpose to-day to endeavour to show that the 
importance of this traumatic factor is being much exaggerated, and that 
many of the morbid conditions universally attributed to it can be proved 
to be due to chronic bacterial infections, which have been aggravated 
by the physical and mental stress, and other conditions inimical to 
health, to which the soldier on active service is inevitably subjected. 

The number of cases of neurasthenia that I have investigated 
bacteriologically is sixty-six. It is necessary that I should make it clear 
that these sixty-six cases form a mere fraction of the total number 
studied by similar methods. Indeed, I have never made any special 
investigation of cases of neurasthenia. My object has been to gain 
accurate knowledge of the relationship of mental diseases to infections. 
In order to make the basis for conclusions sufficiently broad, I have 
studied all sorts of cases, not only in asylums, but among the general 
public. I have simply picked out the cases of neurasthenia, as it seemed 
to me that this subject was the one that was most likely to prove of 
interest on the present occasion. 

The areas of the body investigated have been chiefly the nasal 
passages, lower respiratory tract, nasopharynx, mouth, fauces, and the 

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intestinal and genito-urinary tracts. The nature and importance of 
acute and chronic infections of the nasal passages and lower respiratory 
tract are fairly well understood. It does not seem, however, to be 
realised that the nasopharynx is the part of the body more liable than 
any other to bacterial attack, and that various important chronic 
maladies are commonly dependent upon infections of this region. 
Infections of the genito-urinary tract are somewhat better understood, 
but in regard to them, also, it is possible to show that the present 
teaching is defective. The region that has suffered the most serious 
neglect in respect of the possible relation of chronic infections to 
common diseases is, however, the alimentary tract. That more attention 
should not have been given to it is probably due partly to the special 
difficulties of investigation and partly to lack of scientific imagination, 
which ought to have attracted bacteriologists to this region long ago, 
and led them far beyond the mere study of typhoid and paratyphoid 
fevers, dysentery, and cholera. 

Most advances in pathological knowledge have been dependent 
upon one or other of two things—the application of new methods of 
investigation, and the recognition of why certain important facts have 
previously eluded observation. In regard to our knowledge of the 
relationship of common diseases to chronic bacterial infections, both of 
these essentials to progress are in dire need of being brought into 
operation at the present time. As an example of the importance of 
recognising why certain facts have previously eluded observation, I would 
mention a discovery of fundamental importance that we have exploited 
at the Laboratory of the Scottish Asylums for over two years. It is that 
many pathogenic bacteria which in orthodox teaching are regarded as 
aerobes are liable to occur as anaerobes, and to refuse to grow unless 
fairly strict anaerobic conditions are provided for them. This applies 
to such common pathogenic species as Micrococcus catarrhaiis, the three 
highly important and distinct pathogenic varieties of pneumococci, 
Streptococcus fcecalis, Streptococcus pyogenes , and neurotoxic diphtheroid 
bacilli. It is therefore essential to use anaerobic methods as a matter 
of routine in the bacteriological investigation of cases. Those who do 
not use them in such work must continually miss facts of primary 
importance for the successful treatment of the patient’s malady. An 
equally necessary requirement in regard to methods of investigation is 
the constant use of haemoglobin agar. Tire value of a culture medium 
of this kind was maintained by my colleagues and myself more than 
sixteen years ago, but as far as I can gather it is still little used—at 
least in a proper way. For the differentiation of the many distinct 
streptococci, and for the growth of pneumococci and of the bacilli of 
the influenza group, it is essential. It is also the basis of the only 
anaerobic method suitable for systematic case investigations. 


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BY W. FORD ROBERTSON, M.D. 


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There is a rather important point that requires to be alluded to and 
put aside before I describe the chronic infective conditions that I have 
found in my cases of neurasthenia. Most persons afflicted with this 
malady suffer from intestinal stasis and its consequent toxasmia. The 
toxins absorbed from the colon in these cases are no doubt varied in 
nature and origin, but they are chiefly formed by the action of sapro¬ 
phytic bacteria upon the food residues. Absorbed in excess of the 
amount that can be destroyed, they produce lassitude, mental depression, 
slight degrees of mental confusion, more or less severe headache, and 
sleeplessness or drowsiness. All cases of neurasthenia accompanied by 
intestinal stasis are aggravated by absorption of these toxins. It is, I 
believe, an error to regard any case of neurasthenia as dependent upon 
intestinal stasis alone. There are always pathogenic factors of much 
greater moment. 

There is still one more preliminary point that it is necessary I should 
try to make clear. We need rarely, nowadays, remain in the dark as 
to whether a particular organism isolated from a case is acting as a 
pathogenic agent or not. We do not require to resort to experiments 
upon animals ; indeed, such experiments could not give us the infor¬ 
mation we want. The methods of focal reaction and therapeutic immu 
nisation furnish trustworthy evidence of the kind desired in almost 
every instance. Applied in a long series of cases, they permit of 
important practical generalisations regarding the bacterial causation of 
many chronic maladies. I believe it is chiefly to Dr. R. W. Allen that 
we are indebted for directing attention to the importance of focal 
reactions, both as evidence of the pathogenic character of a particular 
bacterium and as guides to correct dosage. I have endeavoured to 
follow and to extend his work. A focal reaction is specific. It is an 
active congestion at the seat of infection induced by the hypodermic 
injection of a minute dose of an emulsion of the corresponding bacterial 
toxin. It is almost always revealed by characteristic disturbances, 
which generally simulate certain symptoms of the malady. Sometimes 
the active congestion can be seen, as, for example, in the course ot 
therapeutic immunisation for infections of the conjunctiva. In many 
other instances it is manifested by signs scarcely less distinct. 
Frequently we have to rely, however, only upon symptoms experienced 
by the patient. If, after we have induced a series of such reactions, all 
symptoms disappear, there is added the evidence of therapeutic immu¬ 
nisation in support of the conclusion that the bacterium used in the 
preparation of the vaccine was the cause of the malady. By such 
methods the pathogenic character of various types of bacteria has been 
established, and the particular kinds of disorder to which they give rise 
have been clearly recognised. For instance, it has been possible in in¬ 
numerable instances to confirm the fairly well-known relation of pneumo- 

2 * 


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coccus infections to various forms of chronic catarrh of the respiratory 
tract, and to go further and to show that many cases of chronic intes¬ 
tinal catarrh are due to the same micro-organism, and to separate out 
two other distinct species of pneumococcus and to prove that they are 
respectively the primary causes of rheumatoid arthritis and pernicious 
anaemia. I well know that the subject is endless, and that we are yet at 
the very beginnings of the application of bacteriology and therapeutic 
immunisation to common maladies. 

I have now, I hope, sufficiently prepared the way for an analysis of 
the sixty-six cases of neurasthenia in which I have made a bacterio¬ 
logical examination. 

In all of these cases chronic infections were discovered, and their 
relationship to the malady, as either the chief, or a very important 
contributory cause, was established by the methods I have indicated. 
In most instances the infections were complex. In seven of the cases 
the neurasthenia seemed to depend essentially upon a chronic infection 
by the bacillus of influenza. Under therapeutic immunisation all of 
the cases made complete recoveries, with the single exception of one in 
which treatment is not yet finished, but in which also there is every 
prospect of a good result. I would here remark that acute and chronic 
infections by the bacillus of influenza yield to correct therapeutic immu¬ 
nisation with a readiness unsurpassed in any other form of bacterial 
infection, and that protective inoculation is simple, rapid and effective. 
It must not be thought that chronic infection by the bacillus of 
influenza is constantly associated with neurasthenia. These seven 
cases in which this form of infection could be regarded as of axiological 
importance represent not more than one-tenth of the cases of the same 
infection that I have investigated and treated. 

There were ten cases in the series in which a pneumococcus was the 
only, or the leading, chronic infective agent. In eight of these cases 
the intestine was the seat of invasion ; in the remaining two it was the 
nasopharynx. Again, it is to be said that similar pneumococcus infec¬ 
tions occur without neurasthenia. These ten cases constitute only a 
very small fraction of the number of cases of chronic pneumococcus 
infection that have come under observation. 

Another bacterium that may induce the neurasthenic syndrome is 
Streptococcus pyogenes. Its frequent action as a neurotoxic agent when 
it occurs as an acute infection is well known ; the best examples are 
seen in cases of puerperal endometritis aud erysipelas. It is not yet 
generally recognised that as a chronic infection it may, though only 
exceptionally, produce important neurotoxic effects. Ten cases 
occurred in which invasion by this streptococcus was at least an 
important factor in the production of the patient’s malady. In five of 
the cases the seat of the infection was the nasopharynx, in two the 


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1919.] BY W. FORD ROBERTSON, M.D. 

gums, in two the intestine, and in one the organism was found only in 
the urine. 

Another streptococcus which some cases of simple infection have 
proved to possess important neurotoxic powers in susceptible persons 
is the Streptococcus fcrcalis in its haemolytic form. It was found under 
such conditions as to warrant the conclusion that it was acting as an 
infecting agent in eleven of the cases. The most common seats of 
infection were the nasopharynx and intestinal tract; examples of infec¬ 
tion of the urinary tract also occurred. This streptococcus is a very 
common infecting agent, and it is certainly the exception for its 
invasion to be associated with nervous symptoms. 

I have left to the last the most important neurotoxic infective agent 
that these researches have revealed. By methods as rigid as any that 
science can require, it has been established that certain bacilli of the 
diphtheroid group are neurotoxic agents of great potency, and that they 
are operative in a wide range of nervous disorders. I cannot here 
adduce more than a fraction of the evidence I have collected. It will 
be given in some detail in a future publication. It is important it 
should be understood that the investigation of this subject is beset by 
a special difficulty that has rendered the collection of satisfactory 
evidence a very slow and laborious task. In the case of almost every 
other group of bacteria we can apply cultural, morphological and 
biochemical tests that serve to differentiate important species and 
varieties. In the diphtheroid group alone every criterion that has yet 
been suggested as a means of distinguishing one species from another, 
and pathogenic forms from non-pathogenic ones, has been found on 
extensive trial to be devoid of practical value. YVe can but take the 
forms that we find and test their power to produce focal reactions and 
their therapeutic value. By this means the relationship of some species 
of diphtheroid bacilli to cases of neurasthenia, exophthalmic goitre, 
dementia praecox and several other nervous disorders has been rendered 
evident. For many years I have been aware that in most cases of fully 
developed neurasthenia the urine is loaded with diphtheroid bacilli. 
The same feature is observable in a large proportion of asylum 
patients. In many of these cases of diphtheroiduria the presence of the 
bacilli can be readily recognised only by a direct examination of the 
centrifuge deposit; the organisms will not grow under the ordinary 
conditions of culture. At one time I interpreted this fact as indicating 
that the bacilli were dead. It has, however, now transpired that this 
is rarely, if ever, the case. The reason that the organisms will not grow 
under the usual conditions of cultivation is that, in these instancesi 
they are anaerobes. Under anaerobic conditions upon haemoglobin 
agar they will generally grow quite well. In the wide group of the 
diphtheroid bacilli there are several species that either temporarily 


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2 2 INFECTIVE FACTORS IN TYPES OF NEURASTHENIA, [Jan., 

« 

acquire, or essentially possess, an anaerobic habit of growth. The 
fact is one of great practical importance. 

The systematic application of anaerobic methods to the investigation 
of the intestinal flora has shown that intestinal infections by anaerobic 
diphtheroid bacilli occur with considerable frequency, and that they 
are almost always associated with severe nervous disturbances. The 
types of cases in which there occur such infections by anaerobic 
diphtheroid bacilli include neurasthenia, mucous colitis, exophthalmic 
goitre, disseminated sclerosis, and various forms of acute and chronic 
insanity. That the presence of such anaerobic diphtheroid bacilli in 
the intestine is quite abnormal is borne out by the study of nearly two 
hundred other cases by similar methods, which serve as controls. In 
some cases the number of these anaerobic diphtheroids is almost 
incredible. Although Bacillus coli communis grows quite well under 
anaerobic conditions, I have obtained cultures in which its colonies 
appeared in the proportion of only one to about three hundred of 
those of the diphtheroid bacillus. I have a culture of this kind to show 
from a case of agitated melancholia. 

My statistics of the sixty-six cases of neurasthenia show that forty-nine 
had diphtheroiduria. Six were ascertained to have aerobic diphtheroid 
bacillus infections of the intestine and twenty-five to have similar 
anaerobic infections. Some of the earlier cases were not investigated 
by anaerobic methods, and this figure is therefore probably below the 
actual mark. Aerobic diphtheroid bacillus infections of the nasal 
passages, nasopharynx and gums are also exceedingly common, and 
may be either of little or of great pathological importance. A proved 
cause of recurrent cold is a bacillus of this kind, which is quite different 
from the Bacillus septus and from Hoffmann’s bacillus. In striking 
contrast to the non-neurotoxic character of this catarrhal diphtheroid 
bacillus is the intensely neurotoxic action of other strains which may be 
found in great abundance in the same region in many cases of dementia 
praecox. 

I regard the aetiological relation of anaerobic diphtheroid bacillus 
infection of the intestine to mucous colitis as established. I have 
been able to make a close study of four cases. The focal react ions 
are distinct, and the value of prolonged therapeutic immunisation has 
been clearly proved. There is, however, in this malady another funda¬ 
mental factor not amenable to treatment of this kind, namely intestinal 
displacement, which, in proportion to its severity, permanently impairs 
the health of the patient. 

Five cases of neurasthenia complicated by exophthalmic goitre 
showed severe intestinal infections by anaerobic or aerobic (one) diph¬ 
theroid bacilli. In four of the cases there was also intestinal infection 
by Streptococcus ftecalis hcemolyticus, and in one by a pneumococcus. 


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* *919-] 


BY W. FORD ROBERTSON, M.D. 


23 


All of the five cases showed an extreme degree of diphtheroiduria, 
as also did two earlier cases in which no bacteriological examination 
was made of the stools. One of the cases was complicated by subacute 
Bright’s disease, but all of the remaining six have done well under 
therapeutic immunisation. 

Another disease that begins as neurasthenia is disseminated sclerosis 
I have had an opportunity of investigating only one case by the methods 
now employed. It is that of a lady teacher. Less than a year ago she 
had all the signs and symptoms of this grave malady, and had to con¬ 
template giving up her work, upon which she depended for her living. 
I found that both the urine and the stools were loaded with a purely 
anaerobic diphtheroid bacillus of unusual morphological characters. 
Therapeutic immunisation has now been continued for eight months. 
Focal reactions, manifested by severe nervous disturbances, occurred on 
several occasions, necessitating a diminution in the dose. Steady 
improvement in the patient’s condition has taken place. All signs of 
disseminated sclerosis have disappeared, and she is again feeling quite 
fit for her work. 

Included in the sixty-six cases of neurasthenia investigated bacterio- 
logically there were nine of patients in the Army or Navy who had 
seen active service. None of them had suffered from shell-shock, but 
all of them had endured severe physical and mental strain, and some 
of them also exposure to cold and wet, and privation. They were cases 
typical of those that fill the military hospitals for neurasthenics. All 
of them on investigation proved to be suffering from severe chronic 
infections incompatible with health, and every one of them has either 
recovered, or is now improving under therapeutic immunisation directed 
against the infections from which he was ascertained to be suffering. 
Each case has had its point of interest. 

A naval officer, after severe strain, suffered from depression, lack of 
confidence in himself, and neurasthenic symptoms. Various remedies 
were tried, including a period of rest, but without avail. The real 
cause of his illness was never even suspected. He was sent to me for 
bacteriological investigation. I found he was suffering from a chronic 
infection by the bacillus of influenza, with some other infections of 
minor importance. Under therapeutic immunisation he speedily re¬ 
covered, and has remained well and fit for the discharge of his important 
duties. 

Three of the cases suffered from chronic infections by a pneumo¬ 
coccus, intestinal in two of them, and nasopharyngeal in the remaining 
one. In each instance the illness was severe and disabling. All 
recovered under therapeutic immunisation, and were able to return to 
active service. 

Three of the cases were typical examples of diphtheroid bacillus 


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infection of the intestinal tract, with the usually accompanying extreme 
diphtheroiduria. Two other cases had similar diphtheroiduria, but 
came under observation before the importance of anaerobic intestinal 
cultures was fully realised. I have been able to keep four of these 
cases of diphtheroidosis under observation, and they have all done 
well. The three with intestinal infection have shown great sensitive¬ 
ness to minute doses of the diphtheroid bacillus vaccines, abdominal 
pain and discomfort and general malaise being the chief symptoms 
of focal reaction. Improvement under therapeutic immunisation in 
this form of infection is always slow, and treatment has generally to 
be continued for at least six months. 

The moral of these cases is obvious. I do not deny the importance 
of traumatism and strain, physical and mental, as factors in the causa¬ 
tion of neurasthenia, but after a period of rest the symptoms due to 
such causes should either subside, or leave residues that are distinguish¬ 
able from the phenomena of true neurasthenia. If neurasthenic 
symptoms continue they must have a toxic basis, and the cases should 
be investigated and treated accordingly. 


Communications from the Lunatic Asylum at Nykobing, Seel and. 
Fr. Ivrarup, Chief Physician. 

Some Experiments on Treatment of Dementia Paralytica with 
Subdural Injections of Neosalvarsan. By George E. Schrpder, 
Assistant Physician, Communal Hospital, Copenhagen, and Hj. 
Helweg, Assistant Physician, St. Hans’ Hospital. 

The demonstration by Noguchi and many other investigators after 
him of spirochaetes in the nervous texture in tabes dorsalis and in 
dementia paralytica has, as is well known, quite subverted the old 
conception of these diseases as para- or metasyphilitic in nature. They 
are just as syphilitic as other diseases caused by Spirochceta pallida are. 
It is quite a different thing, however, that in certain respects they occupy 
a peculiar position ; as a rule they do not manifest themselves till ten 
to fifteen years after the primary affection, and they are very little 
affected by antisyphilitic treatment. It is well known that it was 
especially this last fact which caused thtm to be considered as not 
syphilitic in the common sense. 

The said proof of spirochaetes has not made it less difficult to 
understand why the results of the ordinary antisyphilitic cure, also 
the salvarsan and neosalvarsan treatment, are so defective. The total 
outcome of the experiences so far obtained is the but little encouraging 
fact that in reality we have never, or very seldom, succeeded in stoppin 


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1919 -] BY GEORGE E. SCHR 0 DER AND HJ. HELWEG. 25 

the progress of the disease effectively and for ever. We have quite 
often heard of temporary recoveries or cures, but, the said diseases in 
themselves showing a tendency to remissions, we have here in this 
country generally been most inclined to explain the achieved results as 
spontaneous remissions, or perhaps as results from the influence of the 
ordinary hospital hygiene. 

However, the rational basis for the treatment—the presence of the 
spirochaetes—having now been substantiated, we purposed, although 
without any great expectations, to attempt a treatment which the 
Norwegian-English alienist Monrad-Kiohn has proposed. 

Monrad-Krohn has in the Nonvegian Magazine for Physicians , 
No. 5, 1914, published an article concerning “The Treatment of 
Syphilis of the Nervous System Spec., Tabes and Paralysis Generalis.” 
It contained an account of rational treatment with salvarsanised serum, 
and the rational point consisted in taking serum from a patient who 
had been under the salvarsan treatment half or one hour after the 
intravenous injection of salvarsan and injecting it into the spinal canal. 
Thereby both salvarsan and anti-substance were injected at one time, 
and through the perivascular lymphatic channels these make their way 
to the parasites. On the contrary, after a mere intravenous injection 
of salvarsan no salvarsan passes into the cerebrospinal fluid, and, as 
far as can be judged, no anti-substance either. 

Monrad-Krohn has achieved good results in tabes, but no results in 
dementia paralytica. But he observes in a supplement to his essay 
that in three cases of dementia paralytica he has injected 20-30 c.cm. 
salvarsanised serum directly into the cranium—that is to say, through 
a trephine opening into the subarachnoid space. In two of the cases 
the result was satisfactory, and in the third one a temporary deterioration 
occurred, which was followed by some convalescence. In a later 
article in the Journal of Mental Science, April, 1935, “Remarks on 
the Intracranial Injection of Salvarsanised Serum,” Dr. Krohn touches 
upon his technique and on theoretical considerations which underlie the 
treatment. Here it has only to be observed that as a result of different 
experiments it was proved that a subdural injection of fluid was able 
to extend itself to rather a high degree over the surface of the brain, 
even over both hemispheres, but first to the left frontal lobe when the 
injection was made on the left side. 

As to the technique, it shall also be only briefly mentioned. A 
trephine opening with a trephine of 1^-2 cm. diameter was made 
10-12 cm. above the temporal end of arcus zygomaticus under the 
usual anti- and aseptic measures. The dura, which was not opened, 
was then pierced aslope from behind forwards with a fine cannula, and 
25-30 c.cm. salvarsanised serum was slowly injected. The operation 
was undertaken under local anaesthesia. 


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Unfortunately the essay was not accompanied by accounts of the 
illness, and a direct written application to Dr. Monrad-Krohn only 
elicited that the method had been tried a few times with good results, 
but that the war had to such a degree increased the work at that 
English hospital to which he was appointed that further experiments 
had to be suspended. 

Others, and especially English authors, have occupied themselves 
with the subject. However, we shall not enter into details, but only 
refer to articles by Swift and Ellis, Mapother and Beaton ( Journal of 
Mental Science, October, 1914), and in this country Carl With {Hospital 
Magazine, Nos. 40 and 41, 1917, and Medical Weekly Paper, No. 39, 
1917). They are expecting more or less from these methods, which, 
however, have not got beyond the stage of experiment. 

Although absolutely convincing communications were not forth¬ 
coming, we yet resolved to attempt this treatment, partly on account of 
the principle being supposed to be rational, and partly and not least 
on account of dementia paralytica being in itself such a hopeless 
disease that it is simply a duty to attempt any new and “rational” 
therapy. It ought here to be observed that previous experiments with 
subcutaneous injections of natr. nuclein and other fever-producing 
means have now and then proved to be of some effect, yet not in such 
a way that real power over the disease was obtained (Hallager, Medical 
Weekly Paper). Of course we did not expect the new method to be 
able to cure the disease, but we had the hope of possibly stopping its 
progress—that is, of making it effectively stationary, and that at so early 
a period in its course that the working ability of the patient would be 
in part retained. We seize this opportunity to thank Mr. Krarup, the 
chief physician, for permission to make these experiments, and the then 
assistant physician, Mr. v. Thun, for his aid at the first trephine 
operation. 

The technique of the treatment used by us was at the beginning 
quite like that indicated by Monrad-Krohn, for which reason we refer 
to this. We gave intravenous injections of salvarsan, took some blood 
from the patient one hour after, had it coagulated under aseptic 
measures, and took 20 c.cm. of the exuded serum for the injection. 
However, through different difficulties presenting themselves, we were 
obliged to alter our technique somewhat. I shall shortly give an account 
of it for the use of eventual later experiments. For, in spite of our 
experiments not being specially encouraging, we still think that they 
ought to be carried on. 

The operation itself presents no difficulty. It may be undertaken by 
any physician in a lunatic asylum, provided a small operating-room can 
be adapted for the purpose. It is always done under general narcosis. 

The situation of the trephine opening in the temporal region at the 


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1919 ] BY GEORGE E. SCHR0DER AND HJ. HELWEG. 


2 7 


line of the hair was such that there was no danger of injuring the sinus 
sagittalis or the temporal artery. In some cases, however, a small 
branch of A. mening. passed across the visible part of the dura. In 
such cases the opening was prolonged to one of the sides with a small 
curvature, so as to have a place where you could make sure of not 
injuring the vessel when injections through the skin were to be under¬ 
taken later on. This little alteration was most easily executed by biting 
off the edge of the bone with an ordinary gouge-tong. Tlie injection 
through the dura caused no difficulty either; on the other hand the 
later injections through the healed-up flap of the skin and dura were 
sometimes difficult. They were always made in such a way that the 
skin was first congealed with ethyl-chloride ; then the cannula was pierced 
through the skin so deeply that the dura was supposed to have been 
pierced also. The last part of this penetration was quite free from pain, 
neither the dura nor the brain reacting painfully to the introduction of 
a fine cannula. It was no doubt unavoidable that now and then you 
happened to thrust the cannula a little way into the cortex, but when 
nothing was injected it did not cause the patient any inconvenience. In 
the case of brain-punctures, which were formerly used, small pieces of 
tissue were even removed without inconvenience to the patient. When 
making these injections it is, however, for other reasons absolutely 
necessary to make sure that you are within the subdural space, and 
this is done by letting the cerebrospinal fluid run out or be sucked 
through the cannula. 

If you are not on your guard in this way you may happen to inject 
fluid into the cortex itself, which is thereby destroyed to a greater or 
less extent—a lesion which may possibly result in a paresis of the arm or 
the leg on the opposite side of the opening for the place of introduction. 
It sometimes occurred that we injected a solution of fluid without the 
cerebrospinal fluid being evacuated, trusting that the needle had really 
only been subdurally placed, and the consequence was as described. 

Later on sections from some of these cases were examined, and 
there appeared to be an extensive leptomeningitis, which had probably 
hindered the outflow of the cerebrospinal fluid. Therefore you may 
certainly take it for granted that in all cases where you are unable to 
drain out the fluid through the cannula it is owing to such a chronic 
leptomeningitis, and this negative result of the puncture, and this disease 
ought then to be considered a counter-indication for continuing the 
treatment. 

Moreover, it is most likely that a needle formed at the point like a 
catheter could more easily be passed subdurally, and an injection could 
be made without thereby injuring the cerebrum, but we did not get so 
far as to use such a one. However, we modified somewhat the injection- 
fluid, which was of more vital importance. There appeared, namely, to be 


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various inconveniences in using neosalvarsanised serum. Firstly, it was 
rather difficult to obtain sufficient sterilised serum for the injection with¬ 
out making the venesection comparatively large. Of course this diffi¬ 
culty could be overcome. But secondly—and this was of greater 
importance—you could not prove that the neosalvarsanised serum 
contained arsenic, or at best traces thereof, and that only when very 
large doses of neosalvarsan had been given intravenously, and of 
course it is arsenic which is the effective substance. After injections 
of 45-60 cgrm. neosalvarsan we submitted various samples of blood of 
20 c.cm. to Stein’s laboratory. These could not be proved to contain 
the least arsenic. Traces were only found in a sample of blood after 
an injection of 75 cgrm. neosalvarsan. The blood sample was supplied 
by Dr. C. E. Jensen, who treated a syphilitic patient with these large 
doses. 

After that we resolved to inject neosalvarsan subdurally dissolved in 
fresh, distilled, sterilised water. The doses varied from 2^ to 15 mgrm. 
neosalvarsan in the following solution : neosalvarsan o - 45~o'6o cgrm. 
in 20 c.cm. distilled water—a somewhat weaker solution than Ravault 
has used for his intraspinal injections. The injections were repeated 
after an interval of two to four weeks. The largest number of injections 
given to any patient were five subdural injections, and in no case 
whatever has infection occurred from these injections. 

In the following we shall state the achieved results. They are, as 
may be noticed by the shortly quoted accounts of the cases, not 
especially excellent. 

But before coming to any conclusion from these attempts it will be 
fair to examine whether the results are a consequence of a wrong 
treatment, or whether the problem must be considered as altogether 
insoluble. 

Case i. —M. S—, set. 34, workman. Syphilis treated with fifty 
salving-cures when *et. 24. Taken to the lunatic asylum at Nykdbing, 
S., January 10th, 1916. The disease commenced at the age of 32 with 
an initial phase of depression. \\ hen taken to the hospital there was 
pupil diff. Left pupil insensitive. Slight paralytic disorder of speech. 
Spinal fluid, cells, 7 ; Nonne-Appelt, 0-35 ; Wm. in the cerebro¬ 
spinal fluid, o - 3-2o. 0.2-T00 ; in blood, o’2~5o, o - i-roo. 

Trephining was done on April 17th, T9T6. Neosalvarsan was 
injected intravenously, and to c.cm. neosalvarsanised serum subdurally. 

May 13th, 1916: Injection of neosalvarsan, 0^003 grm. subdur. 
through the skin : o'3 grm. intravenous. 

May 24th : Injection of neosalvarsan, o - oo6 grm. subdur.; o'6 grm. 
intravenous. 

June 16th : Injection of neosalvarsan, o'T2 grm. subdur,; o - 6 grm. 
intravenous. 

July 7th : The patient is much better; able to work part of the day. 

November 29th ; o’oo6 grm. subdur.; 0 6 grm. intravenous. 


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1919-] BY GEORGE E. SCHR0DER AND HJ. HELWEG. 29 


November 21st: The patient is dull and without interests. 

December 21st : The patient does not want to work. Feels unwell. 

February 14th, 1917 : 0 0025 8 rm - subdur. ; 0^45 grm. intravenous. 

February 17th: In spinal fluid, Nonne-Appelt 2-35; in cerebral 
fluid, Nonne-Appelt 3-35 after a respite of twenty-four hours. 

February 20th : The patient lost his comb yesterday which he had 
in his left hand. He explains that his left hand and arm a few times 
have been as if they were dead, but quite temporarily. No paresis of 
muscles, but a somewhat reduced sensibility of the left hand. 

February 25th: In the course of the last twenty-lour hours has had 
seven times some contortions of the face. Had injection of sulph. 
mag. 5 c.cm. of a 10 per cent, solution. 

February 26th : Some slight attacks of contortions. 

March 5th : Irritable and discontented. 

May 25th : Works a little. 

July 1 st: Working better. 

August 8th : Discharged, after having paid a visit to his home. 

Case 2.—C. L. J—, set. 36, unmarried, assistant. Taken to the 
lunatic asylum at Nykffbing, S., on November 17th, 1915. 

The patient contracted syphilis when 22, and when 35 he became 
nervous, tired and restless. 

In the Frederiksberg Hospital, where the patient was first quartered, 
pleocytosis and positive Nonne-Appelt reaction and positive Wasser- 
mann reaction in blood and spinal fluid had been demonstrated. 

When the patient was taken to the lunatic asylum at Nyk^bing, S., 
and for a long time after, he was over-excited, but quite brisk and 
comparatively little demented. However, after a period of six months 
he began to pilfer, which he had never done before; he also evidently 
became more dull and had to cease working at the hospital. 

In the spinal fluid there were then—cells, 40, and Nonne-Appelt 
reaction 5-20. 

Wm. in the spinal fluid, o - i5-2o, 0 075-80; Wm. in blood, o - 2~4o, 

O’l-IOO. 

Trephining was performed on May 23rd, 1916, followed by injection 
of neosalvarsan, 0 006 grm. subdurally ; o'45 grm. intravenous. 

June 10th : Is again more brisk. Goes to work. Yet he is some¬ 
what low-spirited. Complains of a feeling of strain in the masticatory 
muscles on both sides. 

June 15th: Neosalvarsan was injected, o’oi2 grm. subdur.; o’6o 
grm. intravenous. 

Six hours after the injection there was difficulty of speech and paresis 
of the left arm and leg. Slight facial paresis and Babinski’s reflex in 
the left foot. 

However, in the course of a fortnight the patient was again able to 
walk about and was relatively well, but could not at all times move the 
left arm. The difficulty has later on improved somewhat, but there is 
still a slight paresis left. 

The dementia of the patient has become rather stationary. Bodily 
the patient is getting on well. 

November 7th, 1917: Spinal fluid, cells, 7 ; Nonne-Appelt, 2-10; 
Wm. in spinal fluid, o - 2o-2o, o'i-ioo; Wm. in blood, o - oi-o. 


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Case 3.—C. A. W. J—, policeman, jet. 42. The patient was 
infected with syphilis when jet. 20, and was treated with many salving- 
cures and injections. 

The disease commenced when the patient was set. 40 with depression 
and irritability. 

There was then strong pleocytosis in the spinal fluid. Nonne-Appelt, 
1-50. Wm. in spinal fluid, 0-05-0. 

November 23rd: Was taken to the Frederiksberg Hospital, treated 
with strong antiluetic cure and had tuberculin treatment. The patient 
was discharged with — Wm. in blood. 

May 3rd-May 22nd, 1915 : Renewed treatment. 

August 4th : Again at the Frederiksberg Hospital, with disorder of 
speech, facial paresis, and strong depressive unrest. Wm. -f- in blood. 

March 25th, 1916 : Taken to the lunatic asylum at Nyk^bing, S.: far 
advanced dulness. 

April 25th: In spinal fluid, cells, 112, and of these many extra¬ 
ordinary polymorphonuclear-formed lymphocytes. Nonne-Appelt, 7-25. 
Wm. in spinal fluid, 0-07-60 ; o'oo3-ioo ; in blood, o - i-6o ; 0-05-100. 

May 9th: Trephined. Injection of neosalvarsan, 0-015 grin . sub- 
durally; 0-309 grm. intravenous; 0009 grm. subdur. ; 0-45 grm. intra¬ 
venous. 

June 16th : Attempt at injection in vain. 

August 29th : o 01 grm. subdur. ; o'6o grm. intravenous. 

February 10th, 1917 : Attempt at injection in vain. Lumbar punc¬ 
ture. In the spinal fluid there are now 450 cells, about £ of them, 
polymorphonuclear formed. 

February 18th : Incision above the place of trephining, then injection 
of neosalvarsan, 0-0025 grm. subdur.; o 60 grm. intravenous. 

March 1st and March 3rd : Spasms in the right arm. 

November 3rd : His psychical condition is unaltered. 

Spinal fluid, cells, 7. Nonne-Appelt 2-10. Wm. in spinal fluid, 
0-1-20,0 05-100; in blood, 0-025-60,0 05-100. 

In the following three cases a temporary recovery in response to the 
treatment occurred, but after the lapse of some time the disease 
progressed and the patients died. 

Case 4.—M. P. P—, blacksmith, jet. 45. 

When the patient was 22 years of age he contracted syphilis, 
which was treated at the Communal Hospital, fourth ward ; later on a 
fresh outbreak occurred, which was treated ambulant. At forty-three 
years of age he became irritable, capricious, and got megalomania. 

June 19th, 1914-February 13th, 1915, at the Frederiksberg Hospital. 
Wm. in the spinal fluid was weakly positive. He was treated at the 
Frederiksberg Hospital with tuberculin, salvarsan, and hydrargyrum. 

Discharged recovered with negative Wm. in blood. 

November 14th, 1915-April 5th, 1916, again at the Frederiksberg 
Hospital, treated with injections of sublimate and salving-cures. When 
taken to the hospital he was a typical dementia paralytica, and was 
discharged unchanged. There was a considerable increase of the 
quantity of albumen and positive Wm. in the spinal fluid. 


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1919-] iJY GEORGE E. SCHR0DER AND HJ. HELVVEG. 3 1 


June 14th, 19x6 : Taken to the lunatic asylum at Nyk0bing, S., 
with rather advanced dementia. In the spinal fluid, cells, 13 ; Nonne- 
Appelt, 5-30. Wm. in spinal fluid, 1-20; in blood negative, o'6-ioo. 

July nth: Trephined, with injection-of neosalvarsan, o'oo6 grm. 
subdurally; o'45 grm. intravenous. 

August 29th : 0 006 grm. subdurally ; C45 grm. intravenous. 

October 6th : The patient is getting better; is working in the work¬ 
shop and the garden. Has had an attack of unconsciousness. 

February 14th, 1917: Injection of neosalvarsan, o - oo25 subdur.; 
intravenous failed. -• 

In the spinal fluid 24 lymphocytes, and in the cerebral fluid 21 
lymphocytes. 

February 20th : Has attacks of convulsion in arms and legs, mostly 
in the left side. 

February 22nd: Numerous attacks of convulsion, mostly in the 
left side. 

February 26th : Increasing attacks of convulsion. Mors. 

Section; Under the trephine opening on the left side a small, 
yellowish-grey softening is to be seen quite superficial in cortex; 
ependymitis granularis ; myocardial degeneration; bronchopneumonia. 

On the right side on inner surface of dura flat fibrinous deposits and 
slight bleedings ; pachymeningitis hsemorrhag. interna. 

Cask 5.—O. V. P—, dairy manager, aet. 24. 

Nothing known about syphilis. Patient was taken ill during his 
military service, and was at once treated with potassic iodide and 
salving cure. Wm. positive in the blood. He was taken to the lunatic 
asylum at Nykpbing, S., on November 15th, 1915. He presented a 
typical paralysis with megalomania and disorder of speech. 

February 6th, 1916: The spinal fluid showed cells, 23. Nonne- 
Appelt,3-2o. Wm. in spinal fluid, o'1-60 ; o'05-ioo; in blood, 0025-60; 

O'OI-IOO. 

March 22nd: Trephined. Injection of neosalvarsanised serum, 
io'oo grm. subdur. ; neosalvarsan, o - 6o grm. intravenous. 

April nth: io'oo grm. subdur. ; neosalvarsan, 060 grm. intravenous. 

May 8th : Injection of neosalvarsan, o'oo3 grm. subdur. ; neo¬ 
salvarsan, o'6o grm. intravenous. 

May 18th: The patient has written a letter, which, compared with 
previous letters, was excellent. 

May 25th : Injection of neosalvarsan, 0 009 grm. subdur. ; o'6o grm. 
intravenous. 

June 8th : More clever at assisting in the garden and in the ward. 

June 17th: Neosalvarsan, o'ox 2 grm. subdur.; o'6o grm. intravenous. 

July 14th : In the spinal fluid, cells, o. Nonne-Appelt, 3-75. Wm. 
in spinal fluid, o'2-6o, o - oo25-ioo ; in blood, o'o5~6o, o'l-ioo. 

August 20th : The patient is getting more restless and dirty, evil- 
tempered and obscene, then steady psychical and somatical descent to 
Mors. On November 16th, 1916, sections examined : Leptomeningitis, 
ependymitis, aortitis luica. Dura a little adherent at the trephine- 
opening, but no local alterations in front of this. 

Case 6. —V. C. C—, butcher’s journeyman, act. 37. The date of 
infection is unknown. When 32. years of age he received antiluetic 


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treatment, because Wm. was positive. He was able to work after 
the treatment. 

He was taken to the lunatic asylum at Nyktfbing, S., on November 
29th, 1916. Dementia paralytica with far advanced dementia. Spinal 
fluid, cells, i2 - o; Nonne-Appelt, 5-40. Wm. in spinal fluid, o'3~4o, 
o - 2-ioo ; in blood, o’i-2o, 0 005-100. 

He was trephined, and was then altogether twice injected with 
neosalvarsan o - oo6 grm. subdurally, and at the same time 0^45 grm. 
intravenous. There was a quite transitory convalescence after the last 
injection, but from that on Iris paralysis advanced sttadily. At a later 
spinal puncture his spinal fluid was found not to contain more cells. 

Section-diagnosis : Diffuse inspissation of the soft membranes. 
Ependymitis granularis. No softenings. Aortitis luica ; bronchitis chr. 

In the following four cases the patients died without the injections 
having influenced them at all. Sections showed nothing but the usual 
and characteristic appearances seen in cases of dementia paralytica. 
We had no impression of these injections having influenced the 
paralysis in any way. In any case, three of these patients, when taken 
to the lunatic asylum, had reached such an advanced condition of 
dementia that it would have been a doubtful advantage even if we had 
really been able to retard their disease. 

The disease was in all four cases quite typical and well substantiated, 
also as to the cerebrospinal fluid. We shall only give a short account 
of them. 

Case 7.—G. K—, aet. 55. Far advanced paralysis. The patient 
had previously had paralytic attacks with temporary paresis of the 
left arm. 

The spinal fluid showed—cells, 6; Wm. in spinal fluid, o’3-8o; 
in blood, o - 2~3o. 

August 20th, 1916: Trephining, with injection of neosalvarsan, 
o - oo6 and 0 045 grm. 

August 30th : Spasms in the left arm with continuing paresis, which 
in the following months partly improved. 

February 15th, 1917 : Thirteen cells in the spinal fluid. Juneist: Mors. 

Section: A small superficial softening in front of the trephine opening. 
Extensive paralytic alterations in the brain. Aneurysma aortse. 

Case 8.—O. S—, set. 41. Taken to the hospital on December 28th, 

I 9 I S- 

On October 13th, 1914, there was found in the spinal fluid a consider¬ 
able increase of cells and albumen reaction and positive Wm. reaction. 

When taken to the hospital the patient presented the picture of far- 
advanced paralysis with typical attacks, after which there was for a time 
some paresis of the left arm. 

February 9th, 1916: Spifial fluid, cells, 16; Nonne-Appelt, 2-60; 
Wm. in spinal fluid, o'i-6o, o - ©5-ioo; in blood, ©‘2-30, o'i-ioo. 

April 10th : Trephined. After that there was injected subdurally 
o'oo3, o'oi2 and C015 and o’oo6 grm., and intravenous, o - 6o grm., four 
times. A few days after the third subdural injection there w»as a temporary 


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paresis ot the left hand, and later on attacks of convulsion in the 
left side. 

Section: Strong diffuse pia-inspissations. No softening. 

Case 9.—C. P. C. C—, set. 36. Taken to the hospital on July 13th, 
1916. The patient contracted syphilis when 23 years of age. After 
he had been taken to the hospital a lumbar puncture was performed. 
The spinal fluid showed—cells, 97; Nonne-Appelt, 5-40; Wm. in 
spinal fluid, o‘3~2o, o‘2-ioo; in blood, o'i-6o, 00 5-100. 

Trephined with subdur. injection of neosalvarsan 0 01 and 0^45 grm. 
intravenous was given. The injection was made without succeeding 
in evacuating fluid first. The day after there was a slight paresis of 
the left arm and the left side of the face. 

Section : Leptomeningitis chr. Cortical softening of cerebrum. Aorlit. 
luica. 

Case 10.—N. M—, aet. 37. Taken to the lunatic asylum at Nykpbing, 
S., on July 7th, 1916. The patient presented a typical paralysis. 

August 20th, 1916: Trephining with injection of neosalvarsan, 0 006 
and 0 45 grm. respectively subdur. and intraven. 

September 2nd: Slight paresis of the left arm. 

September 4th : Evident paresis of the arm, which, however, got 
somewhat better in the course of a month. In the course of six months 
the patient began to fall away, and then died. 

Section: Dura was adherent to the cranium and to pia in front of the 
trephine opening. No softenings. 

All these very concise extracts from records do not, as already 
mentioned, present any very encouraging remits from the treatment, 
yet, before denouncing such an apparently rational treatment as the 
one in question, you ought, as also observed, first to examine whether 
“primary mistakes” should impair this issue, as is generally the case 
as regards recently evolved methods of treatment, at d to ascertain 
whether these mistakes were avoidable, so that in time the treatment 
might become of advantage. 

Therefore it will be necessary to consider the groups previously 
mentioned a little more closely—first of all the one where the treatment 
was ineffective. It presents two features which may partly explain 
the bad result. One of them is that at any rate three of the cases 
mentioned showed far-advanced paralysis; the fourth case was also 
rather advanced, but the dementia was somewhat less than in the 
other cases. Consequently these were cases where it was conceivable 
that the disease was too far advanced for the treatment to be of effect. 
To this must be added the other not less important point that the 
complication which frightened us from further treatment occurred so 
quickly, namely after the first or the second injection, that, in fact, 
a systematic treatment of three of the cases, including the one less 
advanced, was out of the question. The only one which got a series 
of four injections was already, when taken to the hospital, so lar 

LXV. 3 


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advanced that, as indicated, it would be beyond all expectation that 
the treatment would be effectual. 

Therefore these bad results can hardly be chargeable against the 
method. There are hardly any other methods, which, under similar 
circumstances, would have given a better result. 

The next group, in which the patients died, but where, however, 
there was a temporary improvement in response to the treatment, also 
proves, but certainly less obviously, that similar circumstances have 
influenced the result. At any rate in two of the cases the dementia was 
far advanced before the treatment, and the treatment was not resumed 
because of the improvement having subsided, and the dementia again 
being in advance. Here the remissions occurred after the second 
injection. 

The two cases had also previously had remissions after antiluetic 
treatment, but in the third no such treatment had been attempted, and 
this is therefore the most interesting. The remission was here quite 
beyond doubt: the patient did not quite recover before he' got a 
relapse; he consequently presented a somewhat childish behaviour, 
which, however, was possibly constitutional with him. 

Here five injections were given, but two of them being of neo- 
salvarsanised serum, which, as proved, did not contain arsenic, only 
three injections may be reckoned with. 

Finally, there is the last group, the three cases in which for the 
present the paralysis seemed to have become stationary or improved. 
In one there were given four double injections, in the other two, and 
finally in the third were given five double injections. 

All three cases have been amongst the less seriously attacked; in one 
of them—the slightest—the patient has been discharged. 

However, before regarding these results as being in favour of the 
treatment, there is no doubt a circumstance which must be taken 
into consideration—the very essential one that paralyses also present 
remissions spontaneously. If we examine how our ten patients have 
got on, it appears, including the previous quarterings at the hospital, 
that four of the patients have previously had antiluetic treatment—that 
is, with Hg. and neosalvarsan—and all four had undoubted remissions, 
and in this hospital the seven have, as mentioned, had remissions of 
shorter or longer duration—altogether a number which surely is 
somewhat more than the number of spontaneous remissions would 
be in the case of ten other paralytics which had not been treated 
Consequently it really appears as if a more energetic antiluetic treatment 
than a mere salving-cure is able to exercise a temporary effect on the 
paralysis. And other investigators, who have greater material at their 
disposal, have come to the same conclusion. Here I shall only refer 
to the statements of Leredde. 


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I9I9-] BY GEORGE K. SCHR0DER AND HJ. HELWEG. 35 

Leredde insists that the reason of failure to cure the paralysis is, that 
the treatment is not sufficiently energetic. And Nonne (‘), surely the 
investigator who has the best knowledge of lues cerebrospinalis in 
all its shades, has also commenced to esteem the energetic salvarsan 
treatment more highly than before. Formerly he warned against it, 
and was of opinion that the treatment consisting of increasing the 
leucocytes was the best one—the tuberculin and natrium nucleinicum 
treatment—but now, having become acquainted with the remedy along 
with Gennerich in Kiel, he thinks that you may expect something from 
intraspinal injections of neosalvarsan. 

Here it would be of importance if you could prove that the treatment 
had any influence on the pathological processes discovered in the 
cerebrospinal fluid and the blood, as it has now and then been proved 
by other investigators both as regards the ordinary antiluetic and the 
fever treatment. But in this domain the mateiial is doubtless very 
deficient. There ought to have been many more re-punctures than has 
been the case. Only in six cases have cells been repeatedly counted, 
and in four of them the number of these has, after the treatment, 
become nought, and in two it has increased. As known beforehand, 
you are to a certain degree able to influence the pathological process in 
the spinal fluid. 

Finally, just a few words on the complication which prevented us 
from carrying through so energetic a treatment as we should other¬ 
wise have considered ourselves bound to do. As seen from the records, 
in several of the cases—altogether four—an unfortunate consequence of 
the injections appeared. There was a continuing paresis of the arm— 
sometimes, but more seldom, of the leg also—on the opposite side to 
where the injections had been made. At first we supposed that it was 
owing to a local cortical softening produced by the needle, and through 
injection of the concentrated fluid. The first sections, namely, showed 
such a small softening, but the section in Case 10 showed that also 
without softening a paresis might come—probably a consequence of the 
local irritation of leptorneninges. Such an acute partial leptomeningitis 
also explains the paresis in the other cases better than the said small 
softenings, it seeming strange that so superficial and limited a softening 
could cause so great disturbances. Therefore in all cases it is to be 
supposed that the acute local leptomeningitis has been the cause, and 
this you will be able to avoid in the future if neosalvarsan in more 
dilute solutions is used—for instance, an injection made with 10 or 
20 c.cm. sterilised salt water. 

In the preceding remarks we have tried as objectively as possible to 
weigh what is in favour of and what is against the treatment described- 
We have not reached convincingly good results, but perhaps useful ones; 
and that this has not been done to a greater extent by the proceeding 


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used by us cannot, as we have proved, be unjustly charged as altogether 
against the method. On comparing it with so many others we must 
recollect that not seldom has it occurred that methods, which at the 
beginning have had difficulties to encounter, have proved useful in the 
long run. Before passing a final sentence there is still an important 
question to be settled. 

For the present the question may be stated thus : Is it altogether 
worth the trouble to treat paralytics, and especially in the way indicated, 
which consequently should be given preference over the mere intra¬ 
venous injection in that it affects the spirochaetes in the cortex directly? 
However, this must be answered in the affirmative. We know that the 
paralysis in itself is such a hopeless disease that any chance, be it ever 
so inconsiderable, of being able to make the disease stationary would 
be an advantage. If we succeed in this, it will surely also be possible 
to do it at so early a stage of the disease that the working ability of the 
individual may be wholly or partly retained. 

As therefore the method, with suitable alterations and limits as indi¬ 
cated by us, seems to give a faint hope, the experiments ought to be 
carried on. For instance, it is possible that a continued series of 
examinations of the spinal fluid in the case of the same patients will 
prove that there are certain forms of paralysis which can be more 
influenced than others. 

( ! ) Nonne, “ Ueber die Frage der Heilbark. der Dem. paralyt.,” D.e.f.Nhlk. 
Bd. 58 , H. 1 and 2 . 


Medico-Psychological Association of Great Britain and Ireland: 
Report of English Lunacy Legislation Sub-Committee. 

A Sub-Committee of the Parliamentary Committee of the Association 
was appointed in January, 1918, the terms of the reference being “to 
consider the amendment of the existing Lunacy Laws.” 

The Committee was composed as follows : 

H. Wolseley Lewis, Esq., M.D., F.R.C.S. (Chairman). 

Robert H. Cole, Esq., M.D., F.R.C.P. (Secretary). 

Lieut.-Col. Sir Robert Armstrong-Jones, M.D., F.R.C.P. 

Miss A. Helen Boyle, M.D. 

James Chambers, Esq., M.A., M.I). 

Lieut.-Col. Maurice Craig, M l)., F.R.C.P. 

Reginald L. Langdon-Down, Esq., M.B., M.R.C.P. 

Bedford Pierce, Esq., M.D., F.R.C.P. 

George E. Shuttleworth, Esq., B.A., M.I). 

Lieut.-Col. T. E. K. Stansfield, M.B., C.M. 

Robert H. Steen, Esq., M.D., M.R.C.P. 

Lieut.-Col. David G. Thomson, M.D., C.M. 

J. G. Soutap, Esq., M.B., C.M. (co-opted at a later stage). 


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Introductory. 

The terms of the reference were so wide that it was agreed to invite 
opinions from medical men and others as to what, in their experience, 
were the defects in the present Lunacy Laws, and a large amount of 
evidence was thus collected. 

From this it was obvious that there is a pressing need for some better 
method of dealing with cases of unconfirmed mental disease. The 
importance of this matter is further indicated by the facts that much 
has appeared recently on the subject both in the Medical and General 
Press, that books dealing with it have had a wide circulation, and that 
Bills providing for better treatment of unconfirmed mental disease have 
been presented to Parliament in recent years, notably in 1914 and 1915. 

These facts, and other evidence of dissatisfaction with the operation 
of the existing Lunacy Laws, have impressed upon us that it has become 
urgent to secure such amendments of the Law as will give effect to some 
of the recommendations made in the Report on the Status of British 
Psychiatry issued by the Medico-Psychological Association in i9i4.( 1 ) 
That report established the pressing claim, which further experience 
has accentuated, for better facilities for the treatment of cases of mental 
disorder in the early stages. How that purpose may be accomplished 
has been the subject of careful consideration by this Committee. 

It has been definitely ascertained that: 

1. There are very few facilities for patients who are threatened 

with mental breakdown obtaining skilled treatment until they 
are certified. The early symptoms of disorder often occur 
long before certification is possible. 

2. Owing to efficient treatment being delayed the most valuable 

time for adopting measures to secure early recovery is lost. 

3. There is strong objection to certification in itself on the part of 

the public, which is alive to the material and moral damage 
which it so often inflicts on the patient and his relatives, so 
that even when certification has become possible they refuse 
to resort to it and thus still further postpone the adoption of 
efficient treatment. 

4. In cases where certification has to be resorted to the subsequent 

course of events often shows that this might have been 
avoided with advantage if there had been facilities for treatment 
under other conditions. 

5. The experience gathered as the result of the war has opened 

the eyes of the public and the medical profession in a fresh 
way to the difficulties and needs of these cases. 

6. Many medical practitioners, having had no opportunity of 

gaining knowledge of the manifestations and treatment of 
mental disorders in their early stages, fail to recognise the 


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38 REPORT OF LUNACY LEGISLATION SUB-COMMITTEE. [Jan., 

seriousness of the condition and to secure for their patients 
efficient treatment. They are also often deterred, by the 
necessity of certifying the patient, from advising suitable 
treatment. This unwillingness may be due to a genuine and 
proper doubt whether the condition is sufficiently definite to 
justify this procedure or to a natural reluctance to cause distress 
to the patient and his friends. In some cases direct evidence 
of insanity cannot be obtained at occasional interviews, and 
certification and treatment are thus delayed. 

7. In many early cases advantage would be taken of the oppor¬ 

tunity for treatment in Asylums were the Voluntary Boarder 
system, with some modification of procedure, extended to all 
Institutions for the insane. 

8. Many persons of the well-to-do classes, who are the subjects 

of mental disorder and are certifiable, are now placed in 
private houses without an order having been obtained for their 
reception. No intimation of their admission is given to the 
Board of Control. No precautions are necessarily taken to 
ascertain that the conditions are favourable for the patient or 
that efficient treatment is thus being obtained for him. It is 
felt that while many cases may be treated in private houses 
quite properly, provision should be made to give a competent 
authority the opportunity of ascertaining that houses in which 
such patients are received are suitable for the purpose, and 
that the persons in charge are competent to treat cases of 
mental disorder. 

Although some desire to see the Lunacy Laws entirely re-cast and re¬ 
named, with abolition of the Magistrate's order and other legal 
formalities, the majority are satisfied that such far-reaching changes are 
not necessary, and it appears that all the reforms most urgently needed 
could be obtained by a short Amending Bill. It is certain that at the 
present time such a Bill would be more likely to secure the early con¬ 
sideration of Parliament, and would meet with less difficulty in its 
passage than a wider measure. 

The Commit Zee therefore rccommetids :— 

1. That the Medico-Psychological Association take no steps at 
present to obtain a complete revision of the Lunacy Acts, 
but seek to obtain amendments only to those Acts. 

As the Committee cannot but think that all, with experience of the 
subject, agree that the Law now presses hardly on certain cases, pauper 
and private' alike, is not abreast of modern requirements and aspira¬ 
tions, and is not working in the best interests of the State, it has 
endeavoured to frame proposals to meet these defects. 


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In doing so, it has kept in mind on the one hand the practical con¬ 
venience and view-point and possible prejudice of those for whose 
benefit the measures suggested are intended, and on the other the 
necessity of winning the support of instructed lay opinion, the medical 
profession and the constituted authorities. 

These proposals fall under four heads : 

Clinics. 

Voluntary Boarders. 

Further Provision for Private Patients. 

Supplementary. 

Clinics. 

These aim at providing facilities for treatment of which ailing 
members of the public will be ready to avail themselves at the earliest 
possible moment, even when the condition is merely what is commonly 
described as one of “disordered nerves.” This necessitates as com¬ 
plete a dissociation as possible from the existing statutory requirements 
for dealing with the insarte. 

It also necessitates the provision of facilities similar in character and 
equal in completeness to those available for purely physical ailments— 
that is, a thoroughly well-found and well-staffed Clinic for both in- and 
out-patients. These facilities must be brought as near to the homes of 
the people as possible. They should therefore be established all over 
the country in large centres of population, so that the people may 
easily seek advice and so be encouraged to get instruction in mental 
hygiene at a stage when preventive measures are possible, and thus 
escape in many cases a serious breakdown, to the advantage both of 
themselves and the community; for thus would be retained as workers 
those who otherwise become a burden to their fellows. 

No mere extension of the Voluntary Boarder system in Asylums 
(which is much to be desired on other grounds) would appear to meet 
these requirements. Nor is it probable that any arrangements that 
might be made at the General Hospitals throughout the country would 
alone be sufficient. 

The Clinic should be called by some name which will clearly indicate 
its purpose as a place to which patients suffering from any of the early 
indications of nervous disorder may resort. 

Just as in ordinary Hospitals some cases of delirium and excitement 
with loss of control occasionally occur and are there dealt with without 
special powers or any great difficulties, so similarly cases of mental 
disease in their early stages where the symptoms are likely to subside 
under proper treatment would be received and suitably provided for in 
the proposed Clinics. 

The decision whether a case is or is not suitable for further treat- 


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40 REPORT OF LUNACY LEGISLATION SUB-COMMITTEE. [Jan., 

ment in such a Clinic would depend upon practical convenience and 
the nature and duration of the symptoms. 

It is thought that the special character which it is hoped will attach 
to these Clinics will be more certainly secured if no formal powers of 
detention therein on the ground of mental disease are asked for, at all 
events in the first instance, until some experience has been gained 
of the practical working of the scheme. 

By keeping the proposed Clinics free from any formal powers of 
detention they will be given distinction in fact as well as in name 
from the existing Institutions : they are intended to cover a different 
* field from that covered by the Asylums, and it is hoped that the 
confines of this field will be extended to a far earlier period of the 
disorder than could possibly be the case in connection with the Asylums. 

In large towns Clinics should be affiliated to the General Hospitals, 
in oider that students may have opportunities of studying those early 
stages of mental disorder which as practitioners they will be called 
upon to treat. For this purpose either special wards might be set 
aside or special buildings used with assistance from public funds. 
Clinics would also provide a valuable field for post-graduate work and 
for scientific research with the necessary laboratory accommodation. If 
the recommendations of the Local Government Committee on Transfer 
of Functions of Poor-Law Authorities 1918 are adopted many existing 
buildings or parts of buildings might be adapted for use as Clinics, 
and in other cases the provision of buildings for Clinics should save 
expenditure which would otherwise be incurred in enlarging existing 
Asylums or erecting new ones. 

The Committee therefore recommends: 

2. That Clinics be established by local authorities for the treatment 

of nervous and mental diseases in their early stages; and that 
in the organisation of Clinics special provision be made for 
children. 

3. That the first resolution, re Legal Changes, Appendix 7, of the 

Status Committee’s Report, 1914, be amended by the sub¬ 
stitution of the word “reception” for the word “detention.”( 2 ) 

4. That a Clinic should be housed in a special building or in an 

annexe to a General Hospital. 

5. That a Clinic should be staffed by a special staff trained for the 

work. 

6. That it should be the duty of Local Authorities to provide and 

maintain Clinics either themselves or by arrangement with 
voluntary organisations for the purpose. 

7. That the Committee of Management of a Clinic should be a 

special Committee appointed for the purpose. 


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8. That the inspection and approval of the buildings used for 

Clinics should be the duty of a Central Government Depart¬ 
ment. 

Voluntary Boarders. 

Under the present Lunacy Laws patients may be received as Voluntary 
Boarders in Registered Hospitals and Licensed Houses. This facility 
should be extended to suitable persons, whether of the private or rate- 
aided class, desirous of placing themselves under treatment in County 
or Borough Asylums. The Board of Control in its third Annual Report 
has expressed its approval of this change. 

Many patients who have recovered from a previous attack in an 
Asylum, and are on the verge of a relapse, wish to place themselves 
under Asylum care again, but are, at present, unable to do so until they 
become certifiably insane, and then they must be referred to the Relieving 
Officer. 

There will no doubt be other cases unable to afford the expense of a 
Registered Hospital or Licensed House who will prefer to go direct to the 
Asylum for treatment in the first instance, if they can do so under the 
conditions attaching to Voluntary Boarders, and this should be per¬ 
mitted and encouraged. 

The Board of Control should be informed of all persons received as 
Voluntary Boarders into Institutions for the Insane, but their previous 
consent thereto, or that of the Justices in the case of Licensed Houses, 
seems unnecessary and interferes with the utility of the plan, as many 
patients object to making written application to the Board of Control or 
the Justices for permission, as at present required; moreover, no such 
requirement obtains in the case of Registered Hospitals. 

Further, there appears to be no good reason why this mode of admis¬ 
sion should be reserved for persons who cannot be certified as insane, 
as it conflicts with the fundamental principle that treatment should be 
begun at the earliest possible moment. It should be sufficient for any¬ 
one, being aware of his mental illness, voluntarily to sign a document 
expressing his desire to be admitted as a boarder for purposes of treatment. 

For practical convenience it is much to be desired that the notice 
required to be given by Voluntary Boarders of their intention to leave 
should be increased from 24 to 48 hours. 

The reform suggested has long been advocated, and has met with 
practically no opposition. 

The Committee therefore recommends ; 

9. That all Institutions for the Insane should be encouraged to 

admit patients as Voluntary Boarders on their signing an 
application to that effect addressed to the Medical Officer of 
the Institution, provided : 


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(а) That there is suitable accommodation and the appli¬ 
cants are suitable persons. 

( б ) That they should be required to give 48 hours’ notice 
in writing of their desire to leave the Institution, after the 
expiry of which period they must cease to reside as such ; 
further provided that, before the Notice expires, the Boarder 
does not intimate in writing his desire to withdraw the Notice. 

10. That Regulations should be made setting out the conditions on 
which the Medical Officer may admit Voluntary Boarders, and 
as to the provision for the maintenance of those unable to 
support themselves. 


Further Provision for Private Patients. 

It lias to be recognised that the objection to certification in the early 
and curable stages of mental disorder is strongly felt by all classes, and 
the temptation, for those who can afford it, to send patients to un¬ 
recognised places of treatment is very great both for the patient’s 
friends and their medical advisers. Those who receive such patients 
knowingly run the risk of prosecution, and there is no guarantee that 
they can or do give suitable care or treatment to the patients. The 
treatment of certain cases of mental disorder in suitable private houses 
is undoubtedly desirable, and the true interests of the patients should 
be obtainable in conformity with the law. 

Where residential treatment is conducted for payment in the case 
of patients suffering from mental disorder which is deemed to be 
temporary, but who may be considered certifiable, it is desirable that 
the fact of their reception should be brought to the cognizance of 
some central authority. It is hoped that with this safeguard facilities 
may be granted for the treatment for payment by private persons or 
voluntary associations of early, undeveloped and recoverable cases of 
mental disease without the drawbacks attaching to certification. 

It is suggested that the Board of Control should be empowered to 
give legal sanction to the treatment of this group of cases without 
certification. This can only be done by provisions limiting the 
application of Section 315 of the Lunacy Act, which imposes penalties 
on those receiving persons of unsound mind for payment without 
certification. It is not proposed to do away with this Section, and as 
its enforcement is in the hands of the Board of Control it is practically 
necessary to give any powers over-riding its application to the same 
body. 

Any facilities for treatment of cases granted under this section should 
be equally applicable to such cases in Asylums, Registered Hospitals 
and Licensed Houses. 


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1919 ] REPORT of lunacy legislation sub-committee. 43 

The Committee therefore recommends: 

11. That the Board of Control should have power (a) to approve 
Homes which are supported wholly or partly by voluntary 
contributions or which are privately owned, as also Asylums, 
Registered Hospitals and Licensed Houses, in which it shall 
be lawful to receive without certification more than one 
patient suffering from mental disease in its early stages, and 
(h) to give legal sanction to the reception without certification 
of such patients as single patients in houses not so approved, 
provided that a medical practitioner gives a written recom¬ 
mendation in each case, stating that suitable treatment can 
be obtained for the patient in the proposed house. 

12. That on any such patient being received into or ceasing to 
reside in any Approved (or Recognised) Home, Asylum, 
Registered Hospital or Licensed House, or as a single patient 
in a house not so approved, the fact shall be intimated to the 
Board of Control. 


Supplementary. 

The Committee is further of opinion : 

13. That it is undesirable that patients alleged to be of unsound 
mind should be removed to a workhouse or pauper infirmary 
before their reception in an Asylum. If an intermediary stage 
is desirable it would be better supplied by the proposed 
Clinics. Practical convenience such as a motor service should 
be available for the transfer of patients to Asylums and Clinics 
on lines similar to those adopted in the Public Health Service. 

14. That where no criminal offence is charged it is undesirable 
that Justices should in Court conduct the examination of 
mental cases for the purpose of making reception orders. 

15. That it should be made possible for rate-aided patients as well 
as private patients to be admitted to Asylums under an 
“ Urgency Order.” 

16. That it is desirable that neighbouring Asylums should be 
enabled to establish and maintain joint laboratories for 
research. 

17. ( a ) That the words “ Lunacy ” and “ Lunatics” be discontinued 
and the words “ Mental Diseases ” and “ Persons of Unsound 
Mind ” be substituted. 

( b ) That instead of the word “ Asylum ” the words “ Mental 
Hospital” or “Hospital for Mental Diseases” be used, 
County, City, or Borough as may be. 

(c) That the words “rate-aided” be used instead of the word 
“ pauper.” 


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18. (a) That there is much need of simplification of forms under 
the existing Lunacy Act. 

(b) That some of the legal phraseology is cumbrous and involves 
needless repetitions, and is at times objectionable, e.g., “ Take 
Notice,” etc. 

(c) That intervals in time require uniformity, e.g., “ clear days,” 
“ within 14 days,” “not more than 7 days,” etc. 

(d) That in particular the duration and lapsing of Reception 
Orders require radical amendment. 

19. (a) That the administration of the estate under Sect. 116 
should be simplified, expedited and rendered less expensive; 
and— 

(b) That the endorsement on the Summons should be re drafted. 

20. That patients and voluntary boarders should be permitted 
reception direct to Branch Establishments of Asylums, 
Registered Hospitals or Licensed Houses. 

21. That it should be possible to transfer the jurisdiction for 
licensing a house (or “hospital”) from one authority to 
another on good reason being shown. 

22. That it should be permissible for patients transferred from 
an asylum to a workhouse to be transferred back without 
re-certification. 

23. That the existing Lunacy Act—which should be called the 
Mental Diseases Act—is framed more to protect society and 
safeguard the liberty of the subject than to treat and cure 
the patient. 

24. That the amending Bill be called “The Mental Treatment 

Bill,” 1919. 

(’) Journal of Mental Science, October, 1914, p. 667 et seq. —(*) The resolution 
referred to is as follows: “That it is desirable that provision be made for the 
detention of patients in Psychiatric Clinics for ajlimited time without certification.” 


Part II.—Epitome of Current Literature. 


The So-called Lucid Interval in Manic-Depressive Psychosis: Its 
Medico-Legal Value. (.American Journal of Insanity, April, 1918.) 
Gordon , A. 

In this paper the question is considered as to how far the mentality 
of an individual can be regarded as normal during the intervallary 
periods of a manic depressive psychosis. The writer has carefully 
studied the reaction of two patients during a prolonged so-called lucid 
period. In each case a superficial judgment would have failed to 
reveal any mental disorder, and from the point of view of the friends of 


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the patients they were regarded as quite normal. A careful analysis of 
the entire life of the patients, however, reveals a different picture of their 
mentality, and indicates that while the characteristic elements of the 
psychosis are no more in action, the disease, nevertheless, produces 
such a disturbance in the power of judgment, affectivity, sense of 
morality, and attitude towards others that the patients could not be 
considered normal. 

Such individuals obviously do not require commitment, but they 
should, nevertheless, be kept under observation. In spite of apparent 
lucidity there are such fundamental deviations of mentality that they 
may seriously compromise themselves or their family. The civil 
capacity is, therefore, more than questionable, and proper administrators 
should be appointed to safeguard their interests. An individual with 
a previous history of manic depressive periods possesses an underlying 
morbidity, of which the psychosis is an expression, and the morbid 
characteristics cannot naturally disappear during a so-called lucid 
interval, no matter how protracted its duration may be. 

H. Devine. 


Part III.—Notes and News. 


THE MEDICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 

AND IRELAND. 

The Quarterly Meeting of the Association was held at 11, Chandos Street, 
London W., on Tuesday, November 26th, 1918, Lieut.-Col. David G. Thomson, 
M.D., R.A.M.C. (Acting-President), in the chair. 

The following signed their names in the book as having been present at the 
meeting or as having attended meetings of committees: Sir G. H. Savage, Lieut.- 
Col. Sir Robert Armstrong-Jones, Drs. M. A. Archdale, H. T. S. Aveline, C. W. 
Bower, David Bower, H. C. MacBryan, James Chambers, R. H. Cole, A. W. 
Daniel, J. Francis Dixon, R. Langdon-Down, Richard Eager, C. F. Fothergill, 
H. E. Haynes, David Hunter, H. Wolseley-Lewis, John Macarthur, S. E. Martin, 
Alfred Miller, Jessie M. Murray, C. S. Myers, Alex. W. Neill, W. F. Nelis, H. J. 
Norman, David Ogilvy, David Orr, L. R. Oswald, J. G. Porter Phillips, Bedford 
Pierce, J. J. F. Prideaux, J. Noel Sergeant, J. C. Shaw, G. E. Shuttleworth, R. 
Percy Smith, J. G. Soutar, T. E. K. Stansfield, R. C. Stewart, F. R. P. Taylor, R. 
Worth, and R. H. Steen (General Secretary;. 

Visitors : Drs. S. Lane, H. C. Maudsley, and F. W. Thurnam. 

Present at Council Meeting .- Lieut-Col. D. G. Thomson, M.D , R.A.M.C., 
in the chair, and Drs. H. T. S. Aveline, David Bower, James Chambers, R. H. 
Cole, A. W. Daniel, R. Eager, Alfred Miller, L. R. Oswald, J. G. Porter 
Phillips, Bedford Pierce, [. N. Sergeant, G. E. Shuttleworth, H. Wolseley-Lewis, 
and R. H. Steen. 

Dr. J. G. Soutar and Lieut.-Col. M. A. Collins attended on the invitation of the 
Acting President. 

Apologies for unavoidable absence were received from : Drs. Thos. Drapes, 
R. B. Campbell, T. Stewart Adair, Henry J. Mackenzie, A. Helen Boyle, Fletcher 
Beach, J. H. Skeen, Francis Sutherland, William Tuach-MacKenzie. 

The Chairman said the minutes of the May meeting had already appeared in 
the Journal, July issue, therefore he assumed the meeting would agree to take 
them as read. 

The min-utes were approved and signed. 

The Chairman said he had to ask the meeting to again tolerate him as Chair¬ 
man, as he regretted to say the President, Lieut.-Col. Keay, was compelled to be 


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46 NOTES AND NEWS. [Jan., 

absent owing to illness. Dr. Keay underwent, after a serious illness, an operation 
for appendicitis. He was glad to know that the patient was now doing fairly well, 
though not yet fit for duty in his own hospital nor for transacting the work of this 
Association. He was now recuperating in the south of England. He proposed 
to the meeting a vote of sympathy with him in his illness, which, if approved, 
would probably act as an encouragement to him in his convalescence. He was 
sure such a vote would be much appreciated by the recipient. 

The resolution was carried unanimously. 

Obituary. 

The Chairman said one of the first duties of the occupant of the chair at these 
gatherings was to bring to the notice of the meeting the names of those members 
who had died since the previous meeting. To-day he had to notify the death of 
Dr. John Chapin, of New York. The American Journal of Insanity , referring to 
the event, said : " Just as the Journal is about to go to press the sad news reaches 
us of the death of Dr. Chapin, at his home in Canandaigua, New York, on Thursday 
afternoon, January 17th, 1918. Dr. Chapin has been regarded, for many years, as 
the Nestor of American psychiatry. He completed his 88th year on December 4th, 
1917. In 1904, in Philadelphia, at the head of the Department for the Insane, he 
rounded out fifty years of service in hospitals for mental disorders, and a dinner 
given in his honour on December 1st of that year was attended by a noteworthy 
gathering of friends. For seven years longer he continued at the head of the 
hospital over which he had presided since 1884, retiring in the summer of 1911 
and removing to Canandaigua, New York.” He had been an Honorary Member 
of this Association since 1887. 

The next name was that of Dr. William Reid, who, for twenty-five years, was 
Superintendent of Aberdeen Royal Asylum. He died on September 3rd. After 
a distinguished career at Aberdeen University, he became junior assistant to Dr. 
Jamieson, who at that date was medical head of that Asylum, and on that gentle¬ 
man’s death, fifteen years later, he succeeded him. During his long term he saw 
the great institution reconstructed at a cost of .£50,000, with the addition of a 
branch asylum at Daviot. The success of the project owed much to Dr. Reid’s 
able administration. Dr. Reid was responsible for the introduction of female 
nursing on both sides of the Asylum, though he was severely criticised for it. Dr. 
Reid also filled the post of lecturer on mental diseases at Aberdeen University. 
He left a wife and two daughters. 

Members would have the same feelings of regret, and desire to express them in 
the proper way, concerning the late Captain Frank Oswald Spensley, who died of 
pneumonia at Burden Military Hospital, Weymouth. Educated at St. Thomas’s 
Hospital, he became Senior Assistant Officer of the Darenth Industrial Colony at 
Dartford. After joining the R.A.M.C., he became Captain after a year's service. 
He was invalided home from Salonica, and had latterly been attached to the 
R.A.F. at Blandford. 

He had also to notify the death of Dr. Logan, of the Bucks Asylum, Stone, 
near Aylesbury ; that of Dr. Hume Griffith, Medical Superintendent, Lingfield 
Epileptic Colony; and that of Dr. Herbert, Assistant Medical Officer of York City 
Asylum. 

He moved that votes of condolence and sympathy should be sent to the relatives 
of all those he had mentioned. 

The members signified their assent by rising in their places. 

The Mental Hospital at Lebanon, Syria. 

The Chairman called upon Dr. Percy SVnith to make a statement on this 
subject. 

Dr. Percy Smith said this subject did not appear on the agenda paper of the 
meeting, but the Chairman had kindly said he might make a short statement to 
the members. 

His hearers would be aware that there existed a hospital called the Lebanon 
Hospital for Mental Diseases in Syria. Some members were subscribers to it, and 
some were on the English General Committee. It had now been open about 
sixteen years. The present Medical Superintendent, Dr. Watson Smith, was a 


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member of this Association. All through the war the question had arisen as to 
what was the position of this hospital—it was a charitable institution, absolutely 
international in scope, and it housed patients of every creed and nationality. It 
had been equipped as a hospital for acute mental cases on the pavilion system and 
on modern lines. So long as we were not at war with Turkey we did not feel 
anxiety about the existence and well-being of the institution, but when Turkey 
entered the war it became a subject of anxiety. Most of the subscribers were 
English, but there was also a large amount of American help, and Turkey was 
not at war with America, so that communication could be kept up indirectly 
through America. Dr. Watson Smith had held the place throughout, and there 
could be no doubt that during the last two and a half to three years he had been 
through a very bad time. When Turkey entered the war, Dr. Smith's wife and 
family had to return home to England and the hospital matron had to go to Egypt, 
therefore he was left there with only native assistance, though the head attendant 
was a German. The Turkish authorities recognised the institution as a charitable 
one in the category of religious foundations, and he was glad to say the Turks had 
absolutely kept to their principles in that way. Though the institution had been 
used for Turkish insane soldiers and had been under the Red Crescent, yet all 
along they had supplied the hospital with food at a time when there was frightful 
starvation in the surrounding Syrian country. Though during this time Dr. 
Watson Smith was really a prisoner in Turkish hands, he had remained in charge 
of the hospital; he was not deported. During the recent advance through 
Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia there had been anxiety for news, and at last he 
was in receipt of a letter, since the occupation of Beirut, saying that on October 13th 
Dr. Watson Smith was all right, and, of course, free. He also said he was in a 
position to send home the necessary documents. 

The head attendant and his wife left the hospital when they knew the British 
were arriving, and had now gone for ever, and the doctor was now working the 
hospital with the head nurse and a young Roumanian student. The hospital had 
suffered structurally, and life had been one of semi-starvation and at exorbitant 
prices. He, Dr. and Mrs. Graham were the only English residents to meet the 
British troops on their arrival. The letter went on to say it was impossible to 
describe in a letter what their feelings were to see, after four years, the fine English 
soldiers and sailors. They had been seeing thousands of people dying all round. 

He said he thought it would be a graceful act if the General Secretary could be 
induced to write a letter of congratulation to Dr. Watson Smith on the pluck in 
carrying the management of the institution through during the war. Colonel 
Dawson, of Dublin, had written to him (Dr. Percy Smith) saying he saw a note on 
the matter in The Lancet, and, as he felt the hospital must be badly in need of 
funds, he sent two guineas. If any other members should feel similarly, there 
would be a grateful response. 

The meeting duly authorised the sending of the letter. 


The Report of the English Lunacy Legislation Sub-Committee, 1918. 

The Chairman suggested that the document in question should be read to the 
meeting. It was a lengthy document, but it had been impossible to circulate it as 
a whole, owing to it being a question of urgency. The printed synopsis prac¬ 
tically embodied the essentials of the Report, but it was desirable that the meeting 
should hear the full Report. After Dr. Steen had read it, he would ask Dr. 
Wolseley Lewis, the Chairman of the Sub-Committee, to move its adoption. 

Dr. Steen read the detailed Report (see p. 36). 

Dr. "Wolseley Lewis: As Chairman of the Committee which was responsible 
forthe Report you have just heard read, I rise to move its adoption. In the first 
place you will notice that the Committee is a representative one; it is composed 
of members who have had experience in public and in private asylums as well as 
in consulting practice; it includes members of the Status Committee which drew 
up the Report that received your approval in the year 1914. It also includes four 
past Presidents of our Association. Since the beginning of the year we have held 
monthly meetings, which have been very well attended, and in the intervals 
between the meetings a good deal of work has been done by correspondence. I 


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48 NOTES AND NEWS. [Jail., 

am very glad of this opportunity of expressing my indebtedness to various members 
of the Committee for the large amount of work they have put in, and more 
especially to our energetic Secretary, Dr. Cole, who, I know, has had a very hard 
time over this Report. 

From a review of the composition of the Committee you will realise that this 
subject has been viewed from many different angles, and you may rest assured 
that no paragraph has been allowed to stand in the Report without having received 
its full meed of criticism. 

From the complexity of the subject-, it strikes me, you may think the Report is 
unduly short; in fact that we have perhaps produced a mole-hill rather than the 
expected mountain. But I would remind you that in a report of this kind its merit 
lies, perhaps, as much in what is left unsaid as in what has been said. The aim 
has been to produce a workable scheme that may meet with general approval, and 
though more Utopian schemes have, at times, held the attention of the Committee, 
they have been rejected as being outside the scope of practical politics. 1 do not 
propose to go—nor, probably, would you desire that I should go—into a detailed 
analysis of the Report; it will be sufficient for me to say that our whole object 
has been to offer, without any disabilities, as good facilities for the treatment of 
early mental diseases as now exist for the treatment of bodily diseases, and to offer 
those facilities without the assistance—I had almost said without the interference 
—of the lawyer. It is for this reason, and because we felt that any form of 
detention without full safeguards of certification would have no chance of receiving 
the assent of Parliament, that we are convinced it is better not to seek any powers 
of detention. For that reason we ask leave to amend the first resolution of the 
Status Committee in that sense—that is to say, by placing the word " reception ” 
in the stead of “detention.” 

On October 29th we had a conference with the Board of Control; we spent a 
very busy and very satisfactory morning with them, for our Report was very 
sympathetically received by them. If we are unanimous in our adoption of this 
Report we shall very materially strengthen the hands of the Board of Control in 
securing legislation, because that body will then be in a position to say that expert 
opinion, as represented by' this Association, advocated the course which this 
Report lays down. 

No doubt many of you—the majority perhaps—have seen the recommendations 
in the last report of the Board of Control, and that their proposals and ours are in 
general agreement. I understand their chief points are, firstly, that they should be 
satisfied that the places where treatment is to take place are suitable ; and, secondly, 
that there shall be no powers of detention. 

After a very hurried luncheon on that day we went off to a conference at the 
Guildhall. That conference was convened by the Bucks County Asylum, and was 
largely attended by representatives of local authorities who were interested in the 
matter. We found there a very strong body of public opinion in favour of reforms 
similar to those which are laid down in this report. At that meeting I had an 
opportunity of making a statement to the effect that our Report had been drafted 
and would be submitted to this genera! meeting of the Association to-day. The 
result, I am glad to say, was that the Committee, which was invited by that con¬ 
ference to draw up a report, have invited this Association to appoint three or more 
members to assist them in that task. You will thus at once see that we have an 
opportunity of influencing an important section of the public. 

There can be very few of our members who are not aware, from their own 
experience, of the immense amount of real hardship which results from this diffi¬ 
culty in obtaining treatment in early cases of mental disorder, as evidenced at the 
conference and recently in the public Press. We find, too, that the public are 
becoming alive to this fact. As the Board of Control put it in their last sentence, 
in connection with the question of soldiers: ‘‘In order to meet the pronounced 
opposition of the public to the certification of soldiers, certain institutions should 
be set apart for their treatment without certification. The public prejudice against 
the so-called ‘stigma of certification’ has, in no small degree, been the cause of, 
and created the necessity for, this special arrangement. It is a prejudice which 
has always existed, and has to be recognised and reckoned with in civilian life. 
In the opinion of the Board, it has ever been a hindrance to the early treatment of 
mental disease, with the result that in all asylums there are numbers of persons 


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suffering from incurable insanity who, had they been the subjects of expert advice 
and treatment when the premonitory symptoms manifested themselves, would not 
improbably have recovered, and become useful members of the community.” In 
my opinion, it is at once the duty and the privilege of this Association to take a 
leading part in the reconstruction of the law on this subject, and I appeal to you 
not only to approve this report, but to see that your views as represented by it 
are circulated as widely as possible. In my opinion the times are ripe, and I 
appeal to you to let the voice of this Association be heard in no uncertain way. 

Dr. Cole : In rising to second the motion for the adoption of this Report, it is 
not my wish to detain you very long, because it is probable that many speakers 
will follow me. 

I must say the Committee has worked extremely hard at this Report, and 
although we did not all see eye to eye at the various meetings, we have now pro¬ 
duced a Report that we are unanimous in supporting. Some of us have had to 
alter our preconceived opinions with regard to the principle of notification ; but 
we feel it is expedient—at all events, for the present—to leave that, even if we 
think well to ask for powers of temporary detention later on. To my mind, our 
Report does not in any way put institutions for the insane on an inferior level. 
We should all do our best to recognise that these are hospitals for mental diseases, 
and that this matter of supposed stigma is one which must be continually fought 
against. I do not like to think of asylums without blocks for acute cases ; I do 
not like to think of their being deprived of acute cases to be treated. Neither do 
I think there will be much difference with regard to the reception of such cases 
in asylums in comparison with what obtains at the present day. But we should 
like to see the laws amended so that a fair trial may be given to incipient cases of 
insanity to recover outside an asylum without certification when prejudice is very 
strong. 

For many years there has been agitation for changes in the Lunacy Laws. In 
1900 we had the Lord Chancellor’s Bill advocating voluntary boarders in asylums, 
and seeking the provision of special treatment for incipient mental disease which 
was framed largely on the lines of the Scotch Act. I will not say anything about 
that section 13, because I think it is seldom made use of. The Bill contained many 
other amendments and was dropped. In 1904-5 Sir Robert Finlay, who was then 
the Attorney-General, brought forward another Bill, dealing with temporary care 
in cases of incipient insanity. It also fell to the ground, though it was a Govern¬ 
ment measure, because Parliament was not sufficiently interested, and the medical 
profession did not push its points sufficiently. 

Since then the war has broken out, and soldiers and sailors are being treated for 
mental disorder, and the public has been demanding that they shall not be 
certified. We are all well aware that there is no necessity to certify them, because 
the military law is in tvery way more stringent than is the law with regard to 
lunacy. 

An important point in our report, which is an addition to what we have advo¬ 
cated in the past, is the proposed establishment of clinics. The recommendation is 
largely the outcome of the la!.ours of the Status Committee. For the work done 
by that Committee our Sub-Committee feels very grateful. The proposition 
means that we are asking that the local authorities should be compelled to provide 
accommodation for incipient mental disease, just as they have to make accommo¬ 
dation for “pauper lunatics” as they are called now. This is to compel local 
authorities to do so, not to give them the option, which might be evaded. 

I would like to explain to you that the recommendations were circulated, but the 
whole Report was not printed because, in the first place, it was going to receive 
further amendment this morning, and secondly, because it had to receive the 
approval of the Council before it could be printed. The printed recommendations 
which you have, however, are really the gist of the Report, and the supplementary 
opinions which deal with further amendments of the Act are not quite so pressing. 
These, however, have been read out to you. 

We hope very sincerely that you will adopt this Report. No member need feel 
he is voting for something which has not received the fullest consideration. If 
there are any points of a minor character which we can elucidate, we shall be glad 
to try to do so if questions are put to us. It is most important we should get 
something through forthwith. We have met the Board of Control; we attended the 
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meeting at the Guildhall which you have already been told of ; there is reconstruction 
going on everywhere, and we ought not to delay the matter longer. 1 therefore 
strongly appeal to you to pass this Report and authorise it to be printed. 

The Chairman : Does anyone desire to speak on any section or on the Report 
as a whole ? 

Dr. Bedford Pif.rce : Could we take the four sections separately? 

The Chairman : Certainly. Do you accept the introductory portion ? 

Agreed. 

Clause 8. 

The Chairman : We have not specified the Board of Control nor any other 
department, because, in view of the possible introduction of a Ministry of 
Health, these departments may be altered—at least in name. 

Clause 7. 

Lieut.-Col. Rows: I ask what we are to understand by the term “ local 
authority ? ” 

The Chairman : Just the same as boroughs and counties in the Lunacy Act. 

Lieut.-Col. Rows: It is suggested they should be attached to Universities 
and medical schools: would it not be better to have co-operation between the 
University or the medical school staff, or their committees and any local authority ? 

Dr. Wolseley Lewis: That was the intention. In cases where a voluntary 
hospital takes these cases, it should take them for the local authority. 

Dr. Cole : It was felt that the voluntary hospitals are already under some 
control by the local authority ; for instance, we now have a Tuberculosis Depart¬ 
ment, a Venereal Diseases Department, and it has a voice in the management 
to some extent. We think that in the case of an University town, the University 
authorities will be represented on the Committee of Management, as well as the 
local authority. 

Lieut.-Col. Rows : I would like it to be so stated. 

The Chairman : There is more in that Clause 7 than meets the eye. There 
was a feeling on the part of certain members of the Committee that these clinics, 
having been established, should not be managed by the same persons who manage 
the asylums—the county and borough. That is the inner meaning of this clause. 

I think Col. Rows’ point is rather raised under Clauses 2 and 6. 

Dr. Wolseley Lewis : The idea is this : supposing the local authority were in 
any way responsible for the payment for people in these places, then the local 
authority would have to have representatives on the Committee; that is all. 
Therefore it would be combined. 

Lieut.-Col. Rows : But if the Universities decided to start a clinic before the local 
authority came in ? 

Dr. Wolseley Lewis : That would be a voluntary organisation. 

Lieut.-Col. Rows: We understand that in Lancashire the Asylums’ Board feel 
it is their duty, if the patients are treated in an University clinic, that they should 
co-operate. 

Lieut.-Col. M. A. Collins : Would it not be clearer if No. 7 were put more 
fully—that the Committee of Management should not be the Asylum Committee, 
but should be a special County Committee ? 

The Chairman : That is an indirect censure on the Committees. We say the 
same thing more politely. 

Dr. Bedford Pierce : We do not know what will be the authority, and we 
leave out the words “ local authority.” We say the Committee of Management 
of the clinic should be a separate Committee appointed for the purpose. 

Dr. Cole : That would be so. 

Dr. Wolseley Lewis : Yes. 

Lieut.-Col. Rows : That meets my point. 

The Chairman : The clause sounds redundant, because, naturally, any public 
place is managed by a committee ad hoc. 

Lieut.-Col. Rows : Yes. 

The Chairman : Yet it will not be considered redundant when you know what 
the Committee had at the back of their minds : that if the same body of men who 
now manage the asylums were to manage these, they would at once be associated 
in the public mind with asylum administration. 

Dr. Dixon : Do I understand the meaning of the last amendment is, that the 


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local authorities who are asked to establish these clinics are, later on, to have no 
say in the management of them ? 

The Chairman : No. 

Dr. Langdon-Down : Before we leave the clinics section, I would like to say it 
seems to me proposals to establish clinics of this kind offer a convenient oppor¬ 
tunity for dealing with a class of case for which there is no proper provision, and 
which we might definitely recognise in our representations. I refer to cases of 
children who are subject to mental defects or disorders. I think it desirable we 
should say that in the establishment of clinics the organisation should provide a 
separate department for children. That would form a central clearing department 
for consultation on cases occurring in the work of school doctors and others, also 
it might develop into a psychological clinic where all children who become 
chargeable before a court are first seen for examination. So 1 suggest we should 
add a clause to the effect that it it is desirable, in organising clinics, that a separate 
department for children should be included. 

The Chairman : We must ask you to draft a clause and hand it up, as an 
addition to or amendment of a certain clause. 

Dr. Steen: It is moved by Dr. Langdon-Down—"That in the organisation of 
clinics provision be made for a special department for children.” 

Dr. Langdon-Down : As a separate clause. 

Dr. Wolseley Lewis: Will Dr. Langdon-Down accept, instead of " a special 
department,” “ special provision should be made for children”? Some of these 
clinics may not be very big. 

Dr. Langdon-Down : Yes, I agree. 

Dr. Percy Smith : Would it not be better to have it under No. 2 ? It is better 
as a continuation of that sentence. 

Dr. Bower: Is it necessary to say anything about children at all ? 

The Chairman : It appeals to sentiment. This is not a question of framing a 
Bill now : we are not committed to these actual words. 

It was agreed that in recommendation 2 the words “ and that in the organisation 
of clinics special provision be made for children ” be added. 

Clause 9. 

The Chairman : Is the word " encourage ” necessary ? 

Dr. Cole : That word was specially used after some discussion. 

Dr. Wolseley Lewis: We did not want to use too strong a word. "En¬ 
couraged ” was put in at the urgent request of Sir Robert Armstrong-Jones, 
because, he said, it is not a question of giving them power to do it; we want to 
ask them to do it, not compel them. 

The Chairman : It leaves it open for any institution for the insane—public, 
private, or registered—to have nothing to do with boarders. 

Dr. Percy Smith : This is giving paternal advice; otherwise, legally, it should 
be that they should be permitted. 

Dr. Wolseley Lewis : " Permitted ” was our word before. 

The Chairman : I take it that Nos. 9 and 10 meet with approval. 

Agreed. 

The Chairman: Now " Further provision for private patients,” Nos. 11 and 12. 
Do any licensees of private asylums consider their interests are affected by these 
clauses ? 

Dr. Sergeant called attention to the great dangers involved in giving legal 
sanction to the reception of single uncertified patients in ordinary houses which 
had not been specially approved merely on the authority of a medical certificate 
from a medical practitioner. 

The Chairman : This is certainly a very important point. I have heard 
expressions in my district similar to those just uttered, and it is only fair to 
licensed houses that this subject should be gone into at this open meeting. 
Before I ask Dr. Wolseley Lewis to reply, is there any other member who wishes 
to criticise this No. 1 1, or No. 12 ? 

Dr. Percy Smith : I ask what this means : that "The Board of Control should 
have power (a) to approve homes which are supported wholly or partly by volun¬ 
tary contributions,” etc., and then ( b ) “ to give legal sanction to the reception 
without certification of such patients as single patients in houses not so approved ” ? 
I gathered from the Chairman of the Committee that there is to be no notification 


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of the case to the Board of Control, therefore how are they to start to give legal 
sanction to the reception of such a patient ? 

The Chairman : It is a very important part of the Committee’s Report. 

Dr. Soutar : I agree this is a very important point, and I think it was carefully 
considered by the Committee. It was specially brought up, and it was determined 
that no privilege must be given to single houses or to approved houses which was 
not given to existing institutions for the insane. One purpose which was before the 
Committee was that patients and their friends should have free choice with 
regard to the treatment of the patient, and that whatever advantage may be given 
to approved houses should be extended to licensed houses, asylums, and hospitals 
for the insane. In that way all are put under the same advantages and disadvan¬ 
tages. The great advantage which, I think, will accrue is that in future, instead 
of cases being sent into private houses, no authority knowing anything about 
them, they must be reported to the Board on admission and on discharge. 
The Board of Control will have it in their power to make an investigation, and 
take such action as may be necessary. At present many of those patients are 
treated surreptitiously; nobody knows anything about them, and it is only by 
accidental discovery of something amiss that a prosecution is instituted. If, in 
the future, an endeavour is made to deal with these cases surreptitiously, the 
person doing so will be in a worse position than he is to-day. Through the 
proposals now made the interests of the existing institutions are carefully safe¬ 
guarded, and great advantage will accrue to patients generally, in that they will 
not be treated in unsuitable places. 

Dr. Norman : I would like to raise the point whether it would not be better to 
see to that beforehand, whether you should not have a system whereby anybody 
wishing to take patients should have their houses examined, as is general with 
licensed houses at the present time. Under the present system the thing might 
take place; the house might be carried on for some time unless the Board of 
Control is greatly extended. Another suggestion would be that they should 
appoint people in particular districts whose function it should be to supervise and 
inspect such houses in which it was proposed that mental patients should be 
taken. 

Dr. Percy Smith : In any legislation the Board of Control will take powers to 
see licensed houses before they approve of them. 

Dr. Dixon: It says a medical practitioner appointed for the purpose or approved 
by the Board of Control. But an ordinary general practitioner might not be in a 
position to judge. 

Dr. Bowf.r : That only gives the Board of Control power to approve and power 
to give legal sanction; it does not say that, because the medical practitioner 
gives a certificate, the Board of Control will give legal sanction. I think there is 
sufficient power. I raised this question at the meeting of the Parliamentary 
Committee and at the Council meeting this morning, and the explanation pointed 
out to me seems clear enough. 

Dr. Norman : Is no suggestion coming from the Association as to what is 
meant by the early stages of mental disorder ? Is it a week, or two or three 
months, or what ? 

Dr. Wolseley Lewis : There is no time. 

Dr. Sergeant: May not a case be an “ eaily case” for years? 

Dr. Wolseley Lewis : All I have to say is, "that the intention of that clause was 
to strengthen the hands of the Board of Control in doing away with all these 
people who complained and who were unrecognised people and often gave unsuit¬ 
able treatment. And it was thought, if that clause were put in, they would be 
much better able to prosecute under section 315 than they are now, and which 
they are anxious to do. And it would take away the temptation to act against 
section 315, because they would say, ” Here is a suitable place which the Board of 
Control know of—I will send my patient there; there is no disability.” All it 
means is that where a patient goes to has to be intimated, and the name of the 
patient is not given. With regard to the question of the medical practitioner, 
meaning any ordinary medical practitioner, that was the Board’s own idea, and I 
thought it was rather a compliment to the medical profession. What Sir William 
Byrne said to me was, “ Surely a doctor is a very responsible person, and we should 
accept his word." If he writes that such and such a person as a patient is suitably 


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treated that is enough for us, and if we doubt him we could refuse to accept his 
word again. 

Dr. Fothergill : It is to the advantage of the patient that he should be received 
in this way, because it gives him great opportunities of getting well and without any 
stigma, and the man who keeps the home would say, “ I shall be glad to have my 
home known as an approved house." He would also say, "Any doubtful case I 
shall now feel safe about.” At present certain cases are sent to him, and he has 
to pass them on to some institution, whereas if they had only been able to remain 
a little time longer in what would now be an approved home they could be cured 
without having to go to an asylum. I do not understand the second part of 
clause ( b ). I ask whether this refers to sending patients to the houses of non¬ 
medical men. Does it mean a patient can be sent to Mrs. B—’s house who is not 
a doctor ? 

The Chairman : Yes. 

Dr. Cole : With regard to clauses (a) and (6), you can send a certified patient 
to any house, a layman's or doctor’s. There are many houses suitable for 
patients, but some which are unsuitable. It is too much to ask that every 
house shall be approved ; you cannot ask that a house for a single patient 
shall be approved, but the house of the kind Dr. Fothergill mentioned, for half a 
dozen patients, should be approved. If there is a house with only one patient it 
need not be approved, but it must be intimated to the Board of Control. The 
suggestion is on the lines of approved homes under the Mental Deficiency Act, 
and it would be better to call them “ recognised homes ’’ instead of " approved 
homes ” by way of distinction. 

Dr. Sergeant: I understand that the words " in its early stages ” in regard to 
mental disease do not mean anything, because, as I have already said, I under¬ 
stand the “early stage" may go on for years. And if those words do not mean 
anything why are they introduced ? It is undesirable to make use of words which 
have no meaning. I think we should attach a meaning to them—make them mean 
what they appear to mean—that is, early as opposed to prolonged and chronic. I 
think the Board of Control have suggested six months in this connection. 

Dr. Fothergill : There are some people who are eccentric all their lives but 
yet are never insane, so they may remain during all their lives in the early stage 
of mental disease without deserving to be certified. A time-limit does not come 
into it at all, and I agree with the present wording. 

Sir Robert Armstrong-Jo.nes : I wish to apologise, Mr. Chairman, for my 
late arrival. The idea in the minds of the Committee was that this should be left 
indefinite in our report to the Council, but that in a Bill a definite period should 
be stated. The feeling was that nine months—the period held to apply to the case 
of the soldier—should be held as that to which the word " early ” would apply. 

The Chairman : Yes. As 1 say, this is not a Bill. 

Supplementary. 

The Chairman: Are there any criticisms on the supplementary part ? If not, 
I put it that the Report, as a whole, be approved. 

Dr. Langdon-Down : There is another point to which in times past criticism 
has been directed, which might be corrected now. The form of certification 
requires that the examination shall be made by one doctor separately from that 
of any other medical practitioner. I notice it has been thought that it is a slur 
on the medical profession, and that it is a handicap to people who desire to certify 
cases where evidence of insanity is difficult to obtain. It is thought there would 
be collusion between doctors in obtaining evidence on which they base their 
certificates. If we could get those words deleted in any further forms I think it 
would be to the credit of the medical profession. 

Dr. Percy Smith : If that means that the examination of the patient separately 
from that of any other medical practitioner should be eliminated, I think it would 
be a great mistake to make the suggested alteration. The whole object is to safe¬ 
guard the individual, and for this there should be separate examinations. It is so 
easy for two people talking together to get the same facts and put them down, and 
to get the same impression of a case. The examination by two medical men 
together is not sufficient protection to the patient. Whenever I go to a consulta¬ 
tion and the doctor says, “ I think this patient ought to be certified,” I say, “ One 
must have a separate interview at once.” If you begin to talk together and arrange 


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a separate interview afterwards, it is a difficult matter to forma separate jndgment. 
I am sure the general public would look with suspicion on the removal of those 
words. 

Dr. Soutar: I agree with Dr. Percy Smith. There is no reflection in it; there 
is no reason why the two doctors should not consult, but what they have to say is 
what they found at the moment by separate examination. There is no interference 
with the holding of a consultation at all. 

The Chairman; I suppose you do not wish to press the point to a division, 
Dr. Langdon-Down ? 

Dr. Langdon-Down: No. 

The Chairman : I put the Report as a whole. 1 put it with the one or two 
amendments which have been passed. 

Carried. 

Dr. Soutar: Before we pass to another matter I would just like to say this 
Report has required a tremendous amount of skill, care, and balanced consideration, 
and it has received that from our Chairman, Dr. Wolseley Lewis, and from Dr. 
Cole. The amount of work they have done in order to bring the Report to what 
you see you may realise, because there were several points which arose upon which 
great divergence of opinion must have existed and did exist. But they have suc¬ 
ceeded by the splendid way in which they have carried out their work in producing 
an unanimous Report, and I think these gentlemen deserve the thanks of the Asso¬ 
ciation for what they have done. 

The resolution was carried by acclamation. 

Dr. Wolseley Lewis : I am very much obliged to you, gentlemen, for this vote 
of thanks. What I am really pleased with is that you have been unanimous in 
adopting this Report, because it strengthens the position very much. 


Paper. 

Dr. David Orr and Lieut.-Col. Rows, R.A.M.C.: ‘'The Interdependence of the 
Sympathetic and Central Nervous Systems” (illustrated by slides). 

(This paper, with the discussion on it, will, we hope, appear in the April issue 
of the Journal.— Eds. 

The Chairman said it only remained for him to thank, in the members’ name, 
Dr. Orr and Col. Rows for their very interesting and suggestive paper. It was 
hoped that the subject would be brought forward on a future occasion, when, 
perhaps, the results of further investigations could be brought to light. 


NORTHERN AND MIDLAND DIVISION. 

The Autumn Meeting of the Northern and Midland Division was held, by 
the kind invitation of Col. Rows, at the Military Hospital, Maghuil, near Liverpool, 
on Thursday, October 24th, 1918. 

Lieut.-Col. R. G. Rows presided. 

The following eighteen members were present: Drs. R. Eager, Major, R.A.M.C.; 
T. Benson Evans; E. S. Hayes Gill; Stanley A. Gill; G. Hamilton Grills; 
E. G. Grove; Bernard Hart; D. Hunter; R. McD. Ladell; W. F. Menzies; 

G. E. Mould; P. G. Mould; R. G. Rows, Lieut.-Col., R.A.M.C.; C. T. Street, 
Major; J. B. Tighd, Lieut.-Col., R.A.M.C.; E. W. White, Lieut.-Col., R.A.M.C.; 

H. Yellowlees; T. S. Adair; and twenty-nine visitors. 

The Minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed. 

Reference was made to the illness of the President, Lieut.-Col. Keay, and it 
was proposed by Col. White, and seconded by Major Eager, that a message of 
sympathy be sent to him. 

Dr. R. S. Macphail, Dr. Bedford Pierce and Major C. T. Street were 
unanimously elected to form the Divisional Committee for the ensuing year. 

Several short communications were then given on the work and scope of 
the Hospital, with an account of the types of war neuroses as seen there. 
Lieut.-Col. Rows gave a general outline of the conditions, and was followed by 


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Major Hart, Capt. Bryce and Capt. Stewart, each of whom took up some special 
point and discussed it. Many new and interesting points, theoretical and other¬ 
wise, were touched upon. 

A pleasant visit was made round the wards and buildings of the Hospital in 
the morning. 

A hearty vote of thanks was accorded Col. Rows for his kind and generous 
hospitality. 


SOUTH-EASTERN DIVISION. 

The Autumn Meeting of the South-Eastern Division of the Medico-Psycho¬ 
logical Association was held at n.Chandos Street, London, W. i, on Wednesday, 
October 9th, 1918. 

Present: Drs. Archdale, Bower, Chambers, Earls, Edwards, Haynes, Hughes, 
Norman, Shuttleworth, Stewart, and Sergeant (Hon. Div. Sec.). Dr. Shuttleworth 
in the Chair. 

The Minutes of the last meeting were taken as read and confirmed. 

The Members standing passed a vote of condolence to Mrs. Griffith, and in¬ 
structed the Secretary to write expressing the sorrow of the South-Eastern 
Division. 

Dr. Brend was unanimously elected a Member of the Association. 

It was decided to leave the date and place of the Spring Meeting, 1919, to the 
discretion of the Secretary. 

Dr. Shuttleworth informed the meeting as to recent legislation in connection 
with the amendment of the Asylum Workers' Superannuation Act, and the meeting 
then closed. 


SOUTH-WESTERN DIVISION. 

The Autumn Meeting of the above Division was held at 17, Belmont, Bath, 
by the kind permission of Dr. MacBryan, on Friday, October 25th, 1918, at 
2.30 p.m. 

The following members were present: Drs. Aveline, MacBryan, Mary Martin, 
Mules, Nelis, King Turner, and Bartlett (Hon. Div. Secretary). Dr. C. E. S. 
Flemming was welcomed as a visitor. 

Dr. Nelis was voted to the Chair. 

Letters of regret for non-attendance from Drs. Macdonald and Devine were 
read. 

The minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed. 

Dr. Bartlett was nominated as Hon. Div. Secretary. 

Drs. Aveline and MacBryan were nominated as representative members of 
Council. 

The place of the Spring Meeting was provisionally fixed as Fisherton House, 
Dr. King Turner having kindly extended an invitation 

An interesting discussion on the Cardiff leaflet followed, and the meeting 
expressed agreement with the reforms suggested therein, and viewed with favour 
the concerted effort to advance the treatment of mental disorders. The following 
recommendations were approved: (1) The establishment of clinics attached to 
general hospital, mental hospitals, and special institutions by local authorities for 
the treatment of early cases ; (2) the approval of homes for borderland cases 
without certificate, to apply also to special institutions; (3) the extension of a 
system of voluntary boarders ; (4) the more extensive employment of the services 
of the medical officers attached to mental hospitals in consultative work with 
medical practitioners ; (5) the granting of power to medical practitioners to send 
cases for treatment and observation to approved institutions pending certificate. 

Dr. C. E. S. Flemming expressed the difficulties experienced by general prac- 


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titioners in dealing with early and doubtful cases of mental disease under the 
following headings: (i) The stigma of certification; (2) the lack of approved 
homes for observation and treatment without certification; (3) the lack of facilities 
for obtaining expert advice ; (4) the lack of facilities for general practitioners to 
gain expert knowledge. 


SCOTTISH DIVISION. 

A Meeting of the Scottish Division of the Medico-Psychological Association 
was held in the Royal College of Physicians, Queen Street, Edinburgh, on Friday, 
November 15th, 191S. 

Present: Major Buchanan, Capt. Yellowlees, Lieut. Gostwyck, R.A.M.C, 
Drs. Carswell, Crichlow, Easterbrook, Carlyle Johnstone, Kerr, T. C. Mackenzie, 
Tuach Mackenzie, Orr, Ford Robertson, and Surgeon-Commander R. B. Campbell, 
R.N, Divisional Secretary, Dr. T. Murray Lyon being present as guest. 

Dr. Carlyle Johnstone occupied the chair. 

Before taking up the ordinary business of the meeting the Chairman referred 
in appropriate terms to the loss which the Association had sustained since last 
meeting by the death of Dr. William Reid, Medical Superintendent, Aberdeen 
Royal Asylum. He stated that Dr. Reid was one of the oldest members of the 
Scottish Division, and that he had had a long association with asylum administra¬ 
tion, having acted as Medical Superintendent of Aberdeen Royal Asylum for 
thirty-three years. The Chairman also referred to Dr. Reid’s fine personal 
qualities. It was unanimously resolved that it be recorded in the minutes that the 
members of the Scottish Division of the Medico-Psychological Association desire 
to express their deep sense of the loss sustained by the death of Dr. Reid, and 
their sympathy with his relatives in their bereavement, and the Secretary was 
instructed to transmit an excerpt of the minutes to Mrs. Reid. 

The minutes of the last Divisional meeting were read and approved, and the 
Chairman was authorised to sign them. 

The Secretary intimated an apology from Lieut.-Col. Keay, President of the 
Association, who was unable to be present on account of illness. It was the 
unanimous wish of the Division that the Secretary should convey to the President 
an expression of regret on learning of the reason for his absence and best wishes 
for a speedy and complete recovery. 

Apologies were also intimated from Drs. David Yellowlees, Oswald, Hotchkis, 
Skeen, Carre, McRae, Steele and Sutherland. 

The Business Committee was appointed, consisting of the nominated member 
of Council, the two representative members of Council, Drs. Carlyle Johnstone, 
Maxwell Ross, and the Divisional Secretary.. 

Drs. J. H. •Skeen and T. C. Mackenzie were nominated by the Division for the 
position of Representative Members of Council, and Dr. R. B. Campbell was 
nominated for the position of Divisional Secretary. 

The following candidate after ballot was admitted to membership of the Associa¬ 
tion : Madeline Archibald, L.R.C.P. & L.R.C.S., Assistant Medical Officer, Argyll 
and Bute District Asylum, Lochgilphead. Proposed by Drs. Kerr, Dunlop 
Robertson, and R. B. Campbell. 

Dr. G. M. Robertson's paper on “ The Freudian Interpretation of some Clinical 
Symptoms ” was in his absence read by Dr. Carlyle Johnstone. A short discus¬ 
sion followed, in which several members took part. 

The Secretary reported that the Sub-committee appointed by the Division to 
consider amendments to the existing lunacy laws had met that afternoon and 
considered the report of the English Lunacy Legislation Sub-committee, whose 
recommendations had already been circulated to the Members of the Association, 
and the Sub-committee expressed general approval of the recommendations con¬ 
tained in the report. After some little discussion the Secretary was instructed to 
inform the Secretary of the Parliamentary Committee of the Association that the 
Division approved of the recommendations contained in the Report of the English 
Lunacy Legislation Sub-committee. 

A vote of thanks to the Chairman for presiding concluded the business of the 
meeting. 


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OBITUARY. 

John B. Chapin, M.D. 

In the fulness of years, in quiet retirement after more than a half century's 
active professional toil, amid scenes endeared to him by early years of association 
and work, surrounded by his children, having the admiration and love of the 
members of his profession, and the affectionate gratitude of unnumbered persons 
to whom or to whose friends he had been physician, guide, counsellor and friend, 
Dr. Chapin died at his home in Canandaigua, N.Y., on January 17th, 1918. 

" Life’s work well done, 

Life’s race well run, 

Then comes rest.” 

These words form the opening passage in an appreciative and sympathetic 
obituary notice of the late Dr. Chapin in the American Journal of Insanity lor 
April last from the pen of Dr. Brush. It occupies some seventeen pages of the 
journal, and we regret that the space at our disposal will only admit of an abstract 
being given of what is really an interesting memoir of a member of our specialty 
on the other side of the Atlantic, who was a man of exceptional talent and admini¬ 
strative ability, of unflagging industry, lofty aims, and sterling character; a man 
who was held in affectionate regard by a large circle of friends, both professional 
and lay, who felt his death as nothing less than a genuine personal bereavement. 
The notice is not merely a memoir of the man, but it also embodies a sketch, brief 
no doubt but illuminative, of the progress of enlightened ideas and action in 
America as regards the care and treatment of the insane over a period of more 
than half a century. 

On his father’s side Dr. Chapin was of Puritan ancestry, being in the eighth 
generation from Samuel Chapin, who was born in Paignton, Devonshire, in 1598. 
This Samuel Chapin was one of the founders of Springfield, Massachusetts, and is 
commemorated by St. Gauden's beautiful statue in that city. His father was 
William Chapin, a man of artistic tastes and literary ability, and with a practical 
knowledge of the art of steel engraving. He early became interested in the educa¬ 
tion of the blind, and made this his life-work. He was for some time Superintendent 
of the Institution for the Blind at Columbus, Ohio, and subsequently Principal of 
the Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind in Philadelphia. His 
mother was Elizabeth H. Bassett, daughter of the Rev. John Bassett, D.D., a 
graduate of Columbia College, and the recipient of honorary degrees from several 
other colleges, minister of the Reformed Churches at Albany, at Bushwick, and at 
Kingston, all in New York State, and was partly of French, partly of Dutch origin. 

The educational opportunities at Columbus not being satisfactory young Chapin 
was sent to Philadelphia, and entered the North-west Grammar School there. He 
took the A.B. degree in Williams College, Philadelphia, in 1850, and the same 
year, having decided to enter the medical profession, in accordance with the 
custom of the time he entered the office of Dr. John A. Swett, one of the physicians 
to the New York Hospital, as a student of medicine. Soon afterwards he obtained 
a substitute interneship in the hospital, and in 1852, after examination, an appoint¬ 
ment on the house staff. During this period he had attended medical lectures at 
the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, from which he received the degree 
of M.D. in 1853. In 1854 he was made House-Physician in the New York 
Hospital, where he had a period of very active service, cholera and typhus fever 
being epidemic at that time, and yellow fever more or less prevalent. In April, 
1852, while an interne at the hospital, he attended the seventh annual meeting of 
the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane, 
now the American Medico-Psychological Association. 

Having no predilection for private practice, when he had completed his service 
in the hospital, Dr. Chapin had the intention of entering the medical service of the 
United States Army. Just about this time Dr. John P. Gray, Medical Superin¬ 
tendent of the New York State Lunatic Asylum, now the State Asylum at Utica, 
offered him an appointment as Assistant Physician at that institution. This being 
in accordance with his inclinations, he accepted, and in September, 1854, entered 


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upon the duties of the position. He had no previous training in psychiatry, but 
his training in general medicine enabled him to meet and surmount any difficulties 
resulting therefrom. The American Journal of Insanity was edited and published 
in this asylum, being printed by the patients under competent supervision, and in 
its editorial conduct in connection with the medical superintendent Dr. Chapin 
found congenial occupation. 

The condition of the insane in the county almshouses was about this time 
occupying the attention of superintendents of the poor, and Dr. Chapin by request 
took up the work of procuring data and drawing up a report on the subject, which 
appeared as Senate Document No. 17, January, 1856, N.Y. State Legislature. 
Thus began his work for the better care of the chronic insane of New York, and 
the removal of all insane persons from the county almshouses, which culminated 
in the establishment of the Willard Asylum, now the Willard State Hospital, with 
which his name will be for ever inseparably connected. The result of his investi¬ 
gations was that a Bill was introduced in the Senate in 1857 creating two additional 
asylums for the insane, and an asylum for the reception of insane convicts and 
criminals. The first provision failed owing to selfish contentions as to the loca¬ 
tion of the asylums, but a measure was passed creating an asylum for insane convicts 
at the State prison at Auburn. 

In 1857 he resigned his position at Utica, and had an idea of starting practice in 
either Philadelphia or New York. When returning to Philadelphia he called on 
Dr. George Cook at Canandaigua, who proposed that he should join him in the 
conduct of Brigham Hall, a small private hospital for mental disorders which Dr. 
Cook had established at Canandaigua in 1856. The addition of a new wing was 
agreed upon, to be completed in i860, and meantime Dr. Chapin was engaged in 
organising a new institution for the blind in St. Louis at his father’s suggestion. 
This was, of course, only a temporary position, and in i860 he resumed his pro¬ 
fessional work amongst the insane along with Dr. Cook at Canandaigua. His 
work and associates there were most congenial, and his mind turned there as to a 
pleasant haven of rest when he retired from hospital work in 1911. 

After the failure in 1854 to effect any improvement in the condition of the insane 
in almshouses, nothing was done in this direction until in 1864 the State Medical 
Society inaugurated a movement on their behalf, into which Dr. Chapin heartily 
entered. A committee consisting of Dr. Charles A. Lee, Dr. S. D. Willard, and 
Dr. George Cook, in conjunction with members of the Legislature, formulated a 
Bill, which became law in April, 1864, directing the county judges to appoint a 
physician in each county to visit the almshouse and report upon its condition and 
that of the insane contained therein. The reports were made to Dr. Willard, 
Secretary of the State Society, and in April, 1865, a Bill was passed creating the 
new asylum, which was named the Willard Asylum in memory of Dr. Willard, who 
died just before its final passage. Its title was “An Act to Authorise the Esta¬ 
blishment of a State Asylum for the Chronic Insane Poor.” Sections of the law 
stating its purpose to remove the chronic insane from the almshouses to the new 
asylum, and making it mandatory to transfer and in future commit acute cases 
to the asylum at Utica, were mainly Dr. Chapin’s own composition. He with two 
others were appointed Commissioners by Governor Fenton to locate and build 
the new asylum. This was designed on the villa system, the buildings being 
arranged in detached groups located convenient to the gardens and farm-barns, 
where the patients would be near the work in which they might be engaged. This 
was a radical departure from existing methods, and met with the usual adverse 
criticism. The plans also provided for an administration building with a main 
hospital group attached. For these Dr. Chapin was wholly responsible, and under 
his direction the buildings were located and completed, and for the first time in 
this country an institution was established with a thoroughly elastic plan, with a 
segregation rather than an aggregation of buildings, and with the distinct purpose 
in view of facilitating the occupation of patients upon the farm, and in other ways 
to aid in their own support. This was really the beginning of State care in New 
York. The principle of State care was engrafted in the Willard Act. It was 
intended to take and thereafter keep from county almshouses the insane poor. 

The first Board of Trustees appointed underthe Act elected Dr. Chapin medical 
superintendent of the new asylum—a position he had not sought or desired; nor 
did he accept it until after three months' consideration, when he did so on the 


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condition that the service was to continue during the period of organisation only, 
and not longer than three years. This, however, he did not adhere to, and remained 
in charge until 1884, when he was called to succeed Dr. Kirkbride at the Depart¬ 
ment for the Insane of the Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadelphia. The invitation 
was twice declined; the roots had struck deep in Willard—there was a disinclina¬ 
tion to abandon a work to which for many and obvious reasons he was deeply 
attached—but finally he became convinced that it was his duty to accept, and in 
September, 1884, he entered upon a service in Philadelphia which continued for 
twenty-seven years. He had at that time reached the age of fifty-five, was still 
active, and by no means lacking in enthusiasm and initiative. 

Shortly after going to Philadelphia a fire occurred in the insane department of 
Blockley, the city almshouse and hospital. Several insane patients lost their lives, 
and much property damage was incurred. Blockley Asylum had long been con¬ 
demned as a place for detention for the insane, and after the fire Dr. Chapin and 
Dr. Brush were asked to confer with the Board of Guardians of the Poor as to the 
best course to follow. At that conference Dr. Chapin outlined a plan which, if 
followed, would have given Philadelphia the honour of establishing the first 
psychiatric clinic in the United States. He pointed out to the Board the real 
situation, showing them that Blockley was badly overcrowded, that there were no 
adequate means of exercise in the open air, no provision for occupation, no proper 
nursing, and not sufficient medical care and supervision. He called attention to 
the very large annual admission-rate, small recovery-rate, and a large death-rate. 
He then dwelt on the need of training in psychiatry for young men, which then in 
this country in medical schools was wholly lacking, and the excellent opportunities 
at Blockley for the medical schools of the city. He said: 

“ Establish here a small hospital of from too to 200 beds, to which all cases 
coming under city care shall be sent at once. Concentrate here the medical work, 
to be done by a large, resident staff under a competent chief. Establish laboratories 
and all the requisites of a good hospital, and use the material for clinical instruc¬ 
tion. A certain proportion of the cases admitted will need but a few weeks' care 
here, many others longer care, and many permanent care. Establish therefore in 
the country a colony farm, with its -hospital, medical, and nursing staff, and its 
groups for permanent cases, who should be employed on the farm and in shops, 
and contribute to their own support.” 

We have given here but a hasty outline of a lengthy conference, but it can be 
seen what an excellent scheme was laid before the Board, only, alas, to be rejected 
as too expensive! The burned wards were rebuilt, and the old routine went on, 
to the everlasting disgrace of the city of “ Brotherly Love.” 

Dr. Chapin received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Jefferson College, Penn¬ 
sylvania, and from his alma mater, Williams College. He was a Fellow of the 
College of Physicians of Philadelphia, and an honorary member of the Medico- 
Psychological Association of Great Britain and Ireland and the Soci£t <5 de M6de- 
cine Mentale de Belgique. 

On December 1st, 1904, he was given a complimentary dinner at the Bellevue- 
Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia, which was very largely attended, and which 
marked the completion of fifty years’ work in hospitals for the insane. On this 
occasion he was presented with a life-size portrait of himself. He had at this 
time exceeded the Psalmist’s limit of three score years and ten, and had more than 
once brought before the managers of the hospital the question of laying down his 
office ; but it was the desire of the Board that he should continue at his post, and 
so for seven years longer he remained at the hospital in West Philadelphia, resign¬ 
ing and moving to a home which he had prepared in Canandaigua in the summer 
of 1911. His last attendance at a meeting of the Association was in 1913 at 
Niagara Falls, when he showed but little of the physical weakness of age and no 
perceptible diminution of his mental vigour. [In this feature of the maintenance of 
freshness and power of intellect a not unworthy comparison may be drawn between 
him and our own countryman, the late Dr Henry Maudsley, who died within a week 
after Dr. Chapin's decease.— Eds. J.M.S.] 

In 1858 he had married Miss Harriet E. Preston,and in her death in the summer 
of 1916 he met the greatest grief of his life, after more than fifty-eight years of the 
most intimate and loving association. After her departure he seemed more or less 
dazed. He could not adjust himself to the changed conditions—he had lost not 


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60 NOTES AND NEWS. [Jail., 

only his occupation in looking after her every wish, but he had lost his bearings in 
a measure. 

His home life was made as cheerful as possible by the continued presence in 
turn of one of his three daughters. He went about the streets of the beautiful old 
town when the weather permitted. A day or two before his death he went down 
town with his daughter, and shortly after returning home complained of feeling ill. 
When a physician was sent for he said it was unnecessary, as he knew what was 
the matter—it was the breaking down at the end, and so it proved to be. He 
retained his old jocular manner almost to the close. His medical adviser called 
in a consultant, and together they gave their patient a thorough physical examina¬ 
tion. As they went from the sick room to confer he remarked, “They’ll go down 
stairs and give my disorder a name, but that will not change the result.” The end 
came rapidly, with fortunately little suffering, and on the afternoon of Thursday, 
January 17th, 1918, in his eighty-ninth year, “ in the comfort of a reasonable 
religious and holy hope," he fell asleep. 

Dr. Chapin’s great force arose from his self-control and his careful preparation 
for the work before him, which led him to study every problem presented with a 
feeling, as he expressed it, that the knowledge obtained would become available 
“ somewhere, at some time.” He was a man of most straightforward character, 
with no suspicion of indirectness in his methods. Of deep religious convictions, 
he carried his religion into his daily life, and made it a religion of service to God 
and his fellow men. In this he exemplified Whittier's dictum, “ He who blesses 
most is blest.” 

As a great administrator, as a far-seeing philanthropist who accomplished more 
for his fellow men than can now be estimated, as a conscientious and well-trained 
physician, he has set his mark upon the history of his country and his profession. 

“ Servant of God, well done; well hast thou fought 
The better fight.” 


Alfred Hume Griffith, M.D.Edin., D.P.H.Camb. 

Superintendent and Medical Officer of Lingfield Colony for Epileptics, Surrey. 

Although Dr. Alfred Hume Griffith was but a comparatively recent member of 
our Association, his many activities and his manifest zeal for the welfare of others 
demand that his premature death—which occurred on September 24th, and by 
which the medical profession has lost a member of the type it can most ill spare— 
should receive something more than its record in our obituary list. The second 
son of the late Reverend Edward Moule Griffith (B. A.Cantab.), he was born in 
Worcestershire in 1875, and received his preliminary education at Persse School, 
Cambridge, and at Totnes and Bedford Grammar Schools. The spirit of altruism 
and of the missionary—in the best sense of that word—strongly characterised even 
the earlier years of his manhood, and it was in order to fit himself in what seemed 
to him the best possible manner to be of service to others, and not at all from its 
lucrative possibilities, that he decided to enter the medical profession. With this - 
intent he matriculated at Edinburgh in 1893, and graduated in Medicine in 1899. 
In the following year he married Mary, daughter of George Welchman, of Cul- 
lompton, and immediately thereafter they went out to Persia in order that he 
might take temporary charge of the medical mission work at Ispahan. In 1901 he 
was appointed to undertake pioneer work in Kerman, and it was there—during a 
year of strenuous work, reluctantly relinquished on account of his wife's ill-health 
—that by his personal influence and by the magnetic force of his character, fortified 
with his medical training, he was so successful in breaking down much opposition 
and hostile fanaticism—dangers which, in similar circumstances, have all too often 
cost the lives of those determined to face them. During part of 1902 and of the 
following year he assumed charge of the medical mission work at Gaza, and finally 
left Persia in 1903. After a short furlough, largely spent in study at Edinburgh 
and during which time he took his M.D. degree, Griffith offered himself for work 
in Palestine; he was appointed to the C.M.S. hospital at Nablus, and while pro- 


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ceeding thither he obtained at Constantinople the Turkish certificate, enabling him 
to practise medicine throughout the Turkish empire. In 1904, after a year’s resi¬ 
dence at Nablus, he moved to Mosul in Mesopotamia, where for four years he 
lived a life of noble self-sacrifice and devotion to the needs of those about him. 
He founded a hospital, where, in the absence of the aid of any European doctor or 
nurse, and assisted only by native men whom he himself had trained, he performed 
an extensive amount of surgical work, including many major .'operations and 
numerous operations for cataract and lithotomies. His collection of calculi is in 
the museum at Cambridge. But his unfailing obedience to the ceaseless calls 
on his time and strength proved too great a strain on his health, and, to his’deep 
disappointment, he had to submit in 1908 to being invalided home. 

It was in October, 1910, after a period of further study, during which he obtained 
the Cambridge D.P.H., that Griffith was appointed Superintendent andiMedical 
Officer of Lingfield Colony for Epileptics one of the several homes established by 
the National Union for Christian Social Service, and an institution the deservedly 
high reputation of which he has done so much to enhance. If his impaired health 
compelled him to confine his energies within a comparatively restricted sphere, he 
none the less threw them heartily into his new work, and he was able to bring to it 
a rare union of qualities best suited for the successful handling and treatment in 
colony life of a malady and temperament admittedly presenting peculiar difficulties. 
Himself of athletic instincts—he was an Edinburgh "blue” in football, and when 
abroad never so happy as in the saddle—he saw to it that his patients as far as 
possible lived an open-air life, abundantly supplied with occupation, recreation 
and hobbies. Nevertheless, he was an omnivorous reader, and kept himself well 
abreast with the results of medical research, especially those which he could use 
to his patients’ advantage. His own powers of observation and research are dis¬ 
played in the contributions he made to medical and other literature, among which 
mention may be made of " Hereditary Factors in Epilepsy" (Review of Neurology 
and Psychiatry, 19x1), “Cerebellar Abscess” ( Scottish Medical and Surgical 
Journal, 1904), “ Lingfield Epileptic Colony” (The Child, 1911), " Mental Tests 
in Defective Children ” (The Child, 1916), "The Epileptic” (a chapter in Kely- 
nack’s Human Derelicts), and some chapters on medical missions in his wife’s 
book, Behind the Veil in Persia and Turkish Arabia. 

On intimation being made that the Ministry of Pensions were in pressing need 
of further accommodation for the institutional treatment and training of discharged 
sailors and soldiers suffering from epilepsy, and that through the British Red Cross 
Society initial funds would be available to meet capital expenditure, Griffith with 
the assent and co-operation of his Committee and despite his precarious health 
readily agreed to meet these needs so far as the possibilities at Lingfield permitted! 
Experience has shown that the satisfactory treatment of these particular cases is a 
specially difficult problem: so many of the men fail to realise their disability, and 
are, not unnaturally, impatient of the necessarily prolonged treatment. But Griffith 
knew his men ; he possessed the technical skill requisite to obtain insight into their 
individual peculiarities and often into the origin of the latter, and his sympathy 
with them and determination to restore them to a normal civilian life engendered, 
besides affection, a loyalty to regime that explains much of his success. He had 
many projects in view for the development of the Lingfield Colony's sphere of 
usefulness, and the carrying of these into effect will be the best tribute to his 
memory. 

Besides his patients, staff, and many friends, he leaves to mourn his loss his 
widow and a young daughter, the former of whom has been his indefatigable com¬ 
panion and collaborator, and to whom, throughout the ten painful weeks of his 
fatal illness, he made no murmur of complaint. He was buried in Lingfield 
Churchyard. C. H. B. 


Capt. Ernest Fryer Ballard, R.A.M.C. 

It is with very deep regret that we have to record the death of Capt. Ernest 
Fryer Ballard, R.A.M.C., at the early age of thirty-three, from influenza and 
pneumonia, which took place at Brighton on October 23rd last. 


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Capt. Ballard received his education at the Merchant Tailors’ School and at 
St. Thomas’s Hospital, where he won a scholarship. After graduating M.B., B.S., 
at London University, he for upwards of four years was Assistant Medical Officer 
at the Somerset and Bath Asylum at Wells. He was never robust, and, his health 
breaking down, he returned to his home at Brighton, where for some time lie was 
House-Surgeon to the Throat and Ear Hospital. He joined the Army in June, 
1915, and, being in a very low category, he was given home service, and was attached 
to the 2nd Eastern General Hospital. The experience he had gained in mental 
disease led to his being posted to the Portland Road Section of the 2nd Eastern, 
which was devoted to the care and treatment of soldiers suffering from nervous 
and incipient mental conditions. He was deeply attached to the mental aspect of 
the work, and although he had ceased to be actively connected with this sphere of 
medicine for some time previous to entering the Army, he yet continued to interest 
himself in modern psychiatry, and particularly in psycho-analysis. He retained his 
membership of the Association and attended the meetings when opportunity offered. 
He contributed articles to the Journal—-in fact his last article appeared in the 
October issue—and he published an Epitome of Mental Disorders, which is a 
useful introduction for students. He had a most agreeable personality, was an 
indefatigable worker, and did not spare himself in the interests of his patients. 

The funeral took place at Brighton, the special service held in the Chapel of the 
2nd Eastern General Hospital being attended by a large number of senior officers 
and staff and also patients. 

By the death of Capt. Ballard the Association has lost a very charming and 
accomplished member, and we tender to his family an expression of our sympathy 
and regret. 

Capt Ballard was passionately fond of cricket and football, but his indifferent 
health prevented him taking as active a part in these games as he wished. He 
was a keen botanist and entomologist, but his chief interest lay in his home life, 
devoting himself to the happiness of his parents. His brain was ever at work— 
always reading to acquire knowledge. Although not making much outward show, 
he was deeply religious, and took great pleasure in reconciling his scientific 
knowledge with the truths taught in Scripture. 


Thomas Herbert, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.Lond. 

We regret to hear of the death on October 23rd, 1918, of Dr. Thomas Herbert, 
late Senior Assistant Medical Officer in York City Asylum, Fulford. Dr. Hopkins, 
Medical Superintendent of this Asylum, writes of Dr. Herbert as follows : 

“ Dr. Herbert had been the Assistant Medical Officer at this Asylum since its 
opening in March, 1906—a period of 12J years. He left here on holiday on 
October 18th, and whilst on a visit to his brother-in-law in Cardiff was found dead 
in bed on the morning of October 23rd. The cause of death was given as 
valvular disease of the heart. He had not been well previous to being here, but I 
did not know of the existence of any heart disease, so that his death was entirely 
unexpected. 

" I can say that he was greatly respected by the staff and patients, by whom his 
loss was much felt, as well as by myself, to whom he was a great assistance and 
an agreeable colleague.” 


NOTICES BY REGISTRAR. 

Nursing Examinations. 

Preliminary .... Monday, May 5th, 1919. 

Final.Monday, May 12th, 1919. 

Papers for Bronze Medal must reach Registrar prior to June 20th. 

The Examinations for Certificate in Psychological Medicine and Gaskell Prize 
will be held early in July. 

For particulars apply to Registrar, Dr. A. Miller, Hatton, Warwick. 

Publication of results of November Examinations has to be deferred until our 
April issue. 


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63 


NOTICE TO CONTRIBUTORS. 

N.B. —The Editors will be glad to receive contributions of interest, clinical 
records, etc., from any members who can find time to write (whether these have 
been read at meetings or not) for publication in the Journal. They will also feel 
obliged if contributors will send in their papers at as early a date in each quarter 
as possible. 

Writers are requested kindly to bear in mind that, according to ux(a) of the 
Articles of Association, " all papers read at the Annual, General, or Divisional 
Meetings of the Association shall be the property of the Association, unless the 
author shall have previously obtained the written consent of the Editors to the 
contrary.” 

Papers read at Association Meetings should, therefore, not be published in other 
Journals without such sanction having been previously granted. 


The Editors regret that the Journal has to be reduced in size to such a large 
extent. They have received instructions that, owing to the exigences of existing 
circumstances, scarcity of paper, increased cost of production, etc., its dimensions 
on this occasion must not exceed 64 pages, exclusive of List of Members. They 
have therefore been obliged to postpone the publication of a good deal of the 
material in hand, and already printed, to a future issue. Writers of papers which 
have thus to be withheld for the present will kindly accept this notice as 
explanation. 


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* 




\ 


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JOURNAL OF MENTAL SCIENCE, APRIL, 1919. 


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Georgk William Mould, M.R.C.S. 


Obiit January 14th, 1919. 


Pre.sicL'nt, 18S0. 


A (Hard S' Son £"* West Newman, I Ad, 


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THE 


JOURNAL OF MENTAL SCIENCE 


[Published, by Authority of the Medico-Psychological Association 
of Great Britain and Ireland.'] 


No. 269 [ n ; n w 0 "T] APRIL, 1919. Vol. LXV. 


Part I.—Original Articles. 


War Psychology: English and German. By the late 
Dr. Henry Maudsley. 

[The following article was sent to the Editors so far back as 
the autumn of 1916. Exception was taken by the Censor to 
certain passages, and as it was felt that it was preferable that it 
should be published in its entirety or not at all, its publication 
was withheld in the hope that the objections would eventually 
be withdrawn. This has now been done, and the Editors are 
glad to be in a position to present the article as it came from 
the pen of Dr. Maudsley, and without any mutilation. 

It is not to be expected that everyone will agree with the 
views of the writer, but there is little doubt that the paper will 
be read with interest coming from such a source, written as it 
was shortly before the termination of his career, and constituting 
one of the latest utterances of a great thinker, whose writings 
have always been infused with a truly scientific spirit, and 
characterised by a dispassionate philosophy expounded with 
almost judicial fairness, and rare literary genius maintained to 
practically the close of a life prolonged far beyond the average. 
The whole article embodies a quasi-prophetic warning, delivered 
at a time when the nations were in the convulsive throes of a 
world-wide conflict, from the bitter aftermath of which we are 
scarcely as yet emancipated : a warning which, if somewhat 
pessimistic in tone, may be, perhaps, not altogether unheeded, 
as the outlook is still full of uncertainty, and as there is at 
least a possibility that our roseate anticipations of a Golden 
LXV. 5 


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WAR PSYCHOLOGY : ENGLISH AND GERMAN, [April, 


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Age, a millennium of peace on earth, and universal mutual 
goodwill among all nations, may fail to reach its long wished 
for fulfilment.] 


To understand truly the psychology of the nations which 
have plunged headlong into the present unprecedented war, it 
is incumbent not only to study their elaborate historical records 
but to take a deeper biological account of the native vigour of 
each national stock. Mind being fundamentally life in mind, 
and life being essentially motion, its manifestations presuppose 
and disclose the vigour of its native vital force. For that 
reason the psychology which concerns itself only with con¬ 
scious display must needs be wanting in depth and hold of 
reality. Is the Teutonic race perchance superior in vital 
vigour, as it believes, and the Latin races comparatively weak 
and decadent; its present outburst of military force therefore 
just the natural consequence of its stronger vitality? 

The universal characteristic of life notably is its amazing 
productiveness and unceasing impulse to prolific increase from 
the moment when it comes into being in its simplest vital 
plasm. A continual destruction immensely disproportionate 
to survival is the consequence : in the order and purpose of 
Nature death as normal a factor as life, although conscious life 
is loth to think it as natural and necessary. In this perpetual 
vital propulsion stronger life survives and grows at the cost of 
weaker life, building up higher vital complexes in ascending 
scale by feeding on lower vital complexes. Thence the so-called 
struggle for existence and survival of the fittest; which is a 
fundamental fact of the procession of Nature from age to age. 
Such ethical considerations as right, justice, pity, mercy, have 
no part or place on that low plane of vital energy which will 
withal, be it understood, not fail to continue to operate actively 
even after they come into being and application on a higher 
plane of human development. This is an important fact 
which the enthusiastic humanitarian, shrouding reality in a 
haze of incontinent sentiment, is apt to lose sight of in his 
optimistic expectation of a complete moral regeneration of 
humanity after the war is over. 

Whence in the system of Nature is life’s immanent impulse 
to increase derived? Without doubt immediately from the 


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67 


perpetual heat of the sun’s rays on the vital plasm to which it 
owed its origin, and by which it is sustained in being : vital 
force, no self-sufficing and self-determining fictitious entity as 
commonly supposed, but a natural continuity and complex of 
unified material forces, its impulsion fundamentally propulsion. 
Remotely, of course, from the ultimate supreme reality of the 
universe which, being incomprehensible and ineffable, cannot 
be expressed in terms of human thought. Certain it is that 
the one universal dynamic energy unknown and unknowable, 
however named, comes from above and is distributed down- 
wards*in countless channels through every grade of being— 
through stars and suns, grass and flowers, insects and birds, 
beasts and men. That is the plain conclusion of physical 
science beyond which it cannot and forbears to go. 

Such stay of thought is unwelcome to human feeling. 
Hence the postulate of the Divine source ascribed to it by 
imagination urged by feeling to transcend in its flight the 
narrow limitations of thought^ 1 ) Construing the illimitable 
universe in terms of his limited experience and understanding, 
man is impelled to postulate and personalize a Supreme Being 
as the ultimate reality and source whence all things proceed, 
and thereupon to fashion it more or less in the image of his 
ideal self. T^iat is to say, when he has risen to the conception 
of unity, and got quit of the effete notions of the various inferior 
gods which he was compelled to imagine in his slow and 
irregular ascent of thought to that height. Proceeding from 
that conception of a one true God, and imbued with the social 
feeling of the higher vital complex which he has reached in his 
ascending organization, he naturally finds the Divine in all the 
phenomena and processes of the visible world, and, above all, 
specially and supremely incarnate at last in the person of Jesus 
of Nazareth, who was therefore God and man. Thenceforth 
he can look hopefully forward to a fatherhood of God and final 
brotherhood of mankind through worship of that divine 
Mediator, notwithstanding the disheartening events which, like 
the present war, occur to perplex and confound him—until, that 
is, he has divined their regenerative purpose. 

Here, it is true, thought is brought into contact with two 
apparently antagonistic forces. On the one hand is the funda¬ 
mental self-regarding force of prolific life ever pressing onward 
to expand beneath all conscious manifestations, and on the 


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WAR PSYCHOLOGY: ENGLISH AND GERMAN, [April, 


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other hand is the social or moral ideal of an altruistic suppres¬ 
sion of individual vital force to serve the construction of a 
higher vital complex, and therewith the future development of 
humanity. The question of paramount importance obviously 
is, Which shall prevail in the end, the crude vital force or a 
progressive incarnation of the Divine in human nature? Now 
it is certain that the vital force cannot abate its essential 
impulsion and stay its natural self-regarding energy so long as 
the sun’s rays continue to beat upon its vital plasm with 
unabated energy. But it is nowise incredible, on the contrary 
quite conceivable, that its force shall, in the human sphere, be 
minutely divided, regulated, refined, and absorbed into a pro¬ 
gressive social and moral development of the race, and that be 
accomplished in reality which is yet a pious aspiration in the 
abstract. Therein lie the hope and promise of an indefinite 
human progress in time to come. 

Is the abstract ideal then destined to be realized at last? 
Or is it possibly only an illusion, nothing more than the effect 
and expression in consciousness of the underlying perpetual 
vital push of the incorporate sun’s rays? Can it justly be 
assumed to be prophetic of things to come ? Mankind have 
always needed and progressed by means of the illusions and 
fictions which they created to inspire and spur *hem in their 
successive developmental ascents, and have abandoned them 
one after another when they were no longer serviceable. In 
all times and places the unfailing vital energy has thus enshrined 
itself in fitting fictions of thought, as it will no doubt continue 
to do while it lasts in full vigour. That life will live and grow 
for ever on earth is without doubt an illusion. End it must 
when the sun is “ turned into darkness.” But that is an event 
so remote that present life need not concern itself with it. How, 
indeed, can relative life, which is propelled motion, possibly 
realise absolute motionlessness ? Meanwhile, within the im¬ 
measurable time of its continuance, it is instinct with the implicit 
conviction of a progressive ascent to higher vital complexity. 
The history of its past rise from lower to higher vital complexes 
justifies the hope and patient expectation of a continuance of 
the process of organic ascent, and therewith the faith in its 
progress along a moral line of evolution. Even from the 
scientific point of view, therefore, the opinion that the crude 
struggle for material existence will be superseded by a struggle 


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69 


for higher moral existence is not unwarranted. Higher vital 
complexes shall presumably be gradually organized, in whose 
structure the crude vital force is divided, regulated, refined, and 
condensed. Not otherwise, in fact, than as in the formation of 
living protoplasm the simpler physico-chemical forces have been 
controlled, regulated, and combined in its complex struc¬ 
ture, and are constantly thus subtilized and combined in the 
secret operations and processes of the bodily metabolism. 
The process of moral ascent will be simply a continuance of 
the process of organic evolution which has gone on from the 
beginning of life, and the survival of the fittest be a survival 
not of the strongest in a merely physical struggle to live, 
naturally indifferent then to all moral considerations, but of the 
fittest in a natural evolution making for social advancement 
and righteousness on earth. International immorality, con¬ 
cerned only with the victory of might and guile, may be 
expected then to prove as unfitting and disastrous as intra¬ 
national immorality would be in a particular nation which 
should adopt that pernicious practice. That the motions of 
the two apparently antagonistic forces shall thus be harmonized 
and combined in a higher vital unity, and the self-regarding 
vital force merge its absorbed energy in refined forces of 
altruistic evolution ; such is the pleasing hope and pious 
aspiration. 

Assuredly the present murderous war has been a rude shock 
to such idealistic expectation. After nearly two thousand years 
of Christian profession, the most civilized specimens of the race 
have found no better use of their gains than to plunge into the 
biggest, bloodiest, and most destructive war in human history, 
and to prosecute it with all the most devastating means of 
destruction which their conquests and control of the forces of 
Nature have enabled them to devise and employ. All the long 
and laboriously accumulated acquisitions of human intellect 
through the ages have been applied with the utmost ingenuity 
and fiercest resolution to purposes of self-destruction. Such is 
the result which Nature, operating through its human nature, 
has brought about as necessary effect in the proper course of 
its system of evolution. Had any gifted seer a month before 
the unforeseen eruption of brute vital passions in floods of 
devastation been bold enough to predict the inevitable catas¬ 
trophe he would certainly have been denounced as a madman, 


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or scouted as a despicable and anti-human disbeliever in the 
value of Christianity and the progress of humanity, if any notice 
had been taken of him at all. Yet it ought to have been fore¬ 
seen by beings so proud of their present height of intellectual 
development, and might perhaps have been predicted by a 
sufficiently cool, penetrating, and prescient student of history. 
Frederick the Great, as deliberate and resolute an embodiment 
of treacherous, unscrupulous, and successful brutality as the 
world is perhaps ever likely to see and enthrone in its admira¬ 
tion (his successful fraud and force having enshrined him as 
‘ The Great ’), is the ideal monarch of North Germany, and its 
present ruler Wilhelm II, its ‘All Highest,’ and ‘Supreme 
War Lord.’ What then has naturally and necessarily hap¬ 
pened ? That the brute force of vigorous life has asserted and 
mercilessly executed itself in open and deliberate defiance of 
the gentle growth of a slowly progressive humanity, and, were 
it to prove successful, might gloriously enshrine a Wilhelm 
the Great or Greater—at any rate in Germany. That is the 
real fact to be faced by an optimistic idealism, a fact the 
significance of which cannot be got rid of, as the manner 
is, by putting on an extra strain of sentimental idealism to 
hide it. 

Moreover, in frankly facing the disagreeable fact, it is proper 
to bear in mind that the fighting nations are alike sincere in 
their belief that they are fighting for the right and the promo¬ 
tion of a true human development. It is absurd for one 
nation to assume that the enemy is purely hypocritical, as it 
might indeed perceive and own were it to try to see itself as 
the other sees and its own history reveals it, which is truly 
revealed in the nation, as in the individual, not by its words, 
but by its deeds. But how can Germany, it is asked, really 
believe that it acted rightly in its unprovoked attack on 
nations which wished only to be left at peace, and in treacher¬ 
ously preparing for years—steadily, secretly, and systematically 
—the means of such ajsudden and unexpected attack when the 
opportune moment arrived ? But Germany does not for an 
instant admit that the attack was unprovoked and unjustifiable. 
Looking farther back than the immediate precedent circum¬ 
stances, it found sufficient provocation there, and concluded an 
immediate attack to be the sensible and righteous defence.( 2 ) 
A strong, virile and expanding nation perceived itself sur- 


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rounded by secretly hostile nations in tacit league to bar its 
needed outlets of expansion and deliberately resolved to obtain 
them. Having made a modest attempt in Morocco to find a 
place in the sun—nominally, but really a most formidable post 
and war station—when the French were taking possession of 
that country, it was met with the threat of a determined 
opposition in which the French relied upon the support of 
England, and presumably of Russia. Yet France was then 
aggressively extending its colonial dominion, although by 
deliberate and systematic restriction of its families at home it 
was not producing sufficient children to keep up its own 
population. What else could a vigorously vital nation with a 
superabundant population do but patiently watch and wait 
until it had perfected the means of breaking down the environ¬ 
ing opposition ? Vital force in the life plasm would not be 
vital if it suppressed itself, or allowed itself to be suppressed by 
its environment. Futile discussion as to whether Germany 
started the war is no better than puerile pedantry concerning 
itself with words on the part of shallow-minded diplomatists 
who, blind to the real forces at work, did not foresee its certain 
and immediate outbreak—although such foresight was the 
reason of their being—and persuaded themselves that they 
could prevent it by words. 

The Allies on their side are, no doubt, sincerely convinced, 
as they hearten themselves by protesting, that they are fighting 
for right and justice and the cause of true civilization. Yet 
the Germans, who believe themselves to be good Christians, are 
passionately convinced that their cause is just, join whole¬ 
heartedly in prayer to God for its triumph, and rightly deride 
the ridiculous notion that the whole nation is a docile people, 
enslaved by a few domineering Prussians from whose yoke it 
would wish and welcome deliverance. That is the foolish 
opinion of persons who did not foresee the impending and 
inevitable storm, but contemptuously scouted the urgent 
warnings of those who strove in vain to awaken them to the 
portentous signs. If such deliverance is to come, sound reason 
teaches that it must come gradually from a change of mind 
within the nation. A nation cannot change its constitutional 
habit of thought and feeling at the bidding of other differently 
constituted nations. As well ask the lily to blossom like the 
rose. 


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The Germans are not merely the thoroughly practical people 
which they have proved themselves to be in industrial, scientific, 
and military organization, but are essentially a nation of 
idealists. They have not lost the idealistic spirit which showed 
itself so eminently in their philosophers—in Fichte, Schelling, 
Hegel, and many less distinguished thinkers—but have turned 
and applied it systematically to material and scientific uses. 
They still conceive theories, and having conceived a theory, 
philosophic or scientific, make it a creed for the time, thereupon 
prosecuting it by patient and systematically organized trial 
either to success and acceptance or to failure and abandon¬ 
ment. In every branch of knowledge, in theology, philosophy, 
history, and science that is their habit of mind. And the theory 
which they have now formed is that they embody the highest 
culture in the world and are justified in spreading it for the 
advancement of humanity. Arrogant as the assumption seems 
now in its naked crudity, the theory would not have seemed so 
outrageous before the war when it was being quietly assumed, 
peacefully prosecuted, and indeed generally accepted in England 
and America by writers who industriously provided for their 
pupils hashes of German philosophy in their Universities, and 
greedily sucked in the latest German scientific theories by 
whomsoever and wheresoever propounded in Germany. Like 
the Jews of old, the Germans claim to be a chosen people and, 
like them, ordained to fulfil the Divine Will. Monstrous as 
the claim now appears on its bare face, it ought not justly to 
shock and revolt Christians who accept the theory that the 
Jews were a chosen people, and glorify Christianity as the Divine 
evolution of Judaism. 

The wonder and the pity of it is that, while hugging the 
creed, the Germans, like the Jews of old, should have sincerely 
convinced themselves that they were divinely ordained to 
accomplish their mission by unscrupulous treachery, systematic 
devastation, and ruthless butcheries of men, women, and chil¬ 
dren, in fact by systematically practising with German thorough¬ 
ness a rule of infamous “ frightfulness,” and that they should 
now with German thoroughness justify their deliberately 
practised terrorism as the right means to enforce a speedier 
submission, and ensure German dominion on earth. Yet this 
theory showed no new spirit in them, was no exceptional 
ebullition of brutality ; it was the natural expression of the 


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Prussian brutal nature. Their Emperor, in his memorable 
address to his troops about to depart to China to suppress the 
Boxer rising, sternly adjured them to rival the frightfulness of 
the Huns. And his troops faithfully obeyed his injunctions, 
ruthlessly shooting harmless women and children who flocked 
into a street, out of curiosity to see them pass, and thereafter 
justifying and triumphing in their uncensured butchery— 
silently condoned indeed by its then allies and present enemies. 
To their military subordinated minds their Supreme War Lord, 
their All Highest, was the chosen instrument in the ordained 
progress of the human race, as he apparently sincerely believes 
himself to be. Ingrained in the German nature are docile 
service to the State and its military organisation as the habit 
of life, and unquestioning obedience to the Plead of it ; all sense 
of individual responsibility swallowed up in adoration of the 
‘All Highest ’ himself, in sure alliance with the Most High as he 
has persistently claimed to be, and has apparently infused into 
them.( 3 ) Withal they conform to the inspired Jewish teachings 
of the Old Testament, which were practically efficient and 
fulfilled the Divine Will before the New Testament came into 
being with a new order of precepts, which are yet only ideal 
and confessedly impracticable between States in the actual 
world. The profession of them by those who do not and 
cannot practise them they naturally count hypocrisy and 
despise as inefficiency. 

But is not that, it will be asked, to throw Christianity clean 
overboard? No ! is the confident answer even of their divines, 
it is only to restrict it to its proper sphere at the present level 
of civilization in the Divine procession of events. The morality 
between State and State cannot possibly for a long time to 
come be the morality of the Sermon on the Mount. Indeed, 
it never was nor ever could have been the morality of any 
State ; for no State could have been built and kept up on the 
foundation of such principles, nor any State continue to exist 
which practised them. In things which belong to the domain 
of the construction and maintenance of the State it has always 
been necessary to discriminate between spiritual and worldly 
matters. The State has grown up by the will and force to 
make weaker peoples subservient to it, and will continue 
naturally to do so. And inasmuch as in the progress of 
human development the manifest impulse of the vital force is 


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to the formation of more and more complex social bodies, and 
to its embodiment in the State as the supreme social complex 
it necessarily follows that the strongest vital force will embody 
itself in the strongest State. When the superior State, 
pre-eminent in vital strength and intellectual culture, has per¬ 
fected itself and fulfilled its mission, then shall come the time 
when it can rightly be impregnated with, and apply ethical 
principles in its dealings with subjugated peoples. Meanwhile, 
it needs and must use more force than justice, more pitilessness 
than pity, more rigour than mercy. International morality is 
the possibility and ideal of the future, when humanity has risen 
to that height of development. That is the German theory 
which is now being systematically tried in practice with German 
thoroughness. 

It is withal the logical application in practice of German 
philosophy, the effect of which, good or bad, remains to be 
seen. A fair summary of Hegel’s philosophic teaching would 
seem to be much as follows : The great State is built up by 
war, by conquests, by annexation, by subjugation of weaker 
peoples. It stands for an idea, a grand beneficent civilizing 
idea, pregnant and prophetic, and is in duty bound to conquer 
and annex small States. But, as every State will naturally 
take it for granted that its own idea is the best, the best can 
only be distinguished by victory. It is victory which proves 
that the victor is not only stronger materially, but, standing for 
a nobler and more vital idea, is the mark of a moral superiority. 
War is a necessary condition of the evolution of humanity, 
and generations to come will witness a succession of the 
triumphs of vital force—for the triumph in fact of the prophetic 
idea which contains the future over an idea out of date, senile 
and decadent. Germany, therefore, thus instructed, cares 
nothing for accusations of infamous barbarity in its conduct of 
war ; they do not touch its conscience ; they are not applicable 
to civilization at its present transitional level. War is war, 
intrinsically conscienceless, and must be waged relentlessly. 
Every act which is done to discourage, defeat, and destroy its 
enemies is a brave and justifiable deed. Victory must be 
won ; nothing else matters. And when it is won, it will be a 
proof of moral as well as material superiority, being then the 
fulfilment of the Divine Will. 

It is a theory which does not commend itself to the British 


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mind. Yet it is what the stronger British race has constantly 
approved and practised in its subjugation of weaker and so- 
called inferior races—in India, in Egypt, in New Zealand, in 
every part of the earth where it has enforced and established 
its vast dominion. The benefits which it has conferred on the 
subjugated peoples by raising them a step in its type of 
civilization (which Ruskin describes as “ in many respects one 
of the most horrible types of society that has ever existed in the 
world’s history”) it counts a justification of the servitude which it 
has imposed upon them. And it is now unsparing in its 
expenditure of missionary zeal and money to inculcate by the 
propagation of the Gospel the Christian doctrines and principles 
which it systematically disregarded and defied in taking 
possession of their countries for commercial and military 
purposes. Why then is it so grievously shocked at the 
proposed application to itself of similar methods by the 
Germans, who deem themselves similarly justified by their 
racial and mental superiority, and intend, like it, to bring 
Christian principles into use when they have established the 
supremacy of their sounder and more vigorous vitality and 
higher intellectual culture ? British expansion, when all is 
said, was really the crude effect and expression of rude vital 
force, the sequent moral justifications having been the embellish¬ 
ing after-thoughts. 

It is a characteristic and perhaps an advantage of the 
British practical mind that it is not idealistic nor severely 
logical, nor anywise disturbed by inconsistencies of thought. 
Life has its logic deeper than thought to which thought in the 
sequence adjusts itself. It believes that it can somehow combine 
spiritual and worldly matters in the international relations of 
life, and thinks to do so ; its so-called cant and hypocrisy a 
practical testimony to the immanent ideal, the expression of a 
pious wish for what it wishes should be. Yet, as such 
combination is not really possible in practice, and would be as 
disastrous to a State as it would be for an individual in a 
particular nation when someone steals his cloak to give him 
coat also, the attempted compromise is necessarily disadvan¬ 
tageous ; it incurs the immediate danger of ineffective practice, 
as well as provokes the natural accusation of cant and 
hypocrisy. In a deadly war between two nations the one 
which uses every means it can to conquer will have an 


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advantage over the enemy which compromises between right 
and wrong means ; the result necessarily a simple matter of 
pure vital force struggling to maintain and expand itself. A 
brutal and horrible struggle, it is true, but inevitable: just a 
repetition of what has been hitherto in the procession of 
human events. If war be wicked, though it has hitherto been 
the efficient and divinely ordained factor in the evolution of 
the human drama through the ages, the impious conclusion 
would follow that the world has been wickedly governed ; 
which is as absurd a banishment of the spiritual from the 
government of the Universe as it would be to introduce the 
spiritual freely into the method of actually conducting a war 
in an international life-and-death fight. Even Luther, who 
believed his native brutality to be Christianized—though it 
never was—stoutly affirmed the necessity of separating the 
spiritual from the real in war and other worldly matters. And 
Christian pastors in Germany now openly defend the doctrine 
which Christians outside Germany are forced implicitly to 
acknowledge and actually to practise, though loth explicitly 
to confess, the elimination of the ethical conscience from 
conduct even in unethical war. 

The habit of the English mind is to treat conscience as 
something sacred in the abstract without considering at all what 
it actually is in the concrete. To it conscience is a divinely 
implanted something in every individual mind which ought 
always to be respected as sacred. That is really to delude 
itself with words without thinking in the least what they 
mean. For what is conscience, sincerely considered as a 
reality, not abstractly as a pious theory ? It is really a general 
name, a fine spiritual abstraction, a fictitious entity, connoting 
so many and varying particular consciences of all sorts and 
qualities. The particular conscience always rests at bottom 
on the particular opinion, which may be narrow, ill-informed, 
positively irrational, hopelessly prejudiced—the opinion of a 
crackbrained neurotic, a crank, a faddist, a self-sufficient lop¬ 
sided mind, the more intensely conceited the narrower it is, 
and in that matter, as in other matters, the prouder in its 
conceit of superior wisdom to despise and oppose the inferior 
intelligence of the community and to resist its regulations. 
Yet the opinion is not made sound and infallible by being 
invested with a sacred halo and called conscience. The 


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consciences of the “ passive resisters ” in England obliged them 
to resist the Education Act and count their resistance righteous¬ 
ness ; the consciences of the suffragettes and their allies to 
violate the law by arson, destruction of pictures, churches and 
property, and by the other criminal deeds which feminine 
imagination conceived, and acute feminine ingenuity put into 
practice ; and the consciences of not a few “ conscientious 
objectors ” now to refuse military service in defence of their 
country fighting for its existence, while comfortably claiming 
and obtaining the benefits of military protection by the 
sacrifices and sufferings of their fellow citizens’ lives. The 
result is that everybody except the convicted criminal and the 
certified lunatic is entitled to his sacred conscience, of what 
quality soever that be, and however mean a creature he be. 
His formed or more often tamely received opinion he then 
frantically hugs, without ever giving the least thought to how 
he got it and what it is worth. His abstract conscience is 
brought into instant use to oppose the collective conscience, and 
consecrate his prejudiced opinion. 

Obviously such opinions carried into practice by a minority 
of the population are not consistent with the true weal 
of the State and would, were they generally adopted, be 
its ruin. Service to the State and obedience to its 
laws by its citizens are the plain duty of the individuals 
constituting it and consenting to live in and by it, the 
necessary condition indeed of its strength and stability : the 
so-called conscientious refusal of such civil duty from whatever 
personal motives a proportionate weakening of its strength and 
hurt to its stability. The British mind, inveterately addicted 
to compromise, and content to deal with phrases and con¬ 
ventions rather than realities, shrinks from thoroughly sincere 
and logical thought, and when trouble comes from the break¬ 
down of the conventional practice and decisive action is neederd, 
thinks to surmount the danger by the appointment of a 
committee to consider it and report. For that reason, when 
real vital forces are in opposition, it is at a disadvantage in its 
conflict with the German mind whose systematic military 
organization, ingrained obedience to the State, and concentrated 
application of its forces under single and revered leadership, 
enables it to use them directly, forcibly, and effectively. By a 
loose organization of all sorts of committees and commissioners 


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and compromises promptly required action is consequently 
delayed and ineffectively applied ; which is perhaps a practice 
hardly less foolish than it would be to think to win a battle 
by an army commanded by several loosely co-ordinated and 
often wrangling committees. 

It isnot surprising if the German military authorities—looking 
on the demoralised state of citizenship in England before the 
war, on the various resisters to law, and the licence freely 
granted to them to parade the streets and assault ministers, 
police, and others, on the interminable talk and vote-catching 
legislation of party politicians^ 4 ) on the virtual emasculation of 
one estate of the realm by a subservient House of Commons 
whose members voted money to themselves for their private 
use out of the public revenues of which they were elected to 
be trustees, on the unchecked so-called peaceful but actually 
forcible picketing of factories by Trade Unions put above the 
law by law, on the lack in fact of honest leadership and effective 
government—thought they saw a nation sunk in selfish indi¬ 
viduality and the sure signs of a moral decadence, and were 
tempted to seize the favourable opportunity of vigorous action. 
Obsessed with their notion of the value of their brute vital 
force, they overlooked the possibility of the uprise of such a 
latent force in England, and, disdainful of all ethical considera¬ 
tions in war, they underrated and despised the possible value 
of moral force in the procession of the human drama. Their 
psychology was the crude psychology of the essentially brutal 
Prussian nature. They had gladly embraced the doctrine of 
the evolution of man from the animal, and the survival of the 
strong in the life-struggle, but they blindly or wilfully ignored 
the fact that man, whatever his historical descent, is not now a 
mere animal, but essentially something higher, in fact a social 
and moral animal, who has developed and expects to continue 
to develop along that line of evolution otherwise than through 
German dominion. 

That ethical aspiration has been an important and abiding 
factor in human development through the ages is an incon- 
testible truth. Human ascent from its lowest stage of being 
to its present height witnesses positively to its operation, 
irregular and uncertain it may be, but on the whole undeniable 
and decided. However near akin to the gorilla in his historical 
evolution and physical structure he be, man is not a gorilla, 


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nor, although of the same species as the Hun, is the Hun’s 
spirit now congenial, at any rate outside Prussia. He is not, 
in fact, an evolution only but an epigenesis. Even the Germans, 
despite their adoration and brutal use of force, feel in some 
degree the reality of the ethical spirit in human nature, and 
partially recognize it in practice. Notwithstanding their gospel 
of terrorism deliberately devised and systematically practised, 
they do not openly advocate and justify the habitual killing of 
the wounded and the merciless shooting of prisoners ; they 
allow some intrusion of the ethical factor, however illogically ; 
and they deny angrily as lies or excuse their calculated 
brutalities and bestial defilements of occupied houses in con¬ 
quered territory, perpetrated systematically in defiance of Hague 
Conventions which they had agreed to observe. Brutal and 
brutish as they may be in practice, they resent as an insult 
being called beasts. The recognition that they belong to the 
human species and wish to be thought human is an implicit 
acknowledgment by them of something higher in human nature 
than brute animality. But so sure are they of their vital 
superiority and pre-eminent intellectual culture that they 
reconcile their inconsistency by the moral conviction that their 
embodiment of the highest human development is the express 
purpose of the Divine Will, and the justification of the 
supremacy which they would achieve in the world. Their 
Emperor loudly and exultantly proclaims the doctrine, and 
they in their adoration of their All Highest, and rigidly 
disciplined obedience to his military control as Supreme War 
Lord, docilely accept it and its consequences. It does not 
appear that a single voice from Christian pulpit or professorial 
chair or literary cabinet was ever raised to protest against his 
ruthless adjurations to his troops to imitate the Huns in the 
conduct of war, and the carefully framed instructions of their 
military manuals mercilessly to terrorize the civil population of 
the devastated country. On the contrary, when the war was 
declared and Belgium treacherously overrun with savage 
brutality, systematic butcheries, and unspeakable atrocities, 
professors, priests and pastors, theologians, and distinguished 
persons in literature and science hastened with one consent to 
assure their All Highest in a servile and laudatory address of 
their approval and loyalty. That any ruler of a civilized nation 
in the twentieth century should have seriously given the advice 


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and openly sanctioned the method of barbarous warfare which 
he exultantly proclaimed few persons beforehand would have 
believed possible, but perhaps not a single person could have 
conceived it possible that it would be enthusiastically received 
and endorsed by such distinguished representatives of German 
culture. Patriotic passion instantly swept away all quiet 
reflection. When a nation is hurt it feels as a whole, and 
responds in sympathetic and synergic unity of vital action. 

The thing duly considered is not, of course, so strange as it 
looks on its face ; it was a natural and necessary event. The 
three wars which Bismarck secretly devised, carefully prepared, 
and successfully carried through against Schleswig-Holstein, 
Austria, and France—in defence of German interests, as he 
alleged, which to him were avowedly German rights—had raised 
the German pride of military power and inflated the conceit of 
national superiority to an extravagant height, which their 
immensely increased and rapidly advancing material, economic, 
and commercial progress was not calculated to lessen ; a 
progress so great that it was gaining, and might perhaps have 
continued to gain, peaceably all or more than all which they 
can hope to obtain by the present war. Not a single person 
in Germany could now perhaps be found (as the writings of 
their Christian pastors prove) to disapprove those wars, and 
their unscrupulous methods of provocation. They are approved 
as necessities of intern ational life to which /«/ranational rules 
of morality must be subjugated. What reason then to wonder 
at the patriotic outburst of exultation and adulation when their 
Supreme War Lord in his capacity of ruler of the State by 
divine right declared and entered on the greatest war in the 
world’s history, in order to obtain and secure the domination 
of Germany in Europe and on earth ? 

What wonder again that their Emperor should have acted 
as he did ? Think with adequate insight on his character as 
displayed in his speeches and conduct from the time when he 
succeeded to the throne, and with amazing self-sufficiency 
instantly took on himself the whole burden and responsibility 
of the government of the State as the Lord’s anointed, dismiss¬ 
ing the Great Chancellor whose genius had made it what it 
was. Apparently he was sincerely convinced that his grand¬ 
father, by sole virtue of being a Hohenzollern, had done the 
work which he had been guided and ruled to do under 


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Bismarck’s powerful tutelage, and he, by virtue of his being a 
divinely instituted Hohenzollern, was perfectly competent to 
continue and perfect. His secret if unavowed ambition was 
possibly to imitate Frederick the Great, and to be as great or 
even a greater figure in German history by operating on a 
grander scale, and with the vastly augmented resources of 
wealth and modern military science. The greatest war in 
human history would be the splendid theatre of his exploit, and 
his glorification for ever in human admiration. ■ 

Is that perchance a misreading of his character? Let the 
motive have been what it may, explicit or implicit, the judg¬ 
ment is certainly not a misreading of his character. Think on 
his many eloquent and boastful orations, his sermons, his 
telegrams, his fierce injunctions to his recruits, his restless 
journeys and constant poses in the limelight, his self-confident 
instructions to painters, sculptors, actors, even tailors, and his 
indiscreet speeches which provoked the submissive Reichstag 
at last to a humble remonstrance and forced him to a sort of 
apology through his Chancellor, whom, however, he soon after 
dismissed. Europe looked with a mixed admiration and 
afnusement on so picturesque a figure in its drab procession 
and did not take him very seriously. Yet all these exhibitions 
were the exponents of character which could not fail to show 
itself in future conduct, and just insight might have foreseen. 
On March 23rd, 1890, Edmond de Goncourt wrote in the 
Journal des Goncourt (vol. viii, p. 142) : “ Ce jeune souverain 
allemand, ce ndvrose mystique, ce passioning des dramas 
religioso-guerriers de Wagner, cet endosseur en reve de la 
blanche armure de Parsival, avec ses nuits sans sommeil, son 
activite maladive, la fievre de son cerveau, m’apparait comme 
un souverain bien inquictant dans l’avenir.” The history of 
his earlier life was the revelation of his character, and what 
could his later life be but its natural continuation and expres¬ 
sion ? A mystical megalomaniac was possessed with the belief 
that he, th'e All Highest in Germany by divine right, was in 
alliance with, and the ordained instrument of the Most High 
in Heaven. So he shrunk not from plunging his country into 
war, and his subjects, content to be autocratically governed 
and docilely habituated to a strict military organisation, which 
treated the least imagined offence to military arrogance by a 
civilian as a crime justifying instant killing of the culprit by 
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the hurt vanity of the officer, joined patriotically in the 
struggle. 

The sequence of events was natural and inevitable. But it 
certainly was a painful surprise to Englishmen who supposed 
that the Emperor possessed some element of the quality which 
Englishmen imply in “ a gentleman ” should have sanctioned, 
extolled and rewarded the barbarities systematically practised. 
Military reasons, however, entirely obliterated such superficial 
feeling, if it ever existed, and furthermore justified every guile, 
lie, and atrocity which might serve to promote military success. 
An organized system of falsifications, forgeries, perversions and 
suppressions of truth, effected with all the thoroughness and 
completeness of the German national character, was deemed 
right for military reasons and a necessary and justifiable method 
of conducting military operations. The sole aim being to win 
in the fight, no consideration of truth or right must stand in 
the way of success ; the matter was purely a triumph of might, 
and the use to be made of it in the end justified the means used 
to obtain it. Herein the German certainly does not conform 
to the English standard. Englishmen have an inveterate 
national prejudice in favour of fair play and strict observance 
of the rules of the game. It is doubtful whether there is a 
single well-authenticated instance of an English officer insulting 
or brutally treating a German prisoner, officer or private, 
whereas it is undeniable that there have been several such 
instances of assault and brutal treatment of so-called “ English 
swine ” by Prussian officers. Goethe, whose calm and lucid 
insight into Prussian character will hardly be contested even by 
Germans, said : “ The Prussian is cruel by birth ; civilization 
will make him ferocious.” And that is just what has happened, 
even where it might have been least expected in the appar¬ 
ently cultivated Kaiser ; a cultivation which events have shown 
to have been quite superficial veneer not native in character. 
Although his mother was English, the element of gentler 
breeding was instantly swept away by the uprush of native 
Hohenzollern brutality when the crisis came. 

The truly English element must at best have been slight, 
for his maternal grandfather was a German, and withal a 
Coburg. Moreover, going further back in heredity and 
considering the strong stream of Hanoverian German ancestry 
in the English Royal family, it must have been a very thin 


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stream of pure English heredity which percolated downwards 
to affect his nature. No wonder then that it was quickly 
swept away by the torrent of native brutality. No wonder 
again that he has never shown the least sympathy with the 
qualities of his father’s gentler character or, so far as appears, 
ever said a good word of him in all his manifold orations. He 
has gloried in praise of the coarser quality of his revered 
grandfather to whom he ascribed the successes which a very 
ordinary mind owed entirely to Bismarck’s firm control and 
intelligent guidance. It is not in the least strange then that, 
brutal by Prussian birth, civilization has made the Prussian 
ferocious, as Goethe’s prescience predicted. 

So much for a cursory glance into individual psychology. 
But it would be unjust to Germans to suppose that they all 
•share the brutal Prussian nature, although, having now given 
themselves up wholly to Prussian rule and militarianism, they 
condone and even rejoice in the barbarities practised. That 
the German people as a body believe that they are fighting for 
the salvation of their country and are heartily imbued with 
patriotic feeling cannot be reasonably doubted. They believe 
what their rulers tell them and suffer now the consequences of 
docilely putting the destinies of their country into the hands 
of a virtual autocracy. They do not learn the real merits of 
the matter because they depend for what they learn on their 
rulers, who strictly control all the sources of information, tell 
them only what they wish them to believe, and scrupulously 
hide from them what they do not wish them to know. 
Democracy is nowise lovely and has its disagreeable defects 
and dangers, but autocracy is perhaps a greater danger to the 
nation and assuredly to the world.( 6 ) In view of present 
events it would seem therefore to be righteously resisted in 
the interests of civilization and humanity, to be a fight of moral 
right against immoral might. 

The Allies on their side, and the English in particular, might 
do well not to delude themselves with the notion that they are 
really fighting from purely righteous motives, even though their 
cause be the cause of true human progress. They are fighting 
fundamentally from motives of self-interest which will continue 
to operate in the future when the war is over and to produce 
its inevitable consequences. France is fighting with admirable 
bravery and unsurpassed devotion in defence of its national 


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existence against a ruthless attack which its past national 
policy and traditional glorification of Napoleon and his great 
victories for the glory of France have certainly done something 
to provoke. Russia has been moved by its Slav sympathy 
with Serbia, and its desire to uphold its Balkan interests, which 
were gravely menaced by Austrian aggression. Great Britain 
was instinctively urged by the necessity of preventing the 
destruction of Belgian independence and the subjugation of 
France, which would have been a great and abiding peril to her 
shores and to Britannia’s proud rule of the waves. Each 
nation in fact is struggling to maintain its life and future weal 
against an ambitious, vigorous, and expanding nation resolved 
at all cost to obtain more room in the world, and the supremacy 
in Europe which it is sure its superiority in might and culture 
rightly deserves : fundamental vital forces operating from 
different motives the real factors at work, and the inevitable 
result the triumph of the strongest, since Providence is 
confessedly on the side of the big battalions. 

The forces of the Allies are united for the time in strenuous 
effort and somewhat extravagantly effusive professions of 
sympathy and anticipations of eternal friendship which are not 
in the least likely to be eternal ; for the attraction which now 
holds them together in union against a powerful enemy may 
quickly dissolve when their respective interests no longer 
coincide. Nations do not any more than individuals change 
their character in a miraculous manner, and knowledge of their 
past history is the only safe basis for prediction concerning 
their future. Reviewing the histories of France, Russia, and 
Great Britain, which are nowise stories of peaceful unaggression, 
and judging national character as exhibited therein, it might 
not be well for Europe and humanity that Germany should be 
so completely vanquished as to supply no effective check on 
their actions. The English are notably liable to waves of 
unthinking sentiment, and their present sentimental effusions 
and enthusiastic anticipations of lasting friendships with France 
and Russia, as expressed in newspapers and speeches which, 
may please the populace but the judicious cannot but look on 
with grave doubt or amused contempt, exhibit a signally short 
memory and foolish forgetfulness of former and comparatively 
recent conflicts of interests verging nearly on war. What 
good reason is there to suppose that France, if it comes 


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triumphant and exultant out of the present war, will have the 
same peaceful and chastened spirit which, knowing its weakness 
in face of Germany’s strength, it undoubtedly showed before 
the war ? Is it expected then to repudiate its adoration of 
Napoleon and its glorification of his splendid victories which 
Germany has good cause to remember, if not avenge ? Before 
it was vanquished and heavily penalized in the Franco-German 
War it did not exhibit under Napoleon III any such quiet and 
moderate spirit ; on the contrary, it showed a quite different 
spirit of unrest and aggression which caused many persons to 
sympathize with Germany and approve her success before they 
learnt the story of her atrocities. The truth is that the whole 
history of France is a decisive refutation of the expectation of 
a miraculous transformation of national character. And if 
Russia under its present amiable sovereign may perhaps be 
trusted to avoid an aggressive war, though not probably its 
persistent habit of silent aggression—if he is not seduced or 
overruled by his military and interested counsellors, as in the 
Japanese war—a new Czar of a different disposition disposing 
autocratically of its forces and resources (especially if in 
possession of Constantinople) might endanger British interests 
and be thought to necessitate their defence by war. Conflict 
between England and Russia in the not distant future (not to 
speak of France) seems to cool reason a more natural and 
probable event than the lasting friendship which sentimental 
enthusiasts fatuously expect to last for ever. More fatuous 
withal the humanitarian optimism which expects the result of 
the present sanguinary war to be a complete moral regeneration 
of humanity, when people shall not learn war any more, when 
there shall be a peaceful federation of nations, when they shall 
institute an International Court of Justice (without troubling to 
devise an International Executive), when righteousness shall 
reign everywhere on earth. Would that stagnant state of 
international felicity which fancy fondly pictures—should it 
ever come—be a boon or a bane to the human race ? The 
doubt need not gravely disquiet mankind : the illusion or 
fiction of a Paradise Regained in lieu of a Paradise Lost will 
be a useful incentive to endurance and effort in the pilgrimage 
of labour and sorrow which reason teaches that human life is, 
a lesson which the lust of life joying to live prevents man for 
ever really minding. 


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Note. 

The writer of a letter in the Spectator of August i 2th, who 
is serving in the war, is much saddened by the levity shown by 
our troops in their attacks on the enemy’s trenches. “ Is there 
not something lacking,” he asks? “Is our levity altogether 
sound and wholesome ? The spirit that jests with death, that 
calls through the din of the attack—* Sixpence the front row ’ 
.—is it the spirit of true strength ? Doesn’t it lack something 
somewhere ? ” He would doubtless similarly regret the 
dribbling of a football in front of the attack and the reported 
praise of the King by the troops as “ a real sport.” 

He and those who feel with him “ have seen the hand of God 
in the business,” and wish for the inspiration in which alone 
“ can we find the strength of the faith that will enable us to 
tread in the victorious steps of those great forbears who through 
faith subdued kingdoms.” It is a cheering thought and might 
no doubt be a useful inspiration, but the writer in his pious zeal 
neglects two considerations: he does not reflect that the Kaiser 
feels exactly in the same way and confidently claims the help 
of the “ hand of God,” which after rival claims can be certainly 
known only by the event. Secondly, the jesting spirit which 
he deprecates is evidence of strong and exultant vitality which 
will be necessary to win in the end, for the pious inspiration of 
faith would not avail if there were not the rude vital force for 
it to vivify. The reckless “ jest with death,” which must sooner 
or later come, shows a nobler spirit than the craven fear of 
it as “ the last enemy.” 

(') Le coeur ades raisons que la raison ne connait pas. —Pascal. — ( ! ) Le veritable 
auteur d’une guerre n’est pas celtii qui la declare, mais celui qui la rend n^cessaire. 
—Montesquieu. —( 3 ) The Vienna Arbeitcr Zeitung calls attention to a sermon 
delivered at Hamburg by an evangelical pastor named Ebert. It contains passages 
like the following : “ When it is a question of the Judgment of God, God’s word 
knows nothing of mercy . . . God has put the sword of Justice into our 

hand . . . God has placed in our hands all means to defeat the enemy . . . 

God has given us the most brilliant leader of our days.” Captain Valentiner, son 
of the Dean of Sonnenburgh Cathedral and the reported officer in command of the 
German submarine which sank the “ Lusitania,” has been decorated with a number 
of orders since the deed, including the first-class order of the Iron Cfoss and the 
Hohenzollern House Order with swords, a special distinction in the personal gift of 
the Emperor.—( 4 ) Some of them belonging to what Burke describes as “the profane 
herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who, so far from being qualified to 
be directors of the great movement of Empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in it.” 
— ( 5 ) The following quotation is from an article by Lord Cromer in The Spectator 
(August 19th, 1916) : “ Mr. Fortescue and other historians have drawn attention to 
the fact that the European chaos produced by the French Revolution was in some 
measure due to the abundance of half-witted or incapable Sovereigns who, during 


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the eighteenth century, governed their respective countries. The Emperor Paul 
of Russia was a madman. King Christian VII of Denmark was subject to inter¬ 
mittent attacks of dementia, as also was George III of England. Queen Marie of 
Portugal and Gustavus IV of Sweden were both lunatics. Charles IV of Spain 
and his brother, Ferdinand of Naples, were half-witted. Louis XVI of France, 
Victor Amadeus of Sardinia, Francis of Austria, and Frederick William of Prussia, 
though not of unsound mind, were all wholly unfit to occupy with advantage to 
their countries the exalted positions which they held.” 


The Factors of Criminal Actions. By Sir H. Bryan Donkin, M.D., 
F.R.C.P. 

An article under the title of “The VEtiology of Crime” by Dr. 
Goring, in the April number of the Journal for 1918, consists to a great 
extent of criticisms of one by me, entitled “Notes on Mental Defect in 
Criminals,” which appeared in the January number for 1917, and con¬ 
tained special comments on Dr. Goring’s well-known work “The 
English Convict: a Statistical Study.” As it then seemed to me neces¬ 
sary to consider Dr. Goring’s views when writing on this subject, it 
seems equally necessary now to make some comment on his criticisms. 
The main reason for the following remarks is the interest and impor¬ 
tance of the subject-matter on which he and I differ ; but since some 
of his strictures depend greatly on misrepresentations of what I have 
written, or on imputations of arguments and opinions that I have not 
uttered, I am forced to occupy more space in this paper than I could 
have wished in quoting from Dr. Goring’s charges and re-stating my 
own position. 

Dr. Goring starts with the charge that I criticise “adversely an impor¬ 
tant modern idea—the idea that criminological science, that all social 
science, must be built on facts, and facts alone." This statement, as it 
stands, uninterpreted, is baseless, if not meaningless, and, at any rate, 
unjustifiable. If it means, as its wording unquestionably implies, that 
I have denied that scientific study must be based on facts only, the 
statement is false. If, however, Dr. Goring means that I criticise 
adversely his attempt to found a “criminological science” on the 
basis of the biometrical statistics he has worked upon, why does he not 
openly say what he means ? It is clear throughout my paper that I do 
not regard the biometrical method as co extensive with the scientific 
method of inquiry, and still less as the sole or chief instrument of the 
scientific study of things either biological or social. Whether he or I 
be right in our estimate of the applicability of this instrument does~not 
matter one jot in connection with the charge Dr. Goring makes against 
me—a charge which, as it stands at the outset of his article, worded as 
it is, and totally unsupported, is acutely calculated to prejudice the 


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reader’s mind and clear the ground for further attacks. It reminded 
me, indeed, while reading it, of a discharge of gas preparatory to fire. 

Dr. Goring next imputes to me a “ prejudice against biometry which 
is not shared with many other informed thinkers,” thus evincing an 
attitude scarcely worthy of a purely unemotional and scientific disputant. 
He may, of course, regard me, or anyone who questions his views, as 
an uninformed thinker, but he does not strengthen his case by bringing 
this charge of prejudice, which he makes retrospective, and fails to 
support by evidence. He proceeds, however, to say that he has at last 
found, in the article with which he is dealing, some long-sought explana¬ 
tion of my attitude; and then makes two inaccurate and incomplete 
quotations from that article. By joining these quotations and thus 
producing them in the guise of a continuous argument he succeeds in 
achieving a misrepresentation of such gravity as compels me-to repeat 
here my words as they appear in my original article, and also Dr. 
Goring’s perversion of them. 

On p. 31 of this Journal for June, 1917, I wrote as a conclusion 
drawn from preceding considerations: “[The totality of] the complex 
environment which moulds the characters of men—[‘physical,’ ‘mental,’ 
‘ moral,’ ‘ intellectual ’—and either encourages or stunts the develop¬ 
ment of their natural or inborn capacities] cannot be analysed or 
reduced to such items as can be established or eliminated, or reasonably 
dealt with, by statistical handling. [It is not possible to disentangle the 
various factors that contribute to the production of a criminal except 
in cases that may be marked by patent incapacities to acquire such 
characters as are possessed by the average man and are fundamentally 
necessary to social life. Nor is it possible to assess in any case with 
precision the proportionate influence of the undeniably necessary factors 
of ‘heredity’ and ‘environment’ in the development of a criminal 
man.]” 

At the beginning of the paragraph next following that which I have 
just quoted I wrote: “ [It is far from my intention to use any 
argument from consequences against the chief position maintained in Dr. 
Goring’s work. Such an argument is only too common in controversy 
on this subject. It may, however, be fairly noted that one apparent 
consequence of this position seems to be largely irreconcilable with 
some admissions made at the end of this work.] If it be true, as Dr. 
Goring has proved, that law-breakers in the mass are notably less 
intelligent than law-abiders [and further, if it were true that their 
inferior intelligence is due solely to inborn incapacity], it must follow 
that there would be little if any reason for making efforts to reform 
them.” 

Now here, again, it signifies nothing whether Dr. Goring’s or my 
views be right. What I desire to show is the deliberate misuse that 


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Dr. Goring makes of these two distinct paragraphs. On the first and 
following pages of his article he says : “ Sir Bryan states that the complex 
environment which moulds the characters of men cannot be analysed or 
reasonably dealt with by statistical handling ,” because “ if it be true , as 
Dr. Goring has proved ” through the medium of biometry that the facts 
are as biometry shows them to be, “ it must follow that there would be 
little if any reason for making efforts to reform law breakers." Dr. 
Goring adds : “ In other words, since biometry, by disturbing precon¬ 
ceived notions, may threaten the stability of our institutions, the 
employment of biometric methods must be deprecated.” 

A comparison between what I wrote and what Dr. Goring attributes 
to me is easily made. The words in brackets in the quotation from my 
article above were omitted by Dr. Goring, while all that he quoted, and 
imperfectly quoted, from me are printed in italics in my present 
quotation from him. It will thus be seen that for dialectical purposes 
Dr. Goring quotes from part of one paragraph, and, linking the quota¬ 
tion directly to part of the next by his own introduction of the word 
“ because,” gravely and falsely charges me with condemning his method 
because I do not like its results. 

Now it is abundantly clear throughout my article that lam criticising 
Dr. Goring’s conclusion, based on his biometrical method of inquiry, 
that “ relatively to its origin in the constitution of the malefactor, and 
especially in his mentally defective constitution, crime is only to a 
trifling extent (if to any) the product ... of any manifestation of 
what may be comprehensively termed the force of circumstances.” And 
it is equally clear that I did not admit or even imply in the quotation 
I have just made from my former article that Dr. Goring had proved 
this conclusion. What I did imply, or rather state, was that, granting 
that Dr. Goring had shown that convicted criminals were of inferior 
intelligence as compared with the average man, his main conclusion 
seemed to be irreconcilable with some admissions made elsewhere in 
his own article. 

A detailed reply to the argumentative matter contained in Dr. 
Goring’s article would involve the repetition of a considerable part of 
my former paper, which he has either ignored or misrepresented. 
There are, however, some further points which call for notice. 

Following on the ridiculous charge that my argument (as set forth 
by him) was “ an appeal to the emotions in favour of an environmental 
origin of crime,” Dr. Goring proceeds, “ by parity of reasoning,” to 
set up more “ Aunt Sallies ” for the pleasure of bowling them over. 
He quite ignores the iterated insistence in my article that crime is 
referable neither to “constitutional” nor “environmental” causes 
only, but to both combined; and he ventures to say on p. 134 of 
his article that I have “ made a statement to the effect that it may 


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be laid down in advance as an d priori proposition, and even despite 
statistical evidence to the contrary, that environmental conditions must 
of necessity have a determining influence upon crime. He then gives 
his own interpretation and limitation of the meaning of “ environ¬ 
ment,” drawing therefrom certain conclusions, and ends the paragraph 
by misquoting a passage from my article, which he characterises, as 
an astounding outburst. 

The “ outburst ” in question runs as follows in the original: “ Even 
if, for the sake of argument, the [complete] validity of [the] methods 
employed and [of some of the subordinate] conclusions arrived at [in 
the “ Study of the English Convict ”] be assumed [including even that 
of the denial of any ‘ significant correlation ’ between crime and the 
particular environmental conditions investigated by Dr. Goring], it 
cannot possibly be held that any significant proportion of the innumer¬ 
able influences that act upon all men from infancy to age, for good or 
for ill, and contribute so largely to the make-up of each of us, have 
been eliminated or could be eliminated by such an inquiry as we have 
been considering.” 

It is to be noted here that Dr. Goring’s version of this paragraph 
omits all that is included within brackets, and thus becomes a perver¬ 
sion. Why this paragraph, with or without the words omitted by Dr. 
Goring, should be styled an “outburst” it is not easy to understand, 
unless the mere fact that in its proper and quite clear sense it contains a 
brief statement of my contention against Dr. Goring’s chief conclusion 
anent the aetiology of crime is sufficient reason to mark it as another 
“ appeal to the emotions.” But this is of little moment. What does 
matter is Dr. Goring’s further perversion, on p. 135 of his article, of 
what I said when writing of the “ innumerable influences acting on all 
men, and contributing so largely to the make-up of each of us.” I 
meant, clearly, the innumerable and various influences acting on every 
individual person throughout their lives ; and the paragraph is part of 
my argument that such influences cannot be eliminated by any statistical 
study of men in the mass. 

To touch upon another point arising from Dr. Goring’s criticisms. 
It may be gathered from some of his remarks that misunderstanding 
may possibly be caused by the interpretation I have placed on the 
meaning of the words “ constitutional ” and “ environmental ” as used 
by Dr. Goring. I take it that he uses these terms, in connection with 
the special characters or items which he studies, as indicating two 
different origins which can be separated for the sake of investigation ; 
that he denotes as “ constitutional ” such characters as are very 
commonly described by various writers as “ innate,” “ hereditary,” 
“transmissible,” “germinal,” “natural,” as opposed to “acquired,” 
“nurtural,” “environmental”; and, lastly, that he means by “environ- 


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mental ” somewhat the same as other writers mean, but with more or 
less definite limitations of his own. 

An important question arises here, bearing closely on this discussion. 
If Dr. Goring boycotts the terms “ innate,” “ hereditary,” etc., and 
substitutes the term “constitutional,” what connotation does he give to 
“constitutional”? By a member of the Biometrical School, “whose 
characteristics,” he says, “ are clear thinking and precision of language,” 
it is absolutely necessary that a precise meaning should be assigned to 
this term, but Dr. Goring gives none whatever. I was already quite 
aware, and am now once more assured by Dr. Goring, that the 
Biometrical School repudiates the use of what it calls “ figurative ” 
terms, and employs the term “association” instead of words implying 
any notion of causation other than that of “uniform antecedence”; nor 
was I unmindful, when I wrote my article, that Dr. Goring had said 
that ancestral resemblance need not necessarily be due to hereditary 
influence. But, nevertheless, biometrical investigations undertaken 
into biological and social questions have, I believe, usually resulted in 
finding that certain degrees of ancestral resemblance are due to a 
“constitutional ” factor; and Dr. Goring says that absence of resem¬ 
blance, unless absolutely screened by environmental influences, does 
imply absence of “inheritance.” 

Biometrical teaching thus appears clearly to admit a practical 
dichotomy of “natural” and “nurtural” influences in the case of 
investigations into questions of “inheritance”; and, as Dr. Goring’s 
researches into the origins of criminal action exemplify, this teaching 
includes more than the exhibition of certain statistical facts of family 
resemblance. It either states or implies that environmental influences 
can be sufficiently ascertained and studied to justify a further conclusion 
as to what extent these facts of family history are due to the inheritance 
of a constitutional anti-social disposition apart frotn environmental 
influences. 

It is true that Dr. Goring refers to “family contagion” as a possible 
or alleged environmental influence which can be studied sufficiently to 
ustify its inclusion or exclusion as a factor in crime. By this is 
apparently meant the personal association of the criminal with criminal 
members of his family, or perhaps other closely associated groups. 
But even such a limited inquiry into environment would be difficult in 
most cases, and still more difficult would be a research into the mere 
“school” education of persons who become criminals. 

In this place it must be said, in denial of Dr. Goring’s statement, that 
I have never implied that characters can be differentiated as either 
inborn or acquired without investigation. On the contrary, I have 
iterated my conviction that characters, and especially human characters, 
and most especially human mental characters, are both inborn and 


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acquired, or, if these terms are preferred, both “ constitutional" and 
“ environmental ” in origin. Again, I have never said, as stated by 
Dr. Goring on his p. 142, that his “conclusion that crime is influenced 
by heredity is erroneous because the fact that inborn capacities are 
necessary for the production of human character is accepted knowledge, 
no longer a hypothesis in need of verification.” I deny that I have 
ever said or even implied that crime is not influenced by heredity; and 
so far from stating that this conclusion was erroneous, I have treated it 
as calling for no elaborate evidence now, but as universally accepted. 
This charge by Dr. Goring is another example of his misuse of the 
word “because”—another very serious misrepresentation, seeing that it 
imputes to me a conclusion I did not draw, and a statement of which 
I have repeated the contrary. 

Towards the close of his article Dr. Goring says that he cannot 
discover in my criticism “any sense of the fact that the aim of his 
inquiry was not to support speculation, but to discover what actually 
the relations of crime are in conditions prevailing to-day”; and he ends 
by stating, as his summary conclusion, that “between a variety of 
environmental conditions examined such as illiteracy, parental neglect, 
lack of employment, the stress of poverty, etc., including the states of a 
healthy, delicate, or morbid constitution per se, and even the situation 
induced by the approach of death—between these conditions and the 
committing of crime we find no evidence of any significant relation¬ 
ship.” 

In the first place, as regards the aim of Dr. Goring’s inquiry, I have 
neither implied or thought that he wished to support speculation, or 
that his aim as a whole was other than he has stated it. My conception 
of his aim was based on his own statement on p. 18 of his original 
Report, when he says it is two-fold : (1) To clear from the ground the 
remains of the old criminology based on conjecture, prejudice, and 
questionable observation ; (2) to found a new knowledge of the criminal 
upon facts scientifically acquired, and upon inferences scientifically 
verified, such facts and inferences yielding, by virtue of their own 
established accuracy, unimpeachable conclusions. 

My criticisms have been directed solely to what he has written 
concerning his second object. 

In the second place, I have from the first taken his main conclusion 
to be, not as he now states it in his criticism of my article in this 
Journal, but as he indicated it in p. 371 of his original work—“The 
English Convict.” For the sake of clearness I quote once more those 
words of Dr. Goring’s—“ Our second conclusion is this : that relatively 
to its origin in the constitution of the malefactor, and especially in his 
mental defective constitution, crime is only to a trifling extent (if to any) 
the product of social inequality, of adverse environment, or of other 


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manifestations of what may be comprehensively termed the force of 
circumstances.” 

For the opinion I hold that the conclusion has not been established 
by Dr. Goring I have given my chief reasons in my article in this 
Journal for January, 1917, to which 1 would refer such readers as are 
interested in this subject. Of course, the adverse criticism that I have 
made of Dr. Goring’s conclusions implies that I do not admit that he 
has founded a “new knowledge of the criminal” on the results at which 
he has arrived, unless his exhaustive disproof of the teaching of the 
“ Lombrosian,” or “anatomical,” or “positive” school of “crimino¬ 
logists ” may be regarded in that light. 

Dr. Goring asks me, or suggests that I ought to say, what my con¬ 
ception of “ inheritance ” is, and in another place he implies by a 
quotation that I have given a “ definition of criminology,” which is, 
according to his gloss on it, on my own showing inherently futile. I will 
put my position as plainly as I can on these points. As regards the term 
“ criminology,” I have always avoided it as much as possible owing to the 
great confusion both in writing and thought that its use has occasioned. 
At the outset of my article I said that I proposed to comment on some 
of the recent literature of “what is known as criminology,” and 
remarked that this term may (I should have said might possibly) be 
properly applied to investigations undertaken with a view to giving such 
an account of criminal conduct and criminal men as may assist in the 
formation of practical measures towards the prevention of the one and 
the appropriate treatment of the other. I have never attempted to 
formulate or define any special science of “criminology,” nor do I 
deem such an attempt practicable. Dr. Goring and 1 both start in our 
study of criminals with assumptions of importance, and to some'extent 
similar in appearance, different as the uses of them made by each of us 
may be. On p. 23 of my article I said, in repetition of what I had 
written elsewhere several years before, that "‘the study of criminals had 
long convinced me that all of us were potential law-breakers,” and Dr. 
Goring states in the introduction to the Report on the English Convict 
(p. 26), that in this inquiry he is “forced to the hypothesis of the 
possible existence of a character in all men, which in the absence of a 
better term we call the criminal diathesis.” 

But Dr. Goring’s assumption is really very different from mine; for 
he says —“ all that we can assume, and what we must assume, is the possi¬ 
bility that constitutional as well as environmental factors play a part in 
the production of criminality.” It is quite clear that the method of Dr. 
Goring’s inquiry must make this assumption, for his object is to investi¬ 
gate, by a statistical method, how far crime is referable to each of these 
two factors respectively j but this method involves the further assump¬ 
tion that these two factors can be sufficiently appraised and isolated for 


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the attainment of the object in view. And Dr. Goring concludes, as 
we have seen, that environmental factors have little or nothing to do 
with crime-production. 

My assumption, on the other hand, is a pure assumption, not made 
for the purpose of proving its truth, or its untruth ; but though I do 
not attempt to prove it true by the method employed by Dr. Goring, 
it is clear that when I criticise Dr. Goring’s conclusion I cannot justly 
be charged with ignoring the “ constitutional factor ” in crime. My 
assumption is necessary to my argument, and my conclusion is that 
Dr. Goring has not succeeded in proving that what he implies by the 
constitutional factor is the sole or supremely significant element in the 
make-up of the criminal. 

Coming now to the question of my conception of the meaning of the 
word “inheritance,” the reader will find, in my article in this Journal 
of January, 1917, at least a fair notion of the meaning in which I use 
it. All “ characters ” are inheritable in the sense that the capabilities 
of developing them, not the characters as we see them, are carried 
in the germ. What is commonly called an “ acquired character ” (this 
term being now used in a much wider sense than that originally attri¬ 
buted to it by Lamarck) is thus assuredly inheritable as any other 
“ character.” Characters are developed in response to some sort of 
“nurture,” such as functional activity, injury, internal secretions, heat, 
light, moisture, nutriment, teaching, experience, etc. Thus all 
“ characters ” are products of both “ nature ” and “ nurture,” and are 
referable, as regards origin, both to inheritance and to acquirement—to 
“constitution” and to “environment.” “The frequency,” says Dr. 
Archdall Reid, “ with which characters are reproduced, (not inherited) 
depends on the frequency with which certain influences are encountered 
—certain nurture. Nurture concerns, not inheritance, but the environ¬ 
ment. With the exception of variations in the offspring the potentiality 
of developing any character is inherited with certainty. Like begets 
like when parent and child develop under like conditions. But the 
reproduction of any character is uncertain in proportion as the environ¬ 
ment is variable.” 

In Dr. Goring’s inquiry the biometrical method seems to be concerned 
with studying frequency of reproduction—not “ nature,” but “nurture”— 
and is thus not applicable to the study of developed human characters. 
What the human being, over all other animals, has especially inherited 
is an enormous capacity for developing acquirements, and he inevitably 
encounters in his course innumerable opportunities for, or obstacles to, 
the development of these capacities. This consideration applies pre¬ 
eminently to the development of the mental characters of man which 
are subjects of observation, not to the necessary inheritance of his 
capacities for developing them. 


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RY SIR H. BRYAN DONKIN, M.D. 


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This leads me to emphasise again an important ftyw in the course 
of the argument which guides Dr. Goring to his chief conclusion. 
His reasoning necessitates the introduction, into his general con¬ 
ception of the criminal, of the item or factor of “ wilful anti¬ 
social proclivities” in addition to the other factors of physical and 
mental inferiority—all of which three factors he regards as indepen¬ 
dent of each other. Now the statement that a factor in the make up 
of the criminal is the possession by the offender of “ wilful anti¬ 
social proclivity” is merely equivalent to saying that the man who acts 
anti-socially or criminally is at least in some degree of an anti-social or 
criminal nature, and this is tautological or meaningless as argument, unless 
I am mistaken in assuming that Dr. Goring classes “anti social proclivi¬ 
ties ” in his group of “ constitutional ” factors. It is true that Dr. Goring, 
in introducing this item of wilful anti social proclivity into his conception 
of the criminal diathesis, remarks that it is a bond of association with 
conviction for crime less close than those of physical or mental 
inferiority ; but it is no less true that, without such introduction, the 
smaller, but by no means inconsiderable, number of physically and 
mentally superior convicts could find no place in the generalised class 
of men with high potentiality for crime that has been described by Dr. 
Goring himself. No “science of criminology” can omit from its scope 
the recognised number of men with good physique or high intelligence, 
or with both these qualities, who are convicted of crime, or the still 
larger number of this class of law-breakers who escape conviction 
altogether. 

I have endeavoured in my original article, and in some additional 
remarks above, to show why I hold that Dr. Goring has quite failed to 
prove that “ crime is only to a trifling extent, if to any, the product of 
what may be comprehensively termed the force of circumstances ” ; and 
I fail to see how Dr. Goring’s conclusions have provided any new basis 
for the study of the genesis of crime and criminals. It is certainly 
true that the marks of mental or physical inferiority are much more 
observable in some kinds of criminals than in others—kinds, that is, of 
convicts classified by the crimes they commit. It is also true that a high 
degree of such inferiorities is not observable in criminals taken in the 
bulk, although I do not question—nor in my opinion would anyone 
conversant with criminals question—Dr. Goring’s conclusion that con¬ 
victed criminals are as a whole physically or mentally inferior to the non- 
convicted population. Further, inferior intelligence does not characterise 
the so-called class of “ habitual criminals,” who of recent years have 
been sentenced as such to a long term of “preventive detention,” 
any more prominently than it characterises the other groups of 
criminals; nor do these habitual criminals respond less satisfactorily than 
others to the opportunities for rehabilitation that are provided for them 


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when released on licence. I make these brief statements, after reflec¬ 
tion based on a not inconsiderable experience of many years, and 
corroborated during the last five to six years by a large number of 
interviews held with all kinds of convicts sentenced to preventive 
detention (with a view to deciding whether or no to recommend them 
for licence), and by the reported results of the cases licensed. 

I am of opinion, far more strongly than when I began my observations, 
that even the most correct generalizations which have been or probably 
will be made concerning convicted criminals in the mass are not likely to 
be of much positive value in the study or treatment of individuals, so 
great are the differences of the observable characters of both criminal 
and non-criminal men. 


Artes et Medicina. By Alan F. Grimbly, M.A., M.D., L.M.(Rot. 

Dub.). 

The question of a combined arts and medical curriculum has long 
been a source of dissension among the authorities of our universities, 
and it is my intention in these pages to lay emphasis on the enormous 
value of a modified arts course to students of medicine. The average 
student looks on the enforced study of arts askance, and regards the 
accompanying lectures and examinations as the deliberate attempt of a 
malevolent professorial hierarchy to wreck his scientific career; but in 
later life, when he finds himself thrust upon his own resources with 
education and common-sense to guide him, he unconsciously begins to 
reap the benefit of his B.A. degree. 

Although medical students do not lake the full course in arts, yet the 
scope of work to be done is considerable. In the University of Dublin 
the standard for entry to the medical school is that of the ordinary 
Matriculation examination, together with the term examination at the 
end of the first or Junior Freshman year, so that a fairly comprehensive 
general knowledge is required before a youth can commence his pre¬ 
liminary scientific studies. In the ensuing four years he attends lectures 
in mechanics, logic, ethics, and astronomy, devoting the Trinity term of 
each year to one subject, while throughout this period he is examined in 
English composition and instructed specially therein if found deficient. 
The important arts examinations are the “ Littlego ” at the end of the 
second, and the Final at the completion of the fourth year, but numerous 
term examinations are held at regular intervals at which a definite per¬ 
centage of marks must be obtained to gain credit for the year—a highly 
desirable accomplishment when it is remembered that no man is allowed 
to have a medical degree conferred until he is qualified in arts. 

There are certain subjects in the aits syllabus which are of particular 


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importance to the professional man. It is indispensable for marked 
success in the world that he should have a sound knowledge of his own 
tongue, a broad acquaintance with Latin and, if in less degree, with 
Greek, and, above all, instruction in the sciences of logic and ethics. 

Medical men are renowned for their ignorance of the structure and 
grace of the English language. Their writings are marred by mal- 
punctuation and the consistent use of that enormity, the “split-infini¬ 
tive,” and much good work is spoiled by incompetence to find expres¬ 
sion for thought in their own tongue. The study of English essay trains 
men to write in a polished and cultured style, to think regularly and to 
reason. 

Moreover, it seems absurd that many medical men should have little 
or no acquaintance with Latin or Greek, when one reflects that these 
languages form the basis of medical terminology. Every day of their 
lives they make constant use of terms whose present-day significance 
they realise, but of whose origin they are quite unaware. A sound 
understanding of Latin is essential for the young student to master 
with ease the complexity of anatomical nomenclature—a task in itself. 

But I wish to lay especial stress on the importance of a thorough 
grounding in logic and ethics. Surely it is essential for a successful 
doctor to be acquainted with the “ science of the form of thought ” ? 
Logic does not instruct afresh ; it teaches how to think. It does not 
inquire into the truth or falsity of the premises but, in the conclusion, 
brings whatever is implied therein into the domain of consciousness. 
In practice correct premises depend on sound knowledge and trained 
powers of observation, and it is an invariable rule that an eminent 
physician or surgeon is a wise logician. Medical evidence in courts of 
law is frequently illogical, and diversities of opinion arise on this account 
that are in no way creditable to the profession. It is absurd if men are 
expected to become successful diagnosticians while they are unacquainted 
with the very framework of the process of reasoning, or if they are 
supposed to deal in wisdom with the varied problems of social life that 
come to their notice if ignorant of the sciences that treat of right 
conduct and of the workings of the human mind. Here lies the 
foundation of that broadness of view and clarity of thought requisite in 
every practitioner. 

Certain objections have been raised in connection with the necessity 
or advisability of a concurrent arts course which may be mentioned : 

(1) Additional expense entailed in the payment of fees in the arts 
school. 

(2) Interference with work in the medical school. This is unavoid¬ 
able to some extent, and it is no doubt trying to the young student 
to be obliged to attend lectures and pass examinations in arts when 
he wishes to devote all his energies to his profession ; but this objection 

LXV. 7 


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is far outweighed by the ultimate gain later in life. Those students 
who, on account of such additional work, leave their University to 
pursue their medical studies elsewhere are generally failures, and never 
succeed in passing the barrier of their second or third professional 
examination. 

(3) It is held by some people that the study of arts at all is waste 
of time; but such people, by heredity or acquisition, are cursed with 
an habitual attitude of mind that places them outside the pale of 
reason, and renders them immune from all argument save the 
argumentum basilinum. 

The claims of concurrent education in arts to recognition as a 
definite phase of modern scientific teaching are manifest if we consider 
the advantages thereof in tabulated form : 

(t) Young students are trained to form sound judgments and to 
think in logical sequence of ideas. Guidance in argument is afforded, 
and by inculcation of regular habits of thought and steady growth of 
the powers of reasoning the foundation structure is evolved whereby 
in future years difficult problems in diagnosis are grappled with in 
triumph. 

(2) Training of memory is inseparable from cultivation of rational 
thought, and the power of rapid and intelligent interpretation of the 
objective. Only by weeding out the tares from the medley of impres¬ 
sions ceaselessly reaching the conscious mind, by the elimination of 
unessentials, can a satisfactory end be attained. Pure Reason exists 
only in the fantasy of early Kantian imagination ; for all reason springs 
from a myriad association of past experiences culled from pre-existing 
impressions—from the memories of the bygone—and is directly 
influenced in the individual by the receptive and retentive faculties 
of the cerebral cortex. Upon accuracy of memory depend our ideas 
and judgments manufactured in the marvellous synthetic laboratories 
of the spheres of association. 

(3) The origin and true significance of terms and phrases used 
throughout existence are understood ; otherwise the language of the 
medical man must be but superficially intelligible to him and funda¬ 
mentally incomprehensible. 

(4) The sphere of education is enlarged, and the gain in general 
knowledge thereby is of vast importance to the practitioner in his 
dealings with people in all walks of life with whom he is constantly 
brought in contact. 

(5) Knowledge of logic and ethics is essential for the preliminary 
study of psychology—a science much neglected in the medical curri¬ 
culum. A doctor should not only be broad-minded and logical in 
argument, but for success should have a thorough understanding of the 
psychology of complex man and of possibly more complex woman. 


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(6) There are few occupations in which the sapient physician, who 
has availed himself to the best of his ability of the resources of his 
University, cannot take an intelligent interest. We live in a prophylactic 
age, and if the medical man is able to, and does, take such interest in 
the lives of his neighbours, particularly in the case of bodies of men 
found in foreign stations and ships at sea or far from civilisation, he 
exercises unconsciously a mental prophylaxis arising from his personality 
and depth of knowlege of men and events. 

(7) By nature of the widened scope of University life, the student 
encounters every day men of his own age engaged in other lines of 
study, and becomes acquainted with thoughts and ideas of all sets and 
parties. Every medical student ought to belong to one of the estab¬ 
lished arts societies on this account. From listening to, and taking 
part in, debate and meeting regularly his fellows in other phases of 
life, his horizon is broadened, and he becomes better adapted to play 
his part in the eternal struggle for existence. 

There are certain changes desirable in the present curriculum of 
our Universities, both in the arts and medical schools, which appear 
to me to be very greatly needed, and which ought to be put into execu¬ 
tion with little delay. The suggestions I wish to make are the following : 

(1) The substitution of lectures in psychology for those in astronomy 
in the fourth year in arts .—Scant attention has been paid to the study 
of psychology and insanity in the past, but some slight effort has been 
made in recent years to recognise their significance. The subject of 
mental disease has been practically left to the individual inclination, 
with the result that hardly 1 per cent, of students know anything about 
this important branch of medicine, the few that attempt to do so 
finding their way barred by insuperable obstacles arising from ignorance 
of elementary psychology. Men qualify in their profession with but 
the haziest notions with regard to the nature of concepts and percepts, 
volition, the formation of ideas, and so forth, and some are not even 
able to differentiate between a delusion, an hallucination, and an 
illusion. Men employ drugs to cause sleep without any knowledge of 
the theories relating to the state they attempt to induce, and a common 
indication of the neglect with which this science has been treated is 
found in the frequent use of “mind” and “brain” as synonymous 
terms by physicians of age and standing. The study of psychology 
follows in natural progression from that of ethics and logic, and it 
would be of enormous advantage to the profession to inaugurate 
lectures and examinations in this important science, and, furthermore, 
to lay more stress than has been the case hitherto on instruction in 
mental disease. 

(2) The establishment in schools of medicine of a chair of medical 
etiquette .—On reflection it appears more than strange to think that this 


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100 ARTES ET MEDICINA. [April, 

subject should never have been regarded as a necessary part of the 
medical curriculum. It is unworthy of the magnificent resources of 
our Universities that students should be allowed to qualify with abso¬ 
lutely no instruction in the recognised code of professional men. 
Breaches thereof are sometimes committed which would have been 
avoided if the offender had been forewarned. It is a duty to teach 
every fifth year student medical etiquette for his own protection, in 
view of the great responsibilities that fall on his shoulders when he has 
his professional degree conferred. 

(3) Fixing the minimum age of entry to the medical school at eighteen 
years .—I realise fully that objections are many on this point, and in 
particular that it is impracticable in time of war, when young doctors 
are urgently needed for our Navy, Army, and Air Force. But with 
the approach of peace in the near future it would be a wise stipulation 
to make. When a youth enters the school of medicine he leaves his 
boyhood behind, and settles down to several years’ hard work if he be 
ambitious, and if not ambitious he fails to count in the world, where 
the fight for life is continuous by night and day. A boy of sixteen is 
too young to undertake such serious studies, and has not the physical 
powers of endurance, whatever be his mental capabilities; moreover, 
far too young is he to learn the first cruel incompatibility of life— 
the incompatibility of work and play. 

I have endeavoured in the above pages to enumerate the benefits of 
a conjoint teaching in arts and medicine, but I would issue an especial 
warning to the unwary few who may be led astray by evil counsel into 
the abyss of metaphysics. There are young men who gambol through 
life in endless quest of the summum bonum —the Chief Good—wasting 
precious years of youth in search of eudaimonia, an eternal striving 
after the intangible somewhere in the nebulous zone between the 
exotic realms of Epicurus and the trackless wastes of the Utilitarians. 
Let students of medicine beware of metaphysics ! 

I plead for lectures in medical etiquette and regular instruction in 
psychology and mental disease. To quote Haeckel: “The psycholo¬ 
gist especially acquires, by the study of 'mental disease and the visiting 
of asylum wards, a profound insight into the mental life which no 
speculative philosophy could give him.” The foundation of a success¬ 
ful career is built upon education and early practice, and if a student 
avail himself with diligence while young of all the resources at his 
command, he will emerge into the world learned in his profession and 
wise in philosophy, endowed by his University with one of the greatest 
of gifts—an understanding of the Science of Life. 


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1919-3 PSYCHOSES IN THE EXPEDITIONARY FORCES. 


IOI 


Psychoses in the Expeditionary Forces. By O. P. Napier Pearn, 
M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., Temp. Capt. R.A.M.C. 

At the present time, to investigate fully the psychoses of those in 
military service would necessitate an inquiry into the mental health of 
the male moiety of the entire British nation. Admitting the truism 
that the war has not produced any new form of mental disease, it is 
nevertheless interesting to bring forward and accentuate the differences 
and similarities found in psychiatric military and civil institutional 
practice. 

When it is considered that a soldier on active service abroad requires 
observation on account of his mental condition he is sent away from his 
unit, usually with the diagnosis of N.Y.D.—not yet diagnosed (mental). 
After a varying, but, as a rule, comparatively short stay at various 
medical units in the country in which he is serving, he arrives at one 
of the specially selected hospitals in Great Britain. 

At the time of writing, one of these, the Lord Derby War Hospital, 
has admitted over 6,000 such cases, who have all seen some form of 
service with an expeditionary force. Of these I have personally 
investigated 2,000. With such a large amount of material a medical 
staff varying in number with the exigencies of the service, and an 
amount of time varying in inverse proportion to that number, one is 
liable to retain only vague generalities. In order to avoid this I have 
thought it well to collect and tabulate some 200 cases, and use them as 
pegs on which to hang my facts, endeavouring at the same time to 
refrain from wandering in an arid desert of figures. I have selected 
cases which have made a sufficiently good recovery to warrant their 
being returned to duty, as being those concerning whom it is easiest 
to obtain some form of after-history either from their friends or from 
their regimental records, and also because the non-recoverable cases 
(dementia praecox, general paralysis, paranoia, etc.) resemble more 
closely those met with in ordinary civil practice. 

Before considering these in detail it is advisable to make some 
remarks on the question of the war psychoses as a whole, as regards 
aetiology, diagnosis, and treatment. 

“Stress of campaign," which is so often, and so justly, given as a 
primary causative factor, is by no means synonymous with stress of 
battle. To the popular mind, which generally figures the soldier as 
“ driven mad ” by terrifying scenes of carnage and rapine, it would come 
as a surprise to hear that 20 per cent, of the 200 cases have never been 
under fire, but the psychiatrist will have no difficulty in realising other 
pathogenic constituents inseparable from active service in a foreign 
land. The forcible divorce from the familiar entourage, the separation 
from home and family, the anxiety as to how the latter are faring, only 


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temporarily alleviated by correspondence, and the fear of the unknown, 
all serve as pabulum to the seed of mental ill-health which may already 
have found suitable soil in which to germinate. The effect of an 
entirely strange environment is emphasised by the comparative frequency 
of psychoses in men of alien nationality who have enlisted in colonial 
contingents. 

Heredity only figures among the causative factors in io per cent., 
although special inquiries were sent to the relatives of each patient. 
This is obviously too low a figure, but I have long since come to the 
conclusion that the investigation of family histories can only be satis¬ 
factorily carried out with the co-operation of someone working outside 
the walls of the institution dealing with the cases concerned. 

A history of excessive indulgence in alcohol was obtained in io per 
cent, of the cases also, and it is probable that the percentage here 
approximates more nearly to the truth, as the physical signs of the 
patients and the absence of any report to the contrary in the vast 
majority of them supported their affirmations of temperance. A few 
were seasoned topers who would have obtained means of getting drunk 
in the Desert of Sahara, and I have some remembrance of one who 
actually did. A few others had forsaken the beer of their forefathers, 
and followed after Bacchus in the strange and seductive guises he 
assumes in foreign lands. 

A more frequent manner for an alcoholic psychosis to arise is in the 
case of the man who has been home on leave. After a period of enforced 
abstinence at the Front a man takes advantage of his furlough to 
indulge, and is found wandering about the port of embarkation on one 
or other side of the Channel in a confused state. This may occur even 
if he has taken only an amount which formerly would have had no 
gross effect on him, owing to his resistance having been lowered by 
his period of abstinence and stress. Syphilis does not figure as a 
causative factor in the selected cases, who are mostly too young for 
cerebro-spinal syphilitic affections. It may be noted in passing that 
general paralysis seems to have its onset hastened and its course 
accelerated by active service. This is in accord with the finding of 
Shaikewicz during the Russo-Japanese War. Syphilophobia is not 
infrequent, and will probably be met with more often while the education 
of the public in venereal disease is in the transition stage between 
ignorance and knowledge. Other infective diseases figure rather 
prominently. Of 60 cases from eastern theatres of war, 30 per cent. 
gave a history of malaria and 16 per cent, one of dysentery. It is 
remarkable, considering its prevalence, that in only two cases was trench 
fever considered connected with the onset of the psychosis, but the 
comparatively short duration of the acute stages of this infection is 
probably the explanation. As regards the front line, apart from the 


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obvious causes of stress, a factor frequently met with is the fear of being 
thought afraid. 

The question of diagnosis is a very difficult one, and it is for this 
reason that the headings in the table are so indefinite. Incipient, 
aborted, and mixed psychoses all occur frequently, and borderland 
states are often met with. The so-called functional nervous diseases 
daily contribute intricate and fascinating psychological problems. It is, 
in my opinion, natural that the nosology should be more puzzling in 
military cases than in asylum practice, when the differences in the 
circumstances under which they are brought to observation are 
considered. In civil life friends and relatives co-operate with the patient 
in concealing eccentricities indicative of incipient mental troubles, with 
the result that the patient not infrequently remains without medical 
advice until he becomes a danger to himself or others. The doctor is 
finally confronted with a subject violently excited or acutely depressed, 
with delusions rationalised, and hallucinations of the reality of which he 
is firmly convinced. On the other hand, the non-commissioned officer, 
who in the Army stands in loco parentis , looks with no friendly eye on 
any deviation from the normal in conduct or conversation, so that the 
embryo psychotic finds himself receiving attention from his company 
or medical officer at an early stage, and the result is that he is in the 
hands of the specialist before many days have elapsed. The patient 
himself often seems to realise that a state of confusion is incompatible 
with the handling of lethal weapons, and reports sick at times when he 
would not have consulted a medical man in civil life. Difficult as it 
is at the best of times to pigeon-hole the infinite variations from the 
indefinite normal of mind, it becomes still more difficult when such 
variations are, as it were, half fledged. 

The effect of this early attention manifests itself in results which 
amply compensate for any diagnostic difficulties, for these cases respond 
to treatment in a very gratifying way. The following summary of the 
cases discharged to duty does not reveal very brilliant results, but it 
must be remembered that these represent quite a small proportion of 
the total recoveries, as the majority are returned to civil life. It will be 
universally admitted that it would be unwise to put a recovery from a 
tubercle sanatorium to work in any place where he stands a chance of 
reinfection, and it is equally unjustifiable to subject the ex-psychotic 
a second time to the stresses and strains under which he broke down. 
The 200 exceptions instanced herewith are mostly men who have 
manifested a strong desire to put on khaki again, and signified their 
intention of re-enlisting if discharged to civil life. It will be noticed 
that about 26 per cent, are regular or re-enlisted soldiers. These return 
to a familiar environment, and are often men more at home in the Army 
than anywhere else who are less likely to be subject to the very real 


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mental pain of nostalgia. Home service for twelve months is the rule 
for these cases, but it is difficult to keep a man back when his friends 
are going to the front, and this doubtless accounts for the large pro¬ 
portion noted as having found their way overseas again. In spite of 
the discrimination employed the percentage of definite recurrence is 
15, a number of others (12 per cent.) have been subsequently discharged 
from the Army, and the quota known to be doing well at the time of 
inquiry is but 47 per cent. In view of these facts, it is doubtful 
whether, from the national point of view, the occurrence of a psychosis 
should not be an absolute bar to any form of military service. It seems 
questionable whether the good work done by those who remain stable 
is enough to compensate for the trouble and expense involved in dealing 
with those who have a second attack, while if returned to civil life the 
latter would probably be- useful assets to the State. 

With reference to treatment, it will be found that the soldier is, 
broadly speaking, a good subject for institutional care. Subject as he is 
to a disciplined life, he does not find routine irksome, and is appreciative 
of privileges. A system of parole for convalescent patients does much 
to re-establish self-confidence. Comparatively few sedatives are found 
necessary, many of the patients being at a stage when a drachm of 
psychotherapy is worth an ounce of paraldehyde. I have found a 
popular exposition of Claparede’s theory of sleep useful in some cases 
of insomnia. The visits of a kindly and tactful committee of ladies 
are much valued, and contribute, I think, towards doing away with any 
feeling of being sequestrated from the outside world. Such adjuncts 
as massage, electrotherapy and hydrotherapy are found useful from time 
to time. 

In exhaustion cases mental and bodily treatment should go hand in 
hand ; as the patient’s weight increases his mental readaptation should 
be aided by psychotherapeutic conversations. Without this cases of 
“ institution cure ’’ will result. The patient appears so rational and 
well-behaved that it is not thought necessary to detain him any longer, 
but he has never obtained any real insight into his condition, and 
breaks down again on the slightest provocation after his return to the 
outside world. In the psychoneuroses I incline to explanatory methods 
rather than to suggestion per se. The latter yields excellent results as 
regards isolated symptoms but does not touch the root of the matter. 
Intensive suggestion is very valuable in patients too opinionated or 
feeble-minded to appreciate explanations. 

Occupation is essential to recovery; but it must not be of such a 
kind as cannot be done automatically, and is congenial to the patient. 
Patients are told to aim at the ideal of being always interested and 
never tired. Such things as fancy needlework, artistic work, mat- and 
basket-making are very valuable as being easily graduated employ men 


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at which the patient can recover self-confidence as he sees his output 
increasing. As soon as his fatiguability has sufficiently decreased he 
may be put to some outdoor occupation. 

Summary of the 200 Cases. 

Care has been taken to exclude cases whose history was incomplete, 
and those in whom the difficulties of diagnosis were so accentuated as 
to make it doubtful as to where they should be placed in the very 
elementary classification adopted. 

Excluding professional soldiers, the composite picture obtained by 
taking averages of these is that of a man, ret. 27, who has had eighteen 
months’ total service in the Army, ten of which have been spent on 
active service abroad. He has then had an attack of mental trouble 
which has lasted about four months. In connection with the duration 
of the psychosis, it is interesting to note that of 149 cases discharged 
from the London County Asylums in 1913, in only 63 did recovery take 
place in less than six months. I refer, of course, to cases of parallel 
age to those forming the subject of this article. In all but 12 per cent 
I have been able to obtain some data as to their career after leaving 
hospital, and have embodied some of the findings. The time of inquiry 
varied between eight months and two years after their leaving the 
institution. 

States of excitement .—Under this heading have been placed all cases 
presenting the physical signs and mental symptoms of mania, but it is 
quite likely that some have been included who really belong to an 
exuberant phase of an exhaustion or other psychosis. 

States of depression. —Striking similarities occur between the figures 
relating to these cases and those referring to cases placed in the fore¬ 
going category. It will be noticed that the average age is slightly 
higher. Men previously in the Army form a considerably higher 
proportion here, and I suggest that the subconscious comparison between 
service in the present times of crises and in peace time may have an 
influence in the direction of depression. It is possible that in some 
cases included here the depression is but secondary to a delusional 
state, which in those noted as not doing well after discharge has 
reasserted itself. The fact that in only one out of six cases with an 
alcoholic history was the subsequent progress satisfactory rather supports 
this view. 

States of confusion .—The majority of the exhaustion psychoses are 
placed here, together with a few cases of acute delirium. A source of 
endogenous or exogenous toxaemia is traceable in most of them. It 
has been stated that neurasthenics never become insane, but when it 
is considered how much real fatigue is associated with a state of 
neurasthenia, and the amount of mental energy expended on processes 


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106 PSYCHOSES IN THE EXPEDITIONARY FORCES, [April, 

that are normally automatic, it seems only reasonable that they should 
be more, rather than less, liable to the ill-effects of fatigue products. It 
is certain that many definitely psychotic cases are met with who have 
been what is now generally described as neurasthenic prior to the onset 
of their psychosis, and remain so after their return to their apparent 
normal. 

It is amongst confusional states of exogenous toxic origin that the 
cases most fitted for further service are found, as would be expected 
from consideration of the incidental nature of their most important 
aetiological factor. 

Psychoneuroses .—Every variety of mental affection, from general 
paralysis of the insane downwards, has at some time or another been 
admitted with the label “ shell-shock.’’ The cases classified here under 
that heading are those who have exhibited acute functional symptoms 
such as paraplegia or aphonia immediately following on some source of 
extreme emotional excitement, such as being buried, or knocked down 
by the windage of an explosion. In many cases a source of w r orry 
antedating this for a variable period of time is discoverable, and the 
shock has only acted as the culminating factor—the final crystal to 
the supersaturated solution, to use a hackneyed simile. The great 
preponderance of cases from the Western Front shows what a definite 
relation the frequency and intensity of shelling bears to the incidence 
of these troubles. Some of those classified here under neurasthenia 
commenced their psychopathic career with similar symptoms, but these 
had passed off at the time of their admission, leaving them in a 
condition the most salient features of which were tremulousness on the 
physical side, and lack of concentration on the mental. In other cases 
the onset took the form of a period of amnesia. It will be seen that 
these cases have not done very well after discharge, but it must be 
remembered that only those bad enough to be considered “ mental ” 
have been admitted, and that limitations of time have prevented that 
“ following-up” treatment which is so desirable. 

Delusional states .—Exclusive of a few alcoholic cases these have 
been mostly of a paranoidal nature, and such as one would have 
ordinarily regarded as unlikely to improve. With explanatory treatment 
many of these clear up even when they have had definite ideas of 
reference with some attempts at systematisation. Cases of paranoia 
proper have been comparatively rare. The average age, total service, 
and foreign service are all higher in this class than in any other. 

Mental defectives .—Those considered here are naturally of high 
grade, men of poor general mental development who have been 
considered capable of coping with manual labour on home service. 
Two cases of “mental instability” have been included—subjects who 
developed attacks of irritability and intolerance of discipline due to 


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BY O. I\ NAPIER PEARN, M.R.C.S. 


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108 PSYCHOSES IN THE EXPEDITIONARY FORCES. [April, 

failure of adaptability. Both of these have had fairly long service, 
as also had one man whose defect was chiefly on the moral side. 
Excluding these, it is remarkable how little active service causes a 
mental defect to become obtrusive even in those who have done fairly 
well in the Army at home. 

Other psychoses .—Five eases of dementia praecox are included under 
this heading. Although the average time under treatment has been a 
month longer than that of any other class, none of these have done 
really well. In spite of an apparently complete recovery, their subsequent 
history shows that what was obtained was only a remission. There 
have been many cases which at first seemed to be dementia praecox, 
the catatonic, hebephrenic, and paranoid forms being simulated, but 
which have cleared up very quickly without leaving any mannerisms or 
psychopathic aftermath. These I regard as cases of “ regression”— 
an attempt at adaptation on lower psychic levels when the superior 
functions are in abeyance. Capt. Maurice Nicoll, in the Lancet of 
June 8th, 1918, summarises them well in the following words : “ Persons 
who showed a greater or less degree of infantility, with abnormally 
reinforced fantasy or dream life.” In the present paper they have been 
placed with the confusional states. Two cases classed as impulsive 
insanity were unstable subjects who had committed impulsive actions 
through increased irritability under strain rather than under the influence 
of true obsessions or imperative ideas. In the one case of stupor the 
condition was preceded by a short period of excitement. 

Conclusions. 

While laying claim to no new discovery, I think that the facts 
presented in this article furnish additional arguments in favour of three 
propositions which have already received some support. 

(1) That the early treatment (compulsory or voluntary) of psychotics 
is very important. 

(2) That the presence of a psychiatrist on medical recruiting boards 
is very desirable. 

(3) That careful consideration before returning a man who has 
suffered from an established psychosis to military service is very 
necessary. 


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Clinical Notes and Cases. 


A Short Note on the Use of Calcium in Excited States. By T. C. 

Graves, B.Sc., M.B., B.S.Lond., F.R.C.S.Eng., L.R.C.P.Lond., 

Temp. Capt. R.A.M.C. 

According to Prof. William Bayliss, calcium is necessary for the 
normal effect of adrenalin on sympathetic nerve-endings. Acting on 
the assumption that in acute excited states there can be no lack 
of adrenalin in the body but an absence of its “ fixation ion,” I have 
exhibited calcium lactate in ten-grain doses to many cases of more or 
less acute excitement with satisfactory results. The cases include, 
of the manias: epileptic, simple, delirious, and recurrent; agitated 
melancholia and recent acute hallucinations. The effect of the drug is 
to calm the mental state and improve the physical condition. A rapid, 
weak pulse becomes slower and stronger, any diarrhoea present ceases 
or is improved, a dry, harsh skin becomes moist and supple, the appetite 
also is improved. The younger the case the better the result, similarly 
the more recent the case, especially if of influenzal origin. Some of the 
cases, however, have responded although over forty years of age, and 
several old-standing cases have shown a temporary improvement. 


Part II.—Reviews. 


Diseases of the Nervous System: A Text-Book of Neurology and 
Psychiatry. By Drs. Smith E. Jelliffe and W. A. White. 
Second edition. Philadelphia and New York : Lea & Fibiger. 
1917. 

The form of this book is best described in the authors’ own words— 
“ a work on the diseases of the nervous system rather than two books, 
one on neurology and one on psychiatry, which would perpetuate a 
distinction which the authors believe to be artificial.” A work written 
from this standpoint should be welcome after the numerous clinical 
volumes compiled on the supposition that the lower realms of nervous 
action have little more than a bowing acquaintanceship with the cerebral 
cortex. 

The volume has been divided on physiological lines into three parts 
which treat respectively with the vegetative (endocrino-sympathetic), 
the sensori-motor, and the psychic systems, between which there is 
uninterrupted reaction; and all the clinical entities under these headings 
are dealt with in a remarkably clear fashion. The book opens with 
a useful and concise chapter on methods of examination, in which 


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important points are illustrated by photographs of the clinical features 
and diagrams of the spinal or cerebral area involved. We note that 
some of Dejerine’s figures have been made use of to the advantage of 
the reader. 

Part I, “ The Physio-Chemical Systems,” which deals with vegetative 
or visceral neurology, contains much information of value to the 
clinician, and emphasises the relationship now known to exist between 
this system and psychic function. The writers are impressed with the 
important correlations which exist between the lower or vegetative 
mechanism and cerebral disturbance, especially in the emotional field. 
“ The role of this system (vegetative) in its reaction to mental stimuli 
. . . has helped to give an interpretative status for empirically held 

beliefs ” : and the anatomical foundation for this statement is that “ the 
ganglionic system which in man serves the vegetative functions of the 
body is represented in the primary metameres, the spinal cord, again 
in the brain-stem, central grey matter and mid-brain, lenticular nucleus 
and optic thalamus (hypothalamus), and finally in the cortex, where 
the different organs under vegetative control have localisation as surely 
as those of the body musculature.” Throughout this chapter there is 
ample clinical evidence in support of the view that faulty stimuli at 
psychological levels can and do produce equally faulty reactions in the 
vegetative sphere, and vice versa. 

Part II is concerned with sensori-motor neurology, and although 
this section is rather compressed, the authors have succeeded in giving 
a clear account of the symptomatology. The subject matter is well 
illustrated by photographs and anatomical diagrams, some of which are, 
as noted under Part I, taken from Dejerine’s work. 

In Part III, “The Psychical or Symbolic Systems,” we note that 
psycho-analysis occupies a prominent position, especially in its applica¬ 
tion to the aetiology of mental disease. Emphasis is laid upon failure 
of mental adjustment to the difficulties in life with its consequent 
egocentricity, introspection, defective reaction, phantasy formations, 
conflicts, repressions, and dissociations. In this mechanism infantile 
pleasure-seeking plays an important part, and on this point there are 
some interesting illustrations under the “compulsion neurosis.” 

Manic-depressive insanity is, according to the authors, “ an effort at 
compromise and defense resulting from an endopsychic conflict.” “ In 
the depressive stage the affect has broken through and invaded con¬ 
sciousness, while in the manic phase the patient, by feverish and restless 
activity, by constant alertness, fights off every approach that might 
touch him on a painful point, that might reach a vulnerable spot.” 
The patient flies into reality to avoid the conflict, hence he is “extero- 
verted.” 

In direct contrast to this a patient suffering from so-called dementia 
prsecox is “ introverted.” Here there is a splitting of the personality 
which results in regression to the infantile and archaic in the individual, 
thus permitting older phylogenetic thought symbols to appear in 
conduct. Somatic disturbances in the realm of the vegetative nervous 
system assist in this process, although the authors admit that prominence 
must be given to the psychic factor. Still, though the mental symptoms 
may be psychogenetic their reaction on the sympathetic system cannot 


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be ignored. In this connection attention is directed towards considering 
the patient as a unit in whom no distinction can be drawn between 
mind and body. 

The whole work contains many suggestive thoughts. To many these 
may appear to have an insufficient basis; to others they will be welcome 
on account of their very suggestiveness. The book, however, apart 
from controversial matters, has the special merit that it links up 
neurology with pyschiatry, both of which have been separated too long 
to their mutual detriment. The whole nervous system must be treated 
as one single entity, and the writers have, and with considerable success 
too, given the reader an insight into many of the problems dealing 
with the interaction of its several parts. David Orr. 


Mysticism and Logic. By Bertrand Russell, M.A., F.R.S. Long¬ 
mans, Green & Co., 1918. Pp. 234, 8vo. 

This volume consists of a series of essays by Mr. Russell which have 
previously been published in other collections and various journals. In 
so far as some of these essays are out of print and others may be 
inaccessible to the general reader, the present collection will be welcome 
to those who are acquainted with the philosophic works of the author, 
as well as to those to whom this volume may open up new ground. 
Perhaps one of the chief charms of this collection, from the point of 
view of the ordinary reader, is the fact that several of the essays are not 
highly technical in presentation, and thus it becomes possible, without 
any special knowledge of philosophical methods of expression, to obtain 
a useful insight into the view-point of the leading exponent of the New 
Realism—a system of philosophic thought with which the name of Mr. 
Russell is particularly associated. 

In the first essay, which furnishes the title to the book, the writer 
outlines what he conceives to be the necessary attitude for the erection 
of a truly scientific philosophy. He shows how most philosophic systems 
have been really no more than the rationalisation of preformed intuitive 
beliefs, and that the conceptions of the universe which are presented 
by such systems are subjectively determined—a reflection of our inner 
emotions and wishes which view the world as we should like it to be, 
rather than as it actually is when viewed with scientific detachment. 
Philosophy should above all be ethically neutral, and freed from such 
terms as “ good,” “ evil,” “progress” and the like in seeking to explain 
the phenomena with which it deals, if it is to attain scientific success. 
To quote the author: “The physicist or chemist is not now required 
to prove the ethical importance of his ions or atoms ; the biologist is 
not expected to prove the utility of the plants or animals which he 
dissects. In pre-scientific ages this was not the case. Astronomy, for 
example, was studied because men believed in astrology ; it was thought 
that the movements of the planets had the most direct and important 
bearing upon the lives of human beings. Presumably, when this belief 
decayed and disinterested study of astronomy began, many who found 
astrology absorbingly interesting decided that astronomy had too little 
human interest to be worthy of study. Physics, as it appears in Plato’s 


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Timaeus, for example, is full of ethical notions : it is an essential part of 
its purpose to show that the earth is worthy of admiration. The modern 
physicist, on the contrary, though he has no wish to deny that the earth 
is admirable, is not concerned, as physicist, with its ethical attributes; 
he is merely concerned to find out facts, not to consider whether they 
are good or bad. ... In philosophy, hitherto, ethical neutrality has 
been seldom sought and hardly ever achieved. Men have remembered 
their wishes and have judged their philosophies in relation to their 
wishes. Driven from their particular sciences, the belief that the notions 
of good and evil must afford a key to the understanding of the world 
has sought a refuge in philosophy. But even from this last refuge, if 
philosophy is not to remain a set of pleasing dreams, this belief must 
be driven forth. It is a commonplace that happiness is not best achieved 
by those who seek it directly, and it would seem that the same is true 
of good. In thought, at any rate, those who forget good and evil and 
seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those 
who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.” 

It is not the affair of the psychiatrist, as such, to follow in all their 
refinements the opposing claims of realism and idealism as schools of 
philosophy; and it is certainly not the province of the reviewer to 
discuss these vexed questions, but it does seem that such views as 
the above establish a direct point of contact with those whose more 
particular interests are the problems of normal and abnormal psycho¬ 
logy. Is it not the aim of the psychiatrist to lead back his patients to 
reality, to break down the defensive erections which serve to protect 
them from a strenuous adjustment to life, and thus to carry into 
practice, as far as it is possible or advisable, the theoretical aim of the 
philosopher? Modern researches tend to demonstrate increasingly to 
what an extent the world is viewed in accordance with hidden desires, 
how strenuously individuals will defend irrational beliefs founded upon 
unconscious cravings, and how even dependence on some external power 
behind the immediate painful experience of reality can be traced to inner 
tendencies of which the individual is unaware. 

That human beliefs depend on instinctive and emotional factors 
always will be the case as applied to every-day thinking, but, as Mr. 
Russeft says, scientific philosophy, in its particular aims and sphere, 
should come nearer objectivity than any other human pursuit. It will 
not pretend to satisfy the inner cravings and needs of humanity, or 
offer ‘‘the glitter of outward mirage to flatter fallacious hopes,” but it 
will lead to the acceptance of “ the world without the tyrannous imposi¬ 
tion of our human and temporary demands,” and thus furnish its own 
intellectual reward. In such a conception of philosophy there is, of 
course, no attempt to ignore the practical importance of ethical 
teaching; on the contrary, underlying these essays it is possible to 
detect the expression of the perhaps truly religious attitude towards 
life and experience, but in this volume the true sphere of philosophy is 
narrowed down and defined—“ it aims only at understanding the world, 
and not directly at any other improvement of human life.” 

The best religious thought of the present day is by no means static 
or reactionary: it is freeing itself from traditional influences, it tends to 
be increasingly ethical in teaching, and finds practical expression in a 


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variety of necessary and beneficial social activities. Perhaps in so far 
as its assumptions are recognised as intuitive in basis, so will its influence 
be more cogent, but unfortunately there is a tendency at the present 
time for a considerable section of the community to associate themselves 
with pernicious modes of thought, disguised under a cloak of pretentious 
philosophic or pseudo-scientific phraseology, which can only be charac¬ 
terised as harmful regressive tendencies—to use the terminology of 
modern psychology. The reference is obviously to spiritualism, which, 
though disguised by an apparent attitude of detached scientific im¬ 
partiality, is yet so clearly determined by the mechanism of “wish- 
fulfilment,” and also Christian Science, an instance of that tendency to 
evasion of reality which ignores and denies the existence of what is pain¬ 
ful—crudely expressed, the traditional policy of the ostrich in danger. 

To mention these modern tendencies, which are no doubt to some 
extent an inevitable reaction after years of stress and loss, would not 
seem here to be out of place, since it is such a vigorous facing of 
reality, such clearness of vision, and such an attitude towards experience 
as find expression in this volume, combined with a humble recognition 
of the limits of knowledge, which may tend to counteract the frank and 
aggressive assumptions, the product of distorted desires and mistiness 
of thought which are contained in the various pseudo-sciences and 
philosophies now springing into such prominence. 

Some chapter headings will indicate the scope of the subjects con¬ 
sidered. In “ The Place of Science in a Liberal Education ” the author 
defines education as “ the formation by means of instruction of certain 
mental habits, and a certain outlook on life and the world.” In “ A 
Free Man’s Worship” is suggested the attitude towards life of those 
who have no dogmatic religious belief; perhaps a rather depressing 
though lofty outlook is here presented, perhaps, also, inevitably so; and 
essays on “ The Study of Mathematics ” and “ On Scientific Method in 
Philosophy ” contain much to stimulate and interest. 

Throughout these essays Mr. Russell insists on the importance of 
seeking for truth in itself rather than for any material rewards research 
in any direction may bring; so that though scientific philosophy may 
have no directly ethical aims, yet the principles underlying it have 
definitely ethical value for those who carry them into practice. All 
those who are interested in any branch of science will find much in 
this volume to inspire, and they will certainly gain a clearer vision of 
what the scientific attitude towards experience should be. This is 
expressed in the following quotation, in which Mr. Russell is discussing 
the lack of the scientific spirit in philosophy: “Philosophers and the 
public imagine that the scientific spirit must pervade pages that bristle 
with allusions to ions, germ-plasms, and the eyes of shell-fish. But as 
the devil can quote Scripture, so the philosopher can quote science. 
The scientific spirit is not an affair of quotation, of externally acquired 
information, any more than manners are an affair of the etiquette-book. 
The scientific attitude of mind involves a sweeping away of all other 
desires in the interest of the desire to know—it involves suppression 
of hopes and fears, loves and hates, and the whole subjective emotional 
life, until we become subdued with the material, able to see it frankly 
without preconceptions, without bias, without any wish except to see it 
LXV. 8 


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[April, 


as it is, and without any belief that what it is must be determined by 
some relation, positive or negative, to what we should like it to be, or 
to what we can easily imagine it to be.” 

Emphasis has beer> laid on those elements in this volume which 
suggest what should be the general attitude towards scientific investi¬ 
gation in whatever particular sphere. Much scientific work is by no 
means free from bias and preformed opinions, and it is perhaps 
inevitable that it should be so, mental life being what the psychologist 
knows it to be. Nevertheless, the mental attitude towards phenomena 
indicated in the above quotation may well be the ideal at which the 
scientist aims, however difficult it may be in practice. 

To do this volume full justice, however, it should be mentioned that 
several essays are more technical in character, and will thus be of special 
value and interest to the student of philosophy. The following titles 
will serve to indicate sufficiently the full scope of this collection, viz., 
“The Ultimate Constituents of Matter,” “The Relation of Sense-data 
to Physics,” “ The Notion of Cause,” and “ Knowledge by Acquaintance 
and Knowledge by Description.” H. Devine. 


Essays in Scientific Synthesis. By Eugenio Rignano. Translated by 

J. W. Greenstreet, M.A. London: Allen & Unwin, 1918. 

Pp. 254. Price 7 s. 6 d. net. 

Sig. Rignano. of Milan, is the able and energetic editor of the 
international review, Scientia, published in Italy, and he has shown 
himself indefatigable during the war in bringing together distinguished 
scientific and philosophical contributors to his review. He is also, 
however, a remarkable thinker and writer whose penetrating and 
suggestive essays seldom fail to throw light on old questions or to 
advance new questions. He excels in showing how one branch of 
scientific activity may fertilise or illuminate another branch. This 
attitude of mind is revealed, as indeed the title indicates, in the present 
volume, which consists of a series of separate studies on the rdle of the 
theorist in biology and sociology, the synthetic value of the evolution 
theory, biological memory, the mnemic nature of affective tendencies, 
the nature of consciousness, the religious phenomenon, historic 
materialism and socialism. Diverse as the subjects may seem, the 
spirit and object, as the author points out in the preface to the 
English edition, are the same: “That of demonstrating the utility in 
the biological, psychological, and sociological fields of the theorist, who, 
without having specialised in any particular subdivision of science, 
may nevertheless bring into those spheres that synthetic and unifying 
vision which is brought by the theorist-mathematician with so much 
success into the physico-chemical field of science.” In the introductory 
essay the author sets forth clearly the beneficial part which the theorist, 
able to embrace impartially the opposing views due to the inevitable 
limitation of the specialist, may play in the advance of science. He 
refers, for instance, to the problem aroused by vitalism, to the contests 
between physiologists and psychologists, both in part right, concerning 
affective phenomena, to the attempts of psychologists and sociologists 
to appropriate exclusively the phenomena of religion which rightly 


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belong to both, and he adopts the mnemic theory—now gaining 
increased support in its reconciliation of the advocates and opponents 
of the transmission of acquired characters—which he uses fruitfully in 
some of the subsequent chapters. 

The mnemic theory, with its insistence on the organic impress of 
habit, is visible, indeed, in the following essay on the synthetic value 
of the evolution theory. Summarising the contest between the 
preformist and the epigenetist, each of whom can bring forward a long 
series of facts which tell dead against the other, Rignano finds support 
for his own centro-epigenetic theory (set forth in an earlier volume), 
according to which the development of each part would depend not 
on that of all the other parts of the soma, but rather on the continuous 
action which the germinal substance of the central zone exercises on 
the rest of the organism during development. The wonderful 
phenomena of the recapitulation of phylogenesis by ontogenesis, he 
insists, is simply an aspect of an essentially mnemic phenomenon, 
a sign that the living substance remembers all the stages through 
which the species has passed in consequence of the continuous 
acquisition of new characters successively added to the old. Here, 
in “ this affirmation of profound and unsuspected analogies between 
the vital phenomenon in general and the mnemic phenomenon, 
enabling us to conceive of the latter as the fundamental substratum 
and inner essence of the former,” we have “an imposing synthesis of 
biology and psychology.” “ All vital phenomena are also mnemic.” 

In the essay which follows, the author summarises clearly his centro- 
epigenetic theory, confronting it with many established facts, and argues 
that the law of the recapitulation of phylogenesis by ontogenesis is the 
immediate consequence of the transmissibility of acquired characters 
in the mnemic sense, as understood by Hering, Semon, Butler, and 
Francis Darwin, the mnemic faculty being the corner-stone of the 
centro epigenetic hypothesis. 

An instructive and searching study follows of the mnemic origin and 
nature of the affective tendencies. In a certain sense Rignano would 
accept a somatic or visceral basis for the fundamental affective 
tendencies, constituted by “an infinite number of elementary specific 
accumulations, differing from point to point of the body, and whose 
combined potential energy would form, as it were, a force of gravitation.” 
Hence special affectivities originating by way of “ habit.” Everywhere 
we find verification of Lehmann’s law of “ the indispensability of the 
habitual,” which he established for every stimulus to which one grows 
accustomed, and in the absence of which we become conscious of a 
“ need.” Maternal affection, as resting upon lactation, is here instanced. 
We must attribute a similar mnemic origin, the author believes, to all 
the affective tendencies, since the innate and the acquired do not differ 
in their nature. “ Habit is second nature,” and that adage must be 
completed by the inverse axiom—“ Nature is nothing but first habit.” 
In this connection Rignano (like Stout) insists on the important distinc¬ 
tion between affective tendencies and emotion, and criticises the 
confusion into which Sherrington has fallen at this point. Every 
emotion presupposes an affective tendency, but an affective tendency 
by no means necessarily involves an emotion. If we see a vehicle 


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116 

approaching in the distance an affective tendency leads us to step 
calmly out of the way; if it suddenly comes on us round a corner we 
experience an emotion and dart out of the way. It is not the emotion 
which impels us, it is the affective tendency; the emotion is but the 
reaction of a too rapid or intense realisation of the affective tendency. 
The will, Rignano declares (in harmony with Maudsley), is nothing but 
a true and characteristic affective tendency. “ The mnemic property, 
the property of ‘specific accumulation,’ is everywhere present in 
organic nature, and makes the world of life a world apart, of which the 
most essential characteristics cannot consequently be explained by the 
laws of physics and chemistry alone.” 

What is consciousness ? This is the subject of another study, and 
the author concludes that a psychic state is notin itself either conscious 
or unconscious, but becomes one or the other in relation to some other 
psychic state. Consciousness is thus not an intrinsic and absolute 
property, but extrinsic and relative. 

In dealing with religious phenomena, Rignano attaches primary 
importance to the propitiatory attitude as unknown in animals (though 
surely one may see it clearly in the domesticated dog), but appearing 
early in the struggle between man and man. “ The first man who threw 
himself prostrate, but no longer before another man, was the first believer 
and the fiist founder of all religions.” Other elements, it is admitted, 
become associated, but propitiation assumed struggle, and also assumed 
that something was to be gained by the weaker from the stronger party, 
who might be turned into an ally or protector. In keeping this weaker 
party in parasitic subjection the stronger party could make use of 
religion to fortify his power, for religion tends, as Reinach remarks, to 
become an aggregate of taboos. All law thus has a religious origin, and 
the social order at first rests entirely on religion. In developing his 
exposition the author insists much on the primitive importance of war : 
“No social activity set the religious organ in motion more notably than 
war,” which we must consider as “ the greatest, the most universal, and 
the most fundamental of all social activities.” Let it be added at once 
that the author believes that “ war is condemned to disappear,” like 
cannibalism ; as also religion (except in so far as it is the sweet and 
intimate consolation of the individual soul) is condemned to disappear, 
since both war and religion gain their power from primitive social con¬ 
ditions which are now passing away. It may, however, be pointed out 
that the view here accepted as to the immense significance of war in 
primitive society is contested. It is not accepted by many distinguished 
sociologists. There are many good reasons for believing that war only 
developed very slowly; even to-day among savages in the most various 
parts of the world war is not a serious matter, and Sig. Rignano would 
be well advised to study the powerful arguments and array of facts 
brought together by the Finnish sociologist Rudolf Holsti four years 
ago in his book (published in English) on The Relation of War to the 
Origin of the State. 

While, however, it is sometimes possible to differ from the author, 
there can be no difference of opinion as to the suggestive and stimulating 
value of his vigorous and thoughtful book, which is nearly always well 
abreast of current research and speculation. Havelock Ellis. 


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PSYCHOLOGY. 


ii 7 


Part III.—Epitome of Current Literature. 


i. Psychology. 

Why is the “ Unconscious ” unconscious ? (The British Journal of 

Psychology, October, 1918.) Nicoll, Maurice , Rivers, IV. H. R., 
and Jones, Ernest. 

Three papers which were contributions to a symposium at a joint 
session of the British Psychological Society, the Aristotelian Society 
and the Mind Association. Dr. Nicoll presents the teaching of Jung 
upon the nature of the “unconscious.” To Jung the primitive life 
force, or libido, is not sexuality, but an energy one of whose manifesta¬ 
tions is sexuality. He supposes the “ unconscious ” to have two 
constituents, the one, the personal unconscious, derived from repressed 
and forgotten material that has an intimate and personal significance, 
and the other, the collective unconscious, impersonal and made up of 
primordial thought feelings, which form the primitive pattern of all 
thought, and which is worked up, according to the mental powers, 
into more or less elaborate thought-systems. It would seem that 
potentially in the “ unconscious ” of all people are equal possibilities 
of achievement in any sphere of thought, the conscious expression 
being a matter of individual capacity for elaboration and detail. "Thus 
material included in the “unconscious” may find expression in a 
vague inarticulate feeling which eludes definite formulation, it may 
find expression in the phantasies of dementia prsecox, or it may be 
adapted to reality and reach definite systematic formulation in the 
production of genius. 

The “ unconscious ” is thus unconscious because it is nascent 
thought—thought which is not yet adapted to reality. The view is 
an evolutionary one. The progressive transmutations of psychic 
energy are carried out at levels beneath consciousness, just as the 
progressive transmutations of the embryo are carried out in the womb 
of the mother, and it is only the comparatively adapted form that is 
born into waking life. 

In the second paper Dr. Rivers points out that Dr. Nicoll more 
or less ignores the personal unconscious, and deals with the unconscious 
with which man is endowed at birth, the latter being identical with 
that which the psychologist knows as instinct. Dr. Rivers devotes 
his attention to what are generally known as dissociations of conscious¬ 
ness, i.e., elements of mental life which become unconscious, and only 
enter conscious mental life in sleep or hypnosis, or in waking life 
under special conditions. He seeks an answer to the following 
questions: (1) Why should an experience become unconscious? (2) 
why, having become unconscious, should it persist in a dissociated 
state, ready to appear in consciousness after years of dormacy, if 
special conditions arise? In considering the first question he shows 
that in some forms of animal life, e.g., the frog, instinctive phases of 
experience must pass into a state of unconsciousness in the widely 


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118 epitome. [April, 

differing phases of life-history since the instinctive needs and conditions 
of life are so different. Similar, if not such striking, differences occur 
in the life-history of man, and infantile instinctive reactions which are 
incompatible with the reactions of adult life must become unconscious. 
Proceeding on these lines the writer suggests that dissociation is a 
state especially prone to occur whenever it is required to put instinctive 
modes of reaction into abeyance, to suppress instinctive modes of 
behaviour which would interfere with the harmony of an existence 
based on less immediate and more modifiable reactions. 

Though instinctive reactions are especially susceptible to dissociation, 
complete suppression does not occur in human beings as in the case 
of insects and amphibians in varying stages of development. In man 
in whom instinct has become subject to reason the process has been 
employed in a selective manner, certain elements of the instinctive 
complex having been suppressed while others have been combined 
with later modifiable modes of reaction. This affords a clue to the 
second problem as to why the unconscious should persist. What is 
incompatible with the intelligence in instinct is subject to suppression 
or dissociated, but part of the instinctive process is still utilised to 
form products blended with reason. The experience which is dis¬ 
sociated persists, partly because of the inherent vitality of instinct, 
partly because the suppressed experience usually forms an integral 
part of a complex, other constituents of which have been utilised and 
incorporated into the personality. 

Dr. Ernest Jones approaches the subject from a view-point according 
closely with that of Freud. Unconscious material is characterised by 
the “ resistance ” which is displayed when an attempt is made to render 
it conscious, and by the fact that its content is of such a nature as 
to be in sharp conflict with the tendencies and attitude of the conscious 
mind. While Dr. Rivers would say that unconscious is dissociated 
because it is “detrimental to welfare,” incompatible with reason. 
Dr. Jones regards the process as hedonic rather than utilitarian in 
nature; it is unconscious because it is unpleasant to the conscious 
personality. The “unconscious” is unconscious because of the 
inhibiting pressure of the affective factors grouped under the name 
“repression.” These affective factors develop with mental growth, and 
inhibit and repress infantile impulses which are perfectly natural in 
the early stages of life. In early life the primitive pleasure-pain 
principle dominates the reactions of the organism ; with mental develop¬ 
ment the “reality-principle,” i.e., the subordination of immediate 
pleasure or avoidance of pain to the exigencies of objective reality, 
supplants the pleasure-pain principle. The primitive infantile impulses 
thus acquire an unpleasant feeling-tone and constitute the unconscious; 
they undergo repression as a result of their increasing incompatibility 
with the conscious mental life. H. Devine. 


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119 


2. Clinical Neurology and Psychiatry. 

(1) A Personality Study of the Epileptic Constitution. (Amer. Journ. 

Med. Sci., 1914, c. xlvii.) Pierce, Clark L. 

(2) The Psychological and Therapeutic Value of Mental Content During 
and Follo 7 ving Epileptic Attacks. (Ne 7 v York Med. Journ., October 
\$th, 1917.) Pierce, Clark L. 

(3) Clinical Studies in Epilepsy. {Psychiatric Bulletin, January, 1916, 
to January, 1917..) Pierce, Clark L. 

(4) A Further Study of Mental Content in Epilepsy. {Psychiatric 
Bulletin, October, 1917.) Pierce, Clark L. 

(5) The True Epileptic. {New York Med. Journ., May 4 th, 1918.) 
Pierce, Clark L. 

The researches contained in the above series of papers indicate a 
promising line of study, which should lead not only to a greater insight 
into the nature of epilepsy, but also suggest directions into which mental 
therapy may be usefully applied. For some time a marked reaction 
against the purely drug treatment of epilepsy has become manifest. 
The establishment of colonies for the segregation of epileptics, together 
with a more rational form of therapy, diet, hydrotherapy, and detailed 
plans of work and exercise, indicate a recognition of a more individual 
and psychological method of treatment, and of the necessity of creating 
an environment to which the epileptic can make a useful adjustment. 
These researches suggest that a still more intensive individual treatment 
is possible, and they indicate an effort to introduce a rational psychologic 
therapy for epileptic conditions founded on essential defects in the 
make-up of the epileptic constitution. 

An understanding of this problem can only be gained by a study of 
the primary and fundamental make-up of the epileptic which antedates 
the grosser epileptic manifestations for years. The usual make-up of 
the potential epileptic child is one of ego-centricity, emotional poverty, 
morbid sensitiveness, and an inability to take on the adaptive social 
training in the home and school. Such a type in contact with an 
exacting environment expresses itself in rages and tantrums, which 
expressions of mal-adaption should be side-tracked by directing the 
interest to another channel. In these exhibitions of baulked desire the 
child’s psychic activity must be regarded as a continuously outflowing 
stream of interest, unfortunately thwarted, which should not be dammed 
or blocked, but should be re-directed by individual approach and pains¬ 
taking attempts to create an atmosphere to which the defective child 
can make a satisfactory adjustment. 

The main epileptic defect is an inheritable one. There is an 
attenuated desire to reach out into the external world, and the social 
instinct is soon withdrawn, and becomes centered on the epileptic 
producing the classic ego-centric make-up, with its peculiar character 
distortion. This early repression of emotion not only results in failure 
of social contact, but hinders intellectual development, leading to new 
stresses and humiliations. The ego-centricity is not a lack of emotional 
feeling, but it is feeling wrongly directed leading to increased sensitive¬ 
ness. The effects of a stressful environment on such a temperament 


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EPITOME. 


[April, 

inherently inadaptable to normal social life are seen in the regressive 
tendencies of day-dreaming, lethargies, somnolence, and, later on, definite 
epileptic reactions. The last occur as a final outbreak of a too severe 
tension, and psychologically may be viewed as an intense reaction away 
from an intolerable situation—a regression to a primitive mentality 
comparable to that of infancy or intrauterine life. The fit is thus a 
kind of emotional cathartic, the sting of the previous stress is removed, 
and annoying incidents are but half remembered, the amnesia acting as 
a kind of protective curtain. 

Therapy in essential epilepsy should concern itself especially with the 
eradication, as far as possible, of the defective instincts shown in ego- 
centricity, supersensitiveness, and rigidity of adaption to the home and 
community. This is best brought about by a reduction of environmental 
stress, educating the child in adaption to the various types of stress and 
the search for a spontaneous outlet for his keen individualistic desires, 
and the creation of his own interests in a healthful environment. Since 
these individuals with this defective make-up tend to show pronounced 
epileptic manifestations whenever they fail to make proper life adaptions, 
the fit is to be regarded both a regressive as well as a protective pheno¬ 
menon—a reaction away from stressful reality. 

In order, therefore, to obtain indications for therapeutic training, 
it is important to obtain some knowledge of the epileptic mental 
content in twilight states or post-epileptic conditions, in so far as this 
reveals the intimate part of his unconscious strivings, and furnishes 
insight into his humiliations and conflicts. In obtaining mental content, 
three main divisions of psychic events are to be considered : (i) The 
remote or immediate stresses that promote and aggravate the occurrence 
of individual epileptic reactions ; (2) the actual mental content obtained 
in the specific attack ; (3) the early or ultimate free association upon the 
material expressed in the content. Proceeding on these lines, the writer 
furnishes details of his investigations upon a number of cases, and he 
proves that the epileptic regresses from the displeasurable difficulties 
of life, and that in the first stage of the fit the stress alone may be 
discerned, but that when the patient reaches a deeper unconscious 
state he gains the level of an easily recognisable sexual striving. The 
basic idea in such studies is to determine the defective make-up and 
its specific conflicts, to bring into the patient’s mind a better insight 
into his malady, and then cause him to see the consequence of his 
crude handling of life. A knowledge of the epileptic content furnishes 
a specific point of analytic attack by simple explanatory talks, and 
indicates more definitely the type of special education which should be 
adopted for each individual patient. 

The task of rehabilitating such epileptics is extremely difficult 
because of the depths of unconscious regression taken, and the ex¬ 
treme infantilism of the instinctive trends brought out. Such investiga¬ 
tions, however, enable them to make the best use of their lives, and 
while, of course, there can be no change in the facts of life, talking 
over difficulties gives much relief—it gives a new view-point, and shows 
the patient that there are other ways of reacting to unpleasant stresses. 

H. Devine. 


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19 19-J CLINICAL NEUROLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY. 


I 2 I 


Psychoses associated with Influenza. (The Journal of the American 
Medical Association, January zfh, 1919.) Menninger, Karl A. 

The cases upon which this study is based were observed at the 
Boston Psychopathic Hospital during the recent epidemic. One 
hundred cases of mental disturbance associated with influenza were 
admitted during a period of three months, eighty of whom were 
intensively studied. The cases are divided into four groups: (1) 
Infection-toxin delirium, prefebrile, febrile, and post-febrile; (2) de¬ 
mentia praecox; (3) other psychoses, manic-depressive insanity, psycho¬ 
neurosis, paranoia, alcoholic psychoses, and neurosyphilitic psychoses; 
(4) unclassified. It was found that in all but the febrile deliria there 
was usually an interval of from two to eight da^s from the termination 
of the influenza and the first manifestations of the psychosis. 

The writer suggests that these observations furnish some evidence 
for the organic basis of dementia pnecox. The facts on which this 
view is based are: (1) The frequency of its occurrence (31 percent.) 
in this series; (2) the tendency of the cases between the ages of 
20 and 30 to develop this form of disorder; (3) the frequency of 
schizophrenic symptoms in otherwise typical cases of delirium ; (4) 
the occurrence of several cases in which a diagnosis could not be made 
between delirium and dementia praecox. The psychiatric prognosis 
in influenza, excluding cases with a previous psychotic basis, such as 
alcohol and neurosyphilis, may be expressed in general as delirium 
(with recovery), death, or dementia praecox. H. Devine. 


The Treatment of Delirium Tremens by Spinal Puncture, Stimulation, 
and the Use of Alkali Agents, (fourn. of Nerv. and Ment. Dis., 
February, 1918.) Hoppe, H. //. 

The method of treatment here outlined is based upon the pathology 
of the disease. Delirium tremens is an acute exhaustion psychosis 
developed upon a basis of chronic alcoholism. There are thus the 
characteristic pathological changes in the brain, heart and blood¬ 
vessels, the result of chronic alcoholism, and also an acute condition of 
the meninges caused by a poison which has found its way into the 
cerebral circulation. Degenerative changes and passive congestion of 
the intestinal tract lead to the formation of an intermediate toxin, which 
is probably the cause of the delirium. As long as this toxin can be 
eliminated by the kidneys, with the help of the circulatory apparatus, 
conditions are fairly normal. As soon as there is a failure of elimina¬ 
tion, however, cerebral oedema, an increase of cerebro spinal fluid, 
arterial ganglionic cell asphyxia, acidosis, and then delirium tremens 
occur. The underlying causal factors, the toxin, weakened circulation, 
deficient elimination, increased pressure of the cerebro-spinal fluid are 
therefore rationally treated by elimination, stimulation of the circula¬ 
tory apparatus, and the removal of the increased pressure on the brain 
and cerebral circulation. 

Briefly, the routine method adopted is as follows: (1) Catharsis— 
calomel and Epsom salts ; (2) digitalis and nux vomica ; (3) alkalies; 
(4) hot packs ; (5) spinal puncture—from 30-60 c.c. being withdraw 


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As a result of considerable experience of treatment upon these lines 
the writer concludes that the disease is thereby rendered shorter and 
milder, the patients are easier to nurse, complications are avoided, and 
the death-rate is definitely reduced. H. Devine. 


Part IV—Notes and News. 


THE MEDICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 

AND IRELAND. 

The Quarterly Meeting of the Association was held at 11, Chandos Street, 
Cavendish Square, London, W., on Thursday, February 20th, Lieut.-Col. John 
Keay, M.D., F.R.C.P., R.A.M.C. (President), in the chair. 

The following signed their names in the book as having been present at the 
meeting or as having attended meetings of committees : Sir G. H. Savage, Sir 
Robert Armstrong-Jones, Drs. M. A. Archdale, G. F. Barham, Fletcher Beach, 
Charles H. Bond, David Bower, A. N. Boycott, James Chambers, R. H. Cole, M. A. 
Collins, Maurice Craig, Alfred W. Daniel, H. Devine, J. Francis Dixon, R. Eager, 
Claude F. Fothergill, R. W. Dale Hewson, G. H. Johnston, H. Kerr, A. C. King- 
Turner, R. L. Langdon-Down, S. Rutherford Macphail, John Marnan, W. F. 
Menzies, Alfred Miller, Hubert J. Norman, David Ogilvy, E. S. Pasmore, Bedford 
Pierce, Daniel F. Rambaut, Charles Stanford Read, David Rice, Marriott L. 
Rowan, J. Noel Sergeant, Edward B. Sherlock, G. E. Shuttleworth, Thomas 
W. Smith, J. G. Soutar, T. E. K. Stansfield, R. C. Stewart, W. H. B. Stoddart, 
F. R. P. Taylor, John Turner, C. M. Tuke, James R. Whitwell, H. Wolseley-Lewis, 
Reginald Worth, and R. H. Steen (General Secretary). 

Present at Council Meeting-. Lieut-Col. John Keay (President) in the chair, 
Sir R. Armstrong-Jones, and Drs. David Bower, James Chambers, R. H. Cole, 
A. W. Daniel, R. Eager, Alfred Miller, Bedford Pierce, J. Noel Sergeant, G. E. 
Shuttleworth, H. Wolseley-Lewis, and R. H. Steen. 

Drs. S. Rutherford Macphail, J. G. Soutar, T. E. K. Stansfield and R. Worth 
were present by special invitation. 

Apologies for unavoidable absence were received from: Drs. T. S. Adair, 
H. D. M. Alexander, G. N. Bartlett, R. B. Campbell, Maurice Craig, Arthur N. 
Davis, Thomas Drapes, J. R. Gilmour, G. D. McRae, J. Mills, L. R. Oswald, Donald 
Ross, E. F. Sail, James H. Skeen, J. B. Spence, H. F. Stephens, Francis Suther¬ 
land, and D. G. Thomson. 

The minutes of the last Quarterly Meeting, having already been printed in the 
Journal, were taken as read and signed. 

Obituary. 

The President said that since the last meeting of the Association the death 
had occurred of one of the past Presidents, Dr. George William Mould, the Medical 
Superintendent of the Manchester Mental Hospital at Cheadle. Dr. Mould was 
a very old member of this Association. He graduated in 1858, and then was 
appointed to the post of Resident Medical Officer at Prestwich Asylum. While there 
he received the transfer to the Medical Superintendentship of the Royal Mental 
Hospital, Cheadle. Dr. Mould was Lecturer and Examiner in Mental Diseases at 
the Victoria University, Manchester, and in 1880 became President of this Asso¬ 
ciation. He, the President, was sure it would be the wish of the meeting that the 
Secretary be instructed to forward a suitable letter of condolence to Dr. Mould's 
surviving relatives. 

This was agreed to by members rising in their places. 

The President said he wished next to refer to a personal matter. He was 
very sorry that illness prevented his attendance at the meeting held in London last 
November. At the same time he wished to express to members his thanks for the 


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I 919 .] 

letter of sympathy he received on their behalf from the General Secretary. Further, 
he desired to express his indebtedness to Colonel Thomson for taking his, Col. 
Keay’s, place on that occasion. 


Greetings from the Medico-Psychological Society of Paris. 

The President asked the Secretary to read a letter which had been received 
from the Medico-Psychological Society, Paris. 


SOClfiTfi MfiDICO-PSYCHOLOGIQUE. 

Secretariat General. 

Monsieur le President, —La Society Medico-Psychologique de Paris a tenu 
sa stance mensuelle le lundi 25 Novembre dernier. Sur la proposition de son 
President, M. le Dr. Henri Colin, elle a vote l’ordre du jour suivant: 

“ La Society Medico-Psychologique, dans la joie de la victoire commune, adresse 
a sa soeur, l’Association Medico-Psychologique de la Grande-Bretagne et de 
l’lrlande, ses meilleurs souvenirs et ses vifs sentiments d'affectueuse sympathie; 
elle emet le voeu que des liens d’une plus intime solidarity se nouent entres les deux 
compagnies savantes pour le plus grand bien de la Science et de l’Humanite.” 

Je suis heureux d’etre charge par mes collegues de vous envoyer cet ordre du 
jour, faible temoignage de notre sincere attachement et de notre vive admiration 
pour le Grande-Bretagne, cette noble Nation, qui a luttd vaillamment et noblement 
i c6td de nous pour dfefendre la civilisation contre la barbarie. 

Veuillez agrder, Monsieur le President, 1 ’hommage de mes sentiments respect- 
ueuses et ddvouds. 

“Le Secretaire Gdndral, 

Paris; Ant. Ritti, 

le 8 DScembre, 1918. 68, Boulevard Exelmans (XVI). 

Monsieur le President de l’Association Medico-Psychologique de la Grande- 
Bretagne et de l'lrlande. 

The President said he was sure all members would reciprocate most cordially 
the desire of their sister society in Paris for closer relationships, and, therefore, 
that it would be the pleasure of those present to authorise a letter being sent 
expressive of their sentiments, also their never-dying admiration for their gallant 
comrades of France. The question arose as to the manner in which the closer 
relationships alluded to could be manifested. It might be suggested that this 
Association should invite representatives from the sister Society to attend the next 
annual meeting of the Association. He would be glad to hear views on the matter. 

Dr. Bedford Pierce moved that the President’s suggestion be adopted, namely, 
an invitation be sent to the Paris Society to send representatives to the Associa¬ 
tion’s next annual meeting. 

This was agreed to. 

Resignation of Dr. Steen as Secretary. 

The President said he presumed members were all aware that the General 
Secretary, Dr. Steen, had been advised to curtail his activities, hence he found it 
necessary to resign the office of Secretary of the Association. Dr. Steen had been 
a most admirable Secretary, possessed of energy, tact and wisdom, he had been a 
safe guide, and was always a most jealous guardian of the interests of the Society. 
It was fortunate that he was able to announce that Major Worth had expressed his 
willingness to take upon himself the burden which had been borne by Dr. Steen, 
and it should be left to the President to express the confident hope and expectation 
that he would be a worthy successor to Dr. Steen. 

Dr. Steen thanked the President for the very kind remarks he had made con- 
concerning him. At times the secretarial duties might seem rather heavy, but the 
other officers of the Association were so very helpful and kind, especially the 
Treasurer and the late Treasurer, that really the work had not been so very difficult 
after all, and it certainly was a great pleasure to work for the Association. 


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Asylum Administration as affected by Present Events. 

The President : Members have all received an addendum to the business of 
this meeting, in the form of a letter from the General Secretary, stating that he 
had been written to by several members to say that, in their opinion, the Associa¬ 
tion should discuss the question of asylum administration as affected by present 
events. It is suggested that that item of the business of the meeting should come 
on now, therefore I will call upon Dr. Wolsejey Lewis to introduce the subject. 

Dr. Wolseley Lewis: You ask me, sir, to introduce a discussion on asylum 
administration as affected by present events, and I do so, not because I have a 
scheme for an asylum millenium in my pocket, but because I think it is a matter 
of paramount importance to this Association. The recent events alluded to are, 
firstly, the issue of the programme of the National Asylum Workers’ Uuion; and, 
secondly, some conferences which have been held at the Guildhall and at the 
London County Hall recently, at which this programme, among other things, was 
discussed. I have had the advantage of studying the National Asylum Workers' 
programme, and also of having been present at both the conferences. Whether 
we view the National Asylum Workers’ Union with sympathy or not, whether 
we approve of the nursing staff of an asylum being members of a trade union, 
whether we think it dignified, appropriate, or wise for them to join the Union 
appears to me to be chiefly a matter of academic interest. The fact is that they 
have formed a Union. The law allows, and public opinion approves of, the 
principle of collective bargaining. It is our business, I submit, to deal with the facts. 

What are the facts ? Firstly, a registered trade union has been formed by a 
considerable percentage of asylum staffs, and they have been trying to enforce 
their demands by strikes and threats of strikes. The ever-increasing demands of 
this Union have driven public authorities to unite in order that they might formu¬ 
late some common policy to deal with the situation. The Executive Committee 
of the Guildhall Conference and of the Conference which was held at the London 
County Council Hall have written to the Ministry of Labour asking that ministry 
to set up an Industrial Board, composed of ten representatives of the public 
authorities and ten representatives of the National Asylum Workers’ Union. And 
the delegates of the National Asylum Workers’ Union who were present at the 
London County Council conference undertook to recommend to their executive 
committee that they would make a similar representation to the Ministry of Labour. 

So much, then, Mr. President, for the facts. Now, there are two points to which 
1 wish to draw your very particular attention. The first is, that the National 
Asylum Workers’ Union claims to be representative of a highly-skilled body of 
workers. Is that claim well founded ? They admit—nay, they induce to become 
members of the Union—any employee entering an asylum, however newly joined, 
however untrained, and whatever measure of responsibility he may have. On the 
other hand, they discourage, and I understand they exclude, an officer of any sort. 
It seems to me that that necessarily means that the preponderance of their members 
must be the comparatively irresponsible, those who know very little of the con¬ 
ditions of asylum life, and that their debates must necessarily lack the steadying 
and wiser counsels of those who, by longer service and by their ability, have raised 
themselves from the ranks. So that I ask again, Does the National Asylum 
Workers' Union really represent the skilled nursing employd of an asylum? 

The second point to which I wish to draw your attention is this : There are 
many questions of asylum administration on which medical superintendents are 
asked to advise their committees. But under this Industrial Council the medical 
superintendents will have no representative on either side, and it seems to me, 
under such circumstances, that members of this Association will find themselves 
in a very anomalous position! Take, for instance, the first item on the Asylum 
Workers’ Union programme. They ask for a 48-hour week. That is, by inference, 
an 8-hour day, or night, as the case may be. Obviously our first duty is to safe¬ 
guard the interests and to promote the welfare of our patients by every means in 
our power. Recognising this, I have long been in sympathy with a reduction of 
the hours of the nursing staffs of asylums because I think it means improved 
efficiency. But please note that, when I say that, I essentially mean hours per 
day and not necessarily hours per week. It is the reduction of the working hours 
per day that I believe the more intelligent of the asylum staff wish to have, and 


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it is the reduction of the working hours per day which I think is likely to increase 
their efficiency. In other words, I do not think 12 or 14 hours a day make 
for efficiency. The war has taught us many things, and during our recent 
enforced shortage of staff I had an opportunity of observing that there were 
periods in the daily routine of a large asylum when a substantial reduction of 
staff might occur without detriment to the patients. And this observation led 
me to propose to my Committee a scheme which they have adopted and ordered 
to be put into execution as soon as possible. If you will allow me I will very 
shortly sketch that scheme. It is based on the old calculation of one attendant 
to ten patients, and presupposes that patients rise at 6 and are in bed by 8. 


Dr. H. Wolseley Lewis’s Scheme for Hours of Duty of Nursing Staff. 

March , 1919. 

Allow 100 Attendants or Nurses for Day Duty for 1,000 beds (i.e., 1 to 10). 
Deduct 15 average number daily off duty. 

„ 6 „ ,, on annual leave. 

„ 3 „ „ sick. 

Leaving 76 on duty. 

Half Staff to commence duty at 6 a.m. and leave at 6 p.m. 

Half Staff to commence duty at 8 a.m. and leave at 8 p.m. 

Change of hours to be made weekly. 

Staff Breakfasts 8-8.30 and 8.30-9. 

Staff Dinners 12.30-1.15 and 1.15-2. 

Staff Teas 5-5.30 and 5.30-6. 

Allow 20 Attendants or Nurses for Night Duty for 1,000 beds {i.e., 1 to 50). 
Deduct 3 average number nightly off duty. 

Leaving 17 on duty. 

(Other deductions allowed for in day duty numbers.) 

Night Staff to commence duty at 7.45 p.m. and leave at 6 a.m. 

Breakfast at 6.30 a.m. 

Dinner at 7 p.m. 

One meal during night in Ward Kitchens by arrangement among Staff. 


Making a working day or night of io) hours, or 61 J hours per week. 

Kent County Asylum, Maidstone. 

Daily Routine. 

Patients get up and Day Staff takes over Wards. 

Night Staff Breakfast. 

Patients’ Breakfast. 

1st Staff Breakfast. 

2nd Staff Breakfast. 

Chapel. 

Medical Officers’ Visits. 

Airing Courts. 

General Bathroom. 

Female Patients’ Dinner. 

Male Patients’ Dinner. 

1st Staff Dinner. 

2nd Staff Dinner. 

Airing Courts. 

Walking Parties. 

Shopping Parties. 

Funerals. 

General Bathroom. 

Lectures. 

Fire Drill (Thursdays). 

Catholic Service (Fridays). 

Choir Practice (Fridays). 

Band Practices. 


6 a.m. 
6.30 

7 - 30 

8- 8.30 
8.30-9 
9 l 5~ 12 


12 noon 
12.15 

12.30-1.15 

1.15- 2 

2-5 


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5 Patients’ Tea. 

5-5.30 1st Staff Tea. 

5.30-6 2nd Staff Tea. 

Medical Officers’ Visits. 

Entertainments. 

Dances, etc. 

7-7-30 Night Staff Dinner. 

7 ~ 7 - 3 ° Patients go to bed. 

7.45-8 Night Staff takes over Wards. 

In working out the details of this scheme, I was very much impressed by 
the fact that I could find no way of materially reducing the hours below what 
I have said without sacrificing the patient. Of course, there is the three-shift 
system. My objections to the three-shift system are these: First, it means a 
constant change of personnel, and therefore a lack of continuity in the treatment 
of the patient. We all know what it means if the “ charge ” and the second in 
the ward are off duty. Those of you who have read your Times this morning 
will have seen that in the general London hospitals there is the same move to 
shorten hours, and I notice that in some hospitals they are proposing an 8-hour 
day. I submit, Sir, that the condition in asylums is rather different from that 
in a general hospital. I can quite understand that if you have a nurse who is, 
we will say, cognisant of the proper treatment of a fractured leg, the nurse-in¬ 
charge might be changed three times in 24 hours without any detriment to 
the patient. But in the case of mental disease, those of us who are acquainted 
with the working of an asylum know it is very important that the person in charge 
should have an opportunity of observing those slight alterations and gradations 
in a mental state from hour to hour. The second objection is that it means a 
difficulty in assigning responsibility in cases of neglect or improper treatment. 
Thirdly, there is a great difficulty in assigning responsibility for stock in the 
wards. Fourthly, it means a very large expenditure for the provision of the extra 
staff which would be required—I mean in housing. Fifthly, it means such a 
burden in the shape of wages that the ratepayer may well ask whether it is 
justifiable, especially when we come to remember that though the duties of the 
staff in an asylum are often very trying, and especially so in certain wards, they 
are not usually arduous, and such duties as attending dances or chapels or 
entertainments are certainly not so. 

I have gone into this hours question at some length to show how complex 
it is, and how intimately it is bound up with the welfare of the patients. It 
was very noticeable that at the London County Council Conference the welfare 
of the patients and the nature of the relations between the staff and the patients 
was entirely ignored, and the hours question was discussed from a purely industrial 
standpoint—that is to say, simply a comparison between the hours in other trades 
unions and this, and not in any sense from that of the hours necessary for this 
particular work. It is probable that at the Industrial Board it is thus that 
this question will be decided, by bodies of men who have not the necessary 
knowledge, and who will not consider how their decisions will affect the proper 
care and treatment of the patients, such proper care and treatment being the only 
reason why the question ever arises. That, Sir, I think, is a very Gilbertian 
situation, and I think that is why this question is one of paramount importance 
to the Association. I am of opinion it is imperative that we should take immediate 
and definite action to place our views before any Industrial Board which may be 
set up, and that we should be prepared to put forward a considered policy on these 
very important questions. 

If I am in order, Sir, I would like to move the following resolution : “ That 
this Association, which has done much in the past to improve the treatment of 
the insane, in the event of the establishment of an Industrial Board, consisting 
of ten representatives of Asylum Authorities and ten representatives of the 
National Asylum Workers’ Union, to decide conditions of service of the working 
staff of asylums, strongly urges at the same time the provision of a board of 
experienced asylum medical officers to indicate how such decisions would affect 
the welfare of the patients.” And I would like to suggest, if I may, that such a 
resolution, if seconded and passed by this Association, shall be sent to the 
Ministry of Labour, to the Executive Committee of the Guildhall Conference, 


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to the London County Council, to the Board of Control, and to the Chairmen 
of the Visiting Committees of Borough and County Asylums and registered 
hospitals and the National Asylum Workers’ Union. 

Dr. Soutar : I second the resolution which Dr. Wolseley Lewis has moved. 
I do not propose to discuss the suggestions or the demands made by the Asylum 
Workers' Union. Our claim is that we, as representatives of the medical pro¬ 
fession dealing especially with the insane, shall be represented on, and that our 
views shall be put before, any body which is considering matters concerning asylum 
administration. It is suggested that that body shall consist of representatives of 
managing committees of asylums and of representatives of the Asylum Workers’ 
Union. These look at asylum administration from two points of view. But there 
is another—the most important of all—that is as to how decisions arrived at will 
affect the well-being of the patients. On this matter medical officers only can 
speak and advise with the authority which comes of knowledge. If they be excluded 
from the body which is to consider asylum administration no informed and effective 
advice will be available for securing that proposed changes in administration shall 
operate to the advantage of the patients, for whose well-being alone our asylums 
exist. There are committees and there are attendants who would be very glad 
to have the assistance and the support of asylum medical officers in their delibera¬ 
tions. There are attendants—and many of them—who have in them the true 
spirit of nursing, who recognise that they are not, like factory hands, merely 
industrial workers. That spirit—the nursing spirit of sacrifice and readiness to 
serve the sick—is active in many of our asylum nurses and attendants, and these 
deserve and require the support which can be fully given only by medical officers 
who are so closely in contact with them and with the persons to whom they 
minister. There are, too, many asylum committees who turn to their superintendents 
for advice and direction on these matters, asking how this and that proposal will 
affect the patients. Such committees would, I think, regret the absence of 
medical officers from a body to whom it fell to consider and decide upon matters 
of asylum administration. I urge that we should endeavour to secure due 
representation of the medical element on any body which is formed to deal with 
asylum administration, and that to this end, and that detailed consideration be 
given to the various matters raised both by managing committees and by the 
Asylum Workers’ Union an advisory committee consisting of members of the 
Medico Psychological Association be appointed. I have pleasure in seconding the 
resolution. 

The President : We shall be glad to hear the views of members or of visitors 
upon this important matter ; I notice there are visitors present. 

Dr. Pasmore : I support the resolution which has been proposed by Dr. 
Wolseley Lewis and seconded by Dr. Soutar. The proposition is a very 
important one in getting representation on this Industrial Council of medical 
superintendents. Because what would happen is, that if we were getting men 
who were not in sympathy with the insane, the attitude they would take up 
towards the patients would be rather that of warder to convict, instead of that of 
nurse to patient. It is most important that this last attitude should be preserved. 
We know from books that in the past, when asylums were under lay control and 
administration, the attitude was nearer that of warder to convict than that of nurse 
to patient. Lay people, who do not understand the right treatment of the insane, 
speak of lunatics in a derogatory manner. The Asylum Workers’ Union and the 
programme which they have promulgated has received the attention of several 
committees of the country. It received some attention at Croydon, but not very 
much. With reference to the hours, they have asked for 48 hours per week. I 
agree with Dr. Wolseley Lewis it is not feasible to work 48 hours a week, but 
we have been working a 66-hour week for the last two years, and I think a 6o-hour 
week is very workable. What we do is this: The patients, instead of rising at 
6, rise at 7, and the nurses and attendants go off duty at 7.45. And the nurses 
and attendants have two hours off during the day—an hour for dinner, half 
an hour for lunch, half an hour for dressing. A 6o-hour week could be easily 
worked by giving the nurses and attendants a half-day on Saturday, the whole 
day Sunday, half a day Wednesday, and an evening in the week. I agree with 
Dr. Wolseley Lewis that you get much fatigue emanating from the present day, 
but where you break up the week, and have a break in the mid-week, that fatigue 


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128 NOTES AND NEWS. [April, 

would be lessened. For three years 1 had the opportunity of working in the 
Psychological Laboratory of University College, where we did much work on the 
subject of fatigue. We found that if, when a person reached a state of fatigue, he 
left off at once, he could recuperate in quite a short time ; but if he continued for 
an hour after being fatigued, recuperation required a much longer time. If a man 
had done a reasonable amount of work by 5, but he went on until 7 o’clock, he 
would take, probably, four hours to recuperate. For that reason there is some¬ 
thing to be said for a shorter day, if it can be arranged. 

Dr. Miller: I suggested before the meeting that there should be a time limit 
for each speaker except the introducer. I shall, myself, be very brief. I think it 
is right that it should be a sine qud non in the formation of these Whitley Com¬ 
mittees that both sides should be organised. 1 do not think medical superintendents 
are going to be received on one side, and they cannot be received on the other. 
Manifestly, they are employes, and I do not think it is possible for them to get 
representation on these committees. For this reason they are out of court. I do 
not suppose we should be sitting on the same side of the table as the asylum 
workers in the Union, and we cannot be there as employers, because we are not 
employers. Therefore, it seems to me, we cannot get representation on them. 

The President : The idea is that there would be advisory committees, composed 
of medical superintendents, who could be consulted. 

Dr. Dixon : 1 suggest a slight amendment to the resolution—that we should say 
“That this Association, composed of medical men who are specialists in the treat¬ 
ment of mental diseases.” I think it is likely some of the asylum authorities do 
not know what the Medico-Psychological Association is at all, and I think it would 
strengthen the resolution if that little proviso were put in, showing that the 
Association is composed of medical men who are specialists in the treatment of 
mental diseases. 

Dr. Soutar : In regard to the question of the value of this Advisory Committee, 
I think there is definite value in it, because it is clear that it is in the minds, at all 
events, of some Government departments to have Advisory Committees appointed. 
I heard Dr. Addison the other night speaking with regard to the appointment of 
Medical Advisory Committees, and he was evidently going to make great use of 
them. I think we might urge, in consideration of a matter of this kind, that an 
Advisory Committee might be appointed and at all events consulted, and there 
would at least be such a body in existence for the authorities to seek advice from 
Some can, of course, become representative members of the proposed Board, and 
we can, at all events, announce that we are in existence, and that we are prepared 
to give advice and to express our opinion on the matter as it appears to us as 
medical superintendents of asylums. Even if we do not go further than that, we 
do take a step forward and establish our claim to be asked and consulted in regard 
to a matter upon which we have experience. 

The President : If no one else wishes to speak, I will put the resolution re¬ 
worded as follows : 

“ That, in the event of the establishment of an Industrial Council (consisting 
of ten representatives of Asylum Authorities and ten representatives of the 
National Asylum Workers’ Union) to consider the conditions of service of the 
nursing staffs of asylums, this Association, which is composed of medical men 
actively engaged in the care and treatment of persons of unsound mind, strongly 
urges the provision of an advisory board of experienced medical officers of asylums 
to indicate how any alterations proposed would affect the welfare of the patients.” 

The resolution was carried unanimously. 

Dr. Bedford Pierce : May I now introduce a kindred matter for the con¬ 
sideration of this meeting ? It refers to the training of nurses and others engaged 
in the care and treatment of the insane. As we are all aware, this Association has 
worked hard at this subject for many years, yet we find in the proposals of the 
Asylum Workers’ Union no reference to the training and no recognition of the 
trained nurse as opposed to the untrained or the imperfectly trained one. And I 
think that if we let this occasion go by without putting forward very plainly the 
importance of training in the interests of the insane—it is also important in the 
interests of the nurses themselves—it will be a mistake. They are not merely a lot 
of uneducated people, but people who have taken up a calling which requires 
training, a career which requires effort on their part to qualify for it. If we leave 


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this out, I think we shall be undoing a great deal of the work we have done in the 
past. If this training is ignored, very few in the future will take the trouble to 
train. Therefore I propose that we bring this subject before the various bodies 
who are dealing with this subject of conditions of service, and so I submit this 
resolution : 

"The Medico-Psychological Association of Great Britain and Ireland wishes to 
lay stress upon the principle that the best interests of the insane demand the 
careful and systematic training of all persons engaged in the care and treatment 
of patients in mental hospitals. 

“ The Association strongly recommends that nurses who are well trained and 
duly qualified should receive considerably higher remuneration than those not so 
qualified.” 

Dr. Menzies : May I second that? The way we have to bring it before the 
Asylums Workers’ Union is that they be requested to recognise the contracts of 
apprenticeship. 

Dr. Turner: I gathered from the meeting at the London County Council that 
the Asylum Workers’ Union not only do not recognise the Medico-Psychological 
Association, but they are under the impression that to be boxed up with the insane 
means becoming a qualified nurse, and that they are going to do away with all 
training. That is a very strong point. 

Dr. Dixon : I attended this Conference, and I heard the delegates speak, and 
from what 1 gathered they seemed to think that as soon as a candidate became a 
nurse in an asylum she immediately became skilled—that a probationer on 
the first day became skilled—and apparently they wanted a minimum wage 
to be given to a junior employee as to a skilled worker. Of course, they 
very rightly made the point that it is a very sound thing to get a better 
class of worker to deal with the insane. They said if we want good treat¬ 
ment we must get a better class in to attend to patients, therefore we must give 
them shorter hours and do various other things. But they did not say, “ There¬ 
fore we must train them.” It is a matter of wages and short hours. They expect 
to get a good class of nurse. I do not agree with that. I think the less wages 
you pay, the better nurse you get. (Laughter.) 

The resolution was carried. 

Dr. Bedford Pierce : I suggest that this be sent to the same people. 

Dr. Macphail : Do we accept the principle of forty-eight hours per week? Do 
we agree? And when we appoint this Committee from this Association, what are 
they going to say ? What views will they bring before them ? I ask whether we, 
as a society, accept the principle of working forty-eight hours per week ? 

Dr. Steen : To answer Dr. Macphail, the Council have to-day decided to call 
a special meeting of the Association to consider all these questions at an early 
date. 

Dr. Taylor : Am I in order in raising the question of the agenda of the meeting 
at the Mansion House with regard to the business Executive Officer ? Dr. 
Wolseley Lewis alluded to it in his opening speech. It is a very important 
question. It appears it must be a medical administration, and I thought that 
possibly the Association would make some comment on the appointment of this 
proposed business Executive Officer. It seems to me to be an impossible position 
for the superintendent if such an officer is appointed. 

The President : That point might be brought up for the special meeting 
which has just been announced by the Secretary. 

[A paper was read by Lieut.-Col. E. P. Cathcart on “ Psychic Secretion—the 
Influence of the Environment.” We regret that limitations of space will not 
permit of its appearing in this number of the Journal. It will, however, be 
published in our July number, along with the discussion which followed.— Eds., 
Journal of Mental Science.'] , 

MEDICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 

AND IRELAND. 

At a Special Meeting of the Association, which was held at 11, Chandos 
Street, Cavendish Square, London, W., on March 13th, 1919, the following 
resolutions affecting asylum administration were passed unanimously: 

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(1) Proposed by Dr. Soutar and seconded by Dr. David Bower—" Resolved 
that to deny any asylum authority the discretionary power to appoint a medical 
officer as its representative on the National Council of Institutions for the Treat¬ 
ment of the Mentally Afflicted is inimical to the best interests of the patients, in 
whose treatment and care there often arise questions in which administration and 
medical considerations are so inextricably involved that the special knowledge 
and experience of the medical officers are essential for the proper understanding 
of such matters, and that a copy of this resolution be sent to the Provisional 
Secretary of the National Council of Institutions for the Treatment and Care of 
the Mentally Afflicted, and to all asylum authorities in England and Wales.” 

(2) Proposed by Dr. Turner and seconded by Dr. Turnbull —“ That whilst this 
Association is in sympathy with reducing the hours of work so far as possible for 
the asylum nursing staff, it is opposed to the principle of a uniform standard of 
hours of work per week with payment for overtime as contrary to the ethics of the 
nursing profession.” 

(3) Proposed by Dr. Steen and seconded by Dr. Robertson —“ That a special 
committee be formed to watch all movements of asylum management, and to be a 
general advisory committee to be appointed by the chairman, treasurer, and 
general secretary, together with the chairmen of the Educational and Parliamentary 
Committees.” 

(4) Proposed by Dr. Rice and seconded by Dr. Robertson—“ That it be an 
instruction to the above committee that the fact be constantly pressed upon the 
Ministry of Labour and any industrial council formed to deal with asylum service, 
that the National Asylum Workers’ Union is not truly representative of asylum 
workers, since it debars from membership all officers, whilst admitting domestic 
workers, artisans, and the most junior probationers, and makes no distinction 
between the trained and certificated, and the untrained.” 

Preliminary announcement : The annual meeting will be held at York on 
July 22nd and 23rd, 1919. Council meeting on July 2tst, 1919. 


IRISH MEETING, 

The Spring Meeting of the Irish Division was held on Thursday, April 3rd, 
at St. Edmondsbury, Lucan, by the invitation of Dr. Leeper. 

Members present. —J. M. Colles, K.C., LL.D., Lieut.-Col. Dawson, Dr. J. 0 ‘C. 
Donelan, Dr. Greene, Dr. Mills, Dr. O’Mara, Dr. Rainsford, Dr. H. R. C. Ruther¬ 
ford, and Dr. Leeper (Hon. Sec.). 

Letters and telegrams of apology for unavoidable absence were read from 
Lieut.-Col. Keay (President of the Association), Dr. Nolan (Downpatrick), Dr. 
Drapes, Dr. Hetherington, Dr. Lawless, Dr. Revington, Dr. Redington, Dr. Harvey, 
Dr. Fitzgerald (Clonmel), Dr. Irwin (Limerick), Dr. H. Eustace, Dr. Gavin, Dr. 
Considine. 

Dr. Colies having been moved to the chair, the minutes of the previous meeting 
were read and signed. 

A ballot was next taken for election of the Hon. Secretary and two representative 
members of Council for ensuing year. 

Dr. Mills and Dr. O’Mara having been appointed scrutineers, the Chairman 
declared that Dr. Leeper was elected Hon. Secretary ; Dr. Nolan, District Asylum, 
Downpatrick, and Dr. J. O’C. Donelan were elected representative members of 
Council. 

A ballot was next taken for election of two ordinary members of the Association. 
Dr. John Murnane and Dr. Stanley Blake were declared elected. 

It was decided to hold the Summer Meeting at Ennis Asylum by the kind 
invitation of Dr. O’Mara. 

The following dates were provisionally fixed for the meetings of the Division 
for the ensuing year : Autumn Meeting, Thursday, November 6th, 1919 ; Spring 
Meeting, Thursday, April 1st, 1920; Summer Meeting, Thursday, July 1st, 1920. 

Dr. J. O’C. Donelan and Dr. Gavin were elected to the posts of Examiners for 
the certificate of the Association for the year. 

The Hon. Secretary stated to the meeting that the Royal College of Physicians 
had invited two delegates from the Irish Division of the Association to form part 


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of a deputation to the Chief Secretary for Ireland regarding the Ministry of 
Health Bill and its extension to Ireland. As the time given was so short he had 
secured the help of Dr. Nolan, who was very interested and fully informed with 
respect to all matters in connection with the subject, and he and Dr. Nolan had 
acted as delegates from the Division, and formed part of the deputation to the 
Chief Secretary. The Hon. Secretary then read to the meeting the statement 
handed in on behalf of the Division as part of the deputation. 

Statement to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, March 24 th, 1919. 

‘'As representing the Irish Division of the Medico-Psychological Association 
of Great Britain and Ireland, we notice that in Sub-Clause 1 of the Clause of 
Ministry of Health Bill extending the same to Ireland the duty is laid on the 
Chief Secretary inter alia to take measures for the treatment of mental defects. 
We also notice that on the proposed Irish Public Health Council there is no 
representative of the Irish Asylum Service. We are strongly of opinion that no 
such measure should be undertaken without full consultation with the Irish Lunacy 
Department, without prejudice to the independence of the latter as a department, 
the powers of which should in our opinion be amplified in any event.” 

It was proposed by Dr. Mills, seconded by Dr. O’Mara, and passed unanimously : 
“That the action of Dr. Leeper and Dr. Nolan in acting as delegates by attending 
the deputation to the Chief Secretary and submitting the views, as stated, of the 
members of the Irish Division, be cordially approved of.” 

The meeting next proceeded to discuss this important matter, and the following 
resolution was proposed by Dr. Rainsford, seconded by Dr. O'Mara, and passed 
unanimously, and the Hon. Secretary was directed to forward same to the Lord 
Chancellor of Ireland, the Chief Secretary, the Attorney-General for Ireland, Sir 
Edward Carson, M.P., Sir Robert Woods, M.P., J. Devlin, M.P., Sir Maurice 
Dockrell, M.P., the Inspectors of Asylums, and to the Secretary, Parliamentary 
Committee of the Medico-Psychological Association, with the request that Dr. Cole 
would give it all possible support. 

Resolution. 

“ That the Irish Division of the Medico-Psychological Association, having read 
the Clause of the Ministry of Health Bill, in which the treatment of mental defects 
is mentioned as one of the objects of that measure, respectfully suggests that in 
the appointment of an Irish Public Health Council due representation should be 
given on that Council to that branch of the profession specially concerned with 
the treatment of insanity in Ireland.” 

A vote of thanks to Dr. Leeper for his having entertained the Division terminated 
the proceedings. 

REPORT FOR THE YEAR 1917 FROM THE LUNACY DIVISION, 
EGYPT, BEING THE TWENTY-THIRD ANNUAL REPORT ON 
THE GOVERNMENT ASYLUM AT ABBASIYA, AND THE SIXTH 
ANNUAL REPORT ON THE ASYLUM AT KHANKA. 

This Report again provides ample material for full consideration. As usual 
Dr. Warnock’s Report is a model of what such reports should be. It really 
represents, or is equivalent to, the Report of our Board of Control. It is divided 
into two parts, one concerned with the central establishment at Cairo, the other 
with the branch at Khanka. 

Again we notice that there is great need for other asylums, the present ones 
being crowded, and the criminal lunatics being also retained in the general 
asylum. 

The Report is a complete record not only of the medical but also of the 
financial sides of the lunacy work in Egypt. Beside the general Egyptian lunacy 
a considerable amount of work has had to be done in consequence of the war. 
Dr. Warnock established a special hospital for all the military cases occurring in 
officers connected with the British contingent. 

Many points of special interest are reviewed, to which we shall refer in detail -. 
for example, the serious effects of pellagra, and the different class of patients 
received into the central asylum and in the country one. 

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During the year Dr. Warnock had a short but much-needed holiday, during 
which time Dr. Dudgeon very efficiently took over the work. Dr. Dudgeon has 
special work, and under particular and trying conditions. He is away from Cairo, 
with difficult approach ; he has to develop a kind of farming annexe to provide 
to a great extent the two establishments with vegetables. He, too, is overcrowded, 
and has no facilities as to water and electric supply. He has faced and mastered 
his difficulties. Later we shall refer to his special Report. 

It is not easy to consider the Report as a whole because of the alteration of the 
date of issue, which is made to fit in with the financial year. The Report, there¬ 
fore, covers the period from January ist to March 30th, 1917, and from March, 1917, 
to March, 1918. It will suffice, however, to consider the full Report more in detail. 

The number of patients in residence has risen from 2,104 to 2,118. There is 
accommodation in the two asylums for 1,550. The excess in residence at the 
time of the Report was 568. There were 1,062 Egyptian admissions during the 
year and 125 soldiers were received in the special hospital, the admissions being 
1,062 and 1,219 f° r the years 1917 and 1918 respectively. The increase of 
admissions is partly due to the fact that more insane patients are now sent direct 
to the asylums instead of being detained in local general hospitals, pellagra being 
chiefly a disease met with among the fellahin ; and as these patients are now 
more freely sent to the Khanka Asylum, this contributes considerably to the 
increase of admissions to that asylum. Patients are now taken to the asylum 
by private motor; this obviates the troubles which used to arise when they were 
taken by public conveyances. The war has prevented the building extensions 
needed for female patients, and it has also prevented the repatriation of European 
lunatics. It is essential that other asylums should be built—one certainly at or 
near Alexandria. 

Regarding discharges, of 672 Egyptian cases r 12 were recovered, 23 were 
found not insane on admission, and 537 were handed over to their friends, being, 
though still insane, no longer dangerous. They were discharged in order to 
make room for more urgent cases. This, as we have often pointed out elsewhere, 
is one of the serious results of deficient accommodation. Many of these patients 
are re-admitted with relapse, or else as criminal lunatics. 

The death-rate at both establishments is very high ; but this is accounted for 
to a certain extent by the retention of patients at home as long as the friends can 
manage with them at all, as there is still a considerable though decreasing dread 
of an asylum. The second cause of the increase of deaths is the number of 
chronic aged cases that have slowly accumulated at Abbasiya. Certainly there 
is a need for a large asylum or hospital for chronic or mentally-defective patients, 
as well as one for criminal lunatics. But, as Lord Cromer expressed to the writer 
of this review some years ago, lunacy legislation must wait on finance. The 
large death-rate at Khanka led to a consideration of the causes, and among these 
it was decided that the diet of the patients was insufficient, especially for the 
patients at this asylum, many of whom are occupied pretty fully on the farm. 
The subject of diet was referred to Prof. Wilson at the Department of Public 
Health. It was found that the native cheese, which formed an important article 
in the diet, was almost valueless. Accordingly the diet was considerably changed, 
several additions being made to it, and the improvement in the health of the 
patients and the reduction of the death-rate was considerable. 

The contrast of the death-rate between the pauper patients and the paying class 
was very marked, the diet here again having an important influence. 

The details as to building repairs do not need notice in this review, but we may 
say that as usual they are most complete, and, for the administrating superin¬ 
tendent, very interesting. It is hoped to make a better provision for the Egyptian 
medical officers, some of whom have spent many years in the asylum, and many 
of whom have to live either in Cairo or in inadequate quarters. 

General practitioners in Egypt are even more given to make mistakes in preparing 
certificates than are their English brothers, and these general practitioners have 
a pleasantly calm way of sending troublesome or dangerous patients to the asylum 
uncertified. A good number of patients who were not insane were sent to the 
asylum and several who were only delirious and suffering from fever. 

The relative cost of maintenance, which is given in Turkish currency, is very 
similar to that in England. 


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1 9 I 9 -] NOTES AND NEWS. 133 

Kindly reference is made by Dr. Warnock to the admirable work which was 
done by Lord Cromer when he was in Egypt. 

In Part II of the Report a short account of the special hospital which was 
prepared for the Expeditionary Force is given. The patients as a rule were only 
resident here for a short time—in fact, till they could be repatriated. During the 
year 126 patients were admitted, and of all, 132 were discharged. No deaths and 
no accidents occurred there. At present more of the military cases are sent 
direct to the Citadel Hospital, thus relieving considerably the stress upon the 
temporary hospital which Dr. Warnock had prepared. Of the admissions to this 
hospital 25 were suffering from dementia prscox, 19 from delusional insanity, 
only 4 from general paralysis ; 16 suffered from melancholia and 10 from mania. 
Other forms of insanity were also represented, but the number of cases of dementia 
prascox and of feeble-mindedness was certainly most remarkable, pointing to the 
fact that a very large number of thoroughly unsuitable soldiers were enlisted. 
Shell-shock was hardly represented by any of the cases admitted. As to attributed 
causes and relapses, conditions of military service and congenital defect were most 
marked. Forty-six of the 114 insane soldiers were said to have insane heredity. 

Part III contains the special Report of the Abbasiya hospital, and is very full 
of medical and social interest. The cost of each patient works out at about 
1 2s. i\d. a week. Baskets and mats were made in large quantities by the patients. 
The utmost care was taken in regard to the general sanitation of the institution. 
A daily milk analysis was made, and photography was carried out also in relation¬ 
ship with all patients by the dispenser. 

A more satisfactory system of drainage has been started. 

There are now three grades of paying patients, and this adaptation for paying 
patients is answering well. Fourteen patients who had been prematurely dis¬ 
charged were re-admitted as offenders. 

An analysis of the forms of insanity of the 72 male and 8 female patients 
admitted as accused of crime is given. This shows that pellagra was the most 
common attributed cause. Chronic dementia came next, but beyond pellagra 
nothing special is noteworthy as to causation of criminal lunacy. Thefts were the 
most common faults, but assaults and murderous attacks were rather common. 

Of the general admissions to the parent asylum, pellagra is given as the most 
common associated cause. There were under care during the year, 2,367. Of 
these, 99 Egyptian patients were discharged well, 446 relieved. Pellagrous 
insanity produced 121, general paralysis 58, hashish produced 19. It is interesting 
to note that, on the whole, the number of general paralytics was considerable, 
being 58—47 male, 11 female—this proportion of female general paralytics being 
greatly in excess of what occurs most commonly in England. In the country 
asylum very few general paralytics were received. Over 10J per cent, of the male 
patients admitted into Abbasiya were general paralytics. Pellagra accounts for 
nearly 23 per cent, of the female admissions, and nearly 32 per cent, of the female 
deaths. 

Tables, of local interest only, are given as to the relationship of pellagra, hashish, 
and alcohol to the residence of the patients admitted. Of course, as already said, 
general paralysis and alcohol are much more commonly met with in town dwellers 
than in those admitted from the country districts, whereas pellagrous patients 
came chiefly from the country districts. 

The great increase of mortality in 1917 is difficult to explain, but the following 
considerations throw some light on the matter. The number of female pellagrants 
admitted rose from 59 in 1916 to 73 in 1917. Another cause was the over-crowd¬ 
ing of the harem. The increased number of deaths of lunatics admitted suffering 
from senile decay and advanced heart disease also was noteworthy. The increase 
of 16 male deaths in 1917, as compared with 1916, is partly explained by the 
increased deaths of general paralytics—49 against 39 in 1916. An analysis of the 
deaths is given, and one may say that post-mortems were not infrequently made. 
Most of the tubercular cases had evidently become infected while resident in the 
asylum in consequence of the overcrowding. Artificial feeding by the stomach- 
tube was performed frequently. Seclusion, of course, had also to be adopted. 

The list of doses of hypnotics given is interesting, there having been during the 
year 6,775 doses of hypnotics used at night. This seems to me certainly not 
excessive. 


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No successful attempt at suicide occurred. Scabies was epidemic for a time. 

Of the patients admitted, 8 had cut throats. In all, 54 post-mortem examinations 
were made. 

Very good and useful work was done by the laboratory. The services of a 
medical officer were available for four months ; during the rest of the year the work 
was done, in intervals from clinical work, by the rest of the staff. 408 stools were 
examined, and 57 were found to contain ankylostoma and ankylostomatous eggs. 
Many contained ova of other worms, and a few revealed bilharzia. 734 specimens 
of blood were taken and sent to the Department of Public Health Laboratory for 
Wassermann test. Thirteen specimens of sputum were examined for tubercle 
bacilli, 5 being positive. The results regarding the bilharzia examinations were 
interesting, and details are given of the special results. 

A table is included giving the statistics of 625 cases of insanity admitted to 
which the Wassermann test was applied. Thus a large number of cases suffering 
from insanity of all forms were subjected to this process, and it seems to me that 
it is worth while to reproduce this table. 


Diseases. 

Total number 
tested. 

Positive cases. 

Percentage of ! 
positive cases. j 


Males. 

Fem. 

Total. 

Males. 

Fem. 

Total. 

Males. 

Fem. 

Total. 1 

G.P.I. 

36 

9 

45 

28 

9 

37 

77 

IOO 

88 

Pellagra 

50 

46 

96 

'7 

IO 

27 

34 

21 

27 

Adolescent insanity 

47 

>4 

6l 

I 1 

4 

15 

23 

28 

30 

Mania .... 

61 

6.1 

124 

14 

'7 

3i 

23 

27 

25 

Chronic dementia . 

55 

18 

73 

12 

6 

18 

22 

33 

27 

Hashish insanity . 
Weakmindedness and 

10 

— 

IO 

I 

— 

' 

IO 


IO 

imbecility . 

33 

9 

42 

6 

3 

9 

18 

33 

25 j 

Alcoholism . 

29 

4 

33 

4 

4 

8 

*4 

fioo 

70 

Puerperal insanity 


8 

8 


2 

2 

— 

25 

25 1 

Melancholia . 

3‘ 

3 6 

67 

7 

8 

15 

22 

22 

22 1 

Post-febrile delirium 

2 


2 

I 

— 

I 

5o 

— 

5° ! 

Senile insanity 

'3 

IO 

23 

2 

3 

5 

15 

30 

22 | 

Epilepsy 

IO 

9 

19 

— 

3 

3 


33 

16 

Paranoia 

13 


13 

2 

— 

2 

15 


15 

Organic dementia . 

2 

2 

4 

— 

— 



— 


Delusional insanity 

3 

I 

4 

I 

— 

I 

33 

— 

25 

Confusional insanity 

I 

— 

I 

I 

— 

1 

100 

— 

IOO 

Total . 

396 

229 

625 

IO 7 

69 

176 

27 

3 o 

28 


Thus there is evidence of the admirable work carried out by Dr. Warnock, 
both from the practical and scientific points of view. 

We must make a special note of some of the work which was done by Dr. 
Dudgeon. 

At the Khanka Asylum there is accommodation for 400 patients. They 
received 700, many of whom were direct admissions not passing through the 
parent institution. There were considerable difficulties in reference both to fuel 
and food. The admission number during the year was 266, the total number in 
residence during the year being 956. The death-rate, 134, was very high. This 
has been already referred to in reference to the imperfect diet, and also to the 
serious condition in which many of the patients were admitted. Again reference 
is made to the excess of fellahin among the patients, also to the very large pro¬ 
portion of patients suffering from pellagra. Hashish also produced a much larger 
number of patients in this asylum than in the parent one. There were, as we have 
already said, only three cases of general paralysis, and in all these there was 


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135 


a positive Wassermann reaction. In the cases admitted to Khanka, alcohol and 
hashish were more common than in Abbasiya. 

Elaborate notes are given of the general medical and surgical cases under 
notice. Particulars are given of the operations and the surgical lesions, many of 
which were of a trivial nature. There is a very careful and ingenious diagram 
dealing with the death-rate in the asylum. Unfortunately at Khanka there is no 
mortuary, and there are many other things required besides a great extension, which 
will have to be made as soon as possible. Among the recent patients admitted the 
recovery-rate was high. No mechanical restraint was used, and the employment 
of narcotics was much reduced. 

Among other collateral products was the cultivation of henbane, also of 
guinea-pigs for the public institutions in Cairo. Altogether this Report by Dr. 
Dudgeon is a very satisfactory one. 

Besides the Report already noticed, there are a series of statistics referring to 
the shorter period already alluded to, i.e., three months before the statutory year 
commenced; but there is nothing essentially different in that report from the one 
to which attention has been drawn. 

The Report concludes with an appendix, giving the medico-legal instructions, 
but these do not really interest the English reader of the Journal. Asylum diets 
are also given, but in that respect also the Report is so peculiarly local that it 
does not seem necessary to go into it. 

We can only conclude this review by saying that, once more, it bears out what 
has been evident.'so long—that in the hands of Dr. Warnock the treatment of the 
insane is being most efficiently carried out under very arduous and trying 
conditions. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 

Enquete de la Ligue Polonaise de l’Enseignemknt sur les Enfants 

Anormaux. 

To the Editors of the Journal of Mental Science. 

Monsieur, —J’ai l’honneur d’attirer votre bienveillante attention sur I’enquete 
organisde par notre Ligue et dont les resultats pourront 6tre du plus haut interdt 
pour l’organisation des ftcoles en Pologne. 

(1) Historique de l'ficolc ou de l’lnstitut consacrd & Federation des enfants 
anormaux. Organisation. Initiative (privde ou publique). Nombre d'enfants. 

(2) Provenance des enfants et mode de recrutement. 

(3) Description des principaux types d’anormaux se trouvant h l’dcole. 

(4) La fa<;on dont ils sont classds par 1 ’instituteur ou l’institutricc pour les 
besoins de I’enseignement. 

(5) En quoi consiste l’instruction donnde aux anormaux et arridrds ? 

(6) En quoi consiste leur dducation ? 

(7) Procddds employds par l'dcole pour adapter les enfants & la vie. 

(8) Education morale. Moyens de discipline. 

(9) Les mdthodes gdndrales d’enseignement et les mdthodes particulidres (la 
lecture, 1’dcriture, Ie calcul, les travaux manuels, etc.). 

lid) Les exercices des sens et de l’intelligence. 

(11) L’education physique. 

(12) En quoi consiste l'inspection et le traitement mddical ? 

(13) Quel pourcentage d’enfants arrive h passer dans les classes pour normaux ? 
Quel pourcentage arrive 4 gagner leur vie ? Quel pourcentage reste des non- 
valeurs ? 

(14) L'avenir de l’dducation des anormaux aprds la guerre. La ndcessitd de cet 
enseignement ne va-t-elle pas grandir ? 

(15) Pridre de nous indiquer : 

(1) Quelques donndes bibliographiques concernant le ddveloppement de 

l’dducation des anormaux dans votre pays. 

(2) Quelques adresses des meilleures dcoles pour enfants anormaux dans 

votre pays. 

Pridre de vouloir bien envoyer les rdponses avant le i° mars, 1919, & Mile. M. 


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[April, 


Grzegorzewska, secretaire de la Ligue polonaise de l’enseignement, 8, Rue 
Monge, Paris 5 0 . 

Dans l’espoir que vous voudrez bien collaborcr k notre ceuvre, je vous prie 
d’agrcer, Monsieur, l’assurance de mes sentiments Ies plus distingu^s. 

Marie Grzegorzewska. 

Paris ; 

Janvier , 1919. 

[Replies to the queries in above letter are solicited, and should be sent to Dr. 
Boulenger, Darenth Industrial Colony, Dartford, Kent.] 


RETIREMENT OF DR. SOUTAR. 

Dr. Soutar’s resignation of the position of Medical Superintendent at Barnwood 
House has evoked expressions of appreciation of his work there which must be 
very gratifying to him, and in which we wish to join. 

Possessing in an unusual degree the qualities which characterise the ideal 
medical superintendent, and having had the advantage of being trained by an able 
and inspiring chief, Dr. Soutar was elected in 1892 to the position which he has 
recently relinquished. 

That the confident hopes which were then expressed regarding his future career 
have been fully realised is evidenced by the terms in which the Committee of 
Barnwood House have recorded how much they esteemed him. Further testimony 
was forthcoming at a dinner given in his honour by medical men from all parts of 
the county of Gloucester. The speeches made on that occasion manifested the 
high regard in which he was held by his medical brethren, and their deep sense of 
the loss they would sustain when he left the county. We realise that Dr. Soutar’s 
retirement must have been a sorrow to his patients, to whom he has always 
unsparingly devoted himself, and who regarded him not only as a physician, but 
as a friend ; for his personal influence and his great gift of sympathy enabled him 
to give to them the help and support so largely needed. 

The officers, nursing staff and the employes of the Hospital asked Dr. and Mrs. 
Soutar’s acceptance of a piece of plate and of an address in which they expressed 
their sorrow at his resignation, the esteem and affection felt for him by all, together 
with the hope that both he and Mrs. Soutar might enjoy long life, health and 
happiness. 

Those of us who had the opportunity of entrusting patients to Dr. Soutar’s care 
at Barnwood House cannot but share in the widely-felt regret at his resignation. 
At the same time we trust that, having been relieved of his onerous duties, he will 
be able without detriment to his health to render to our Association, and to the 
medical profession generally, services which he is so admirably fitted to perform. 


OBITUARY. 

Dr. George William Mould. 

By Sir George H. Savage, M.D. 

In giving an obituary notice of Dr. George William Mould, I shall first include 
an outline of his personal history, contributed by his son; later, I shall give an 
appreciation of his work, and also a full reference to his address as President 
of the Association. 

Born at Sudbury, Derbyshire, in 1835, he was the only son of his father’s first 
wife. His father was a tenant-farmer and land agent; his mother, Miss Bakewell, 
belonged to a local family, also occupied on the land. His grandfather held the 
same land and the Rectory farm, and acted as land agent. He came from 
Sandilacre, Nottinghamshire, where his family had been yeoman owners of the 
same land for 300 years. 

Dr. Mould was apprenticed to a firm of chemists at Derby at the age of 15, 
acting at the same time as dispenser to Dr. Fox; but then he left to be apprenticed 
to a surgeon, a Mr. Fletcher, at Uttoxeter, who many years after took charge of 
Loxley Hall, under Dr. Mould. While a student he won the Warneford 
Scholarship and Gold Medal at Queen's College, Birmingham, together with 


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other medals in medicine, surgery, and midwifery and allied subjects, including 
the Linnean Medal, also a prize for an essay proving the Divine origin of the 
world. General Anson, Commander-in-Chief in India, wanted him to go out 
on his staff, but his father would not consent. He was asked, also, to take 
temporary charge of a private asylum in the Midlands. This chance directed him 
to lunacy, and he was appointed Assistant Medical Officer at Prestwich. He then 
married Miss Spencer, a local lady, who died in childbirth two years after the 
marriage. 

He was appointed Medical Superintendent of Cheadle in 1862, succeeding 
Dr. Maudsley, who held the superintendency of this hospital for only a short 
time. Later he became Lecturer on Mental Disease at Owens' College, Man¬ 
chester. This appointment he held for many years, when the College became 
affiliated with Victoria University. At about this time, Holloway, of pill and 
ointment reputation, became a friend of his, as they were associated with the 
sport of coursing. He stayed with him at Cheadle, and Holloway formed so 
high an opinion of his abilities and was so struck with the establishment at 
Cheadle that he determined on building the Sanatorium at Virginia Water, and 
taking counsel with Dr. Mould wished him to become its first superintendent. 
This offer, however, he declined, though he accepted the compliment of being 
made a Life Governor. Among other things, he was offered a Lord Chancellor’s 
Visitorship, but this, again, he looked upon as likely to interfere with his real 
interests in life, and, of all things, he seemed to dislike the restrictions that an 
official position would force upon him. He became President of the Medico- 
Psychological Association in 1880, and delivered an address, to which I shall refer 
later. 

In 1864 he married Caroline, daughter of the Ven. Edward Woolnough, 
Archdeacon of Chester and rector of the neighbouring parish of Northenden, 
who predeceased him. By her he had two sons and three daughters. He 
subsequently married Edith, the daughter of Mr. Henry Sharp, manager of the 
Bolton iron works, who survives him. 

During all his life he was devoted to field sports, and he used to say that his 
father took him out fox-hunting when he was only three years of age, and the 
father would set his children off and with bloodhounds drag-hunt them, and on 
occasion they might have to climb trees for safety. His fondness for sport and 
his determination to enjoy it is proved by the fact that when he was Assistant 
Medical Officer at Prestwich, with a salary of £80 a year, he nevertheless managed 
to keep a horse and ride to hounds. At Cheadle he was quite one of the hardest 
riders with the Cheshire and Meynell hounds. He also played polo—in fact, he 
claimed to have played the first game which was played in England, on the asylum 
ground. He also rode in a few steeplechases. He was especially delighted, 
however, in coursing, getting second in the Waterloo Cup on one occasion. In 
later life he took to fishing and shooting, which he followed up to the age of 70. 
In politics he gave unswerving support to the Conservative Party. In religion 
he held, without reservation, the beliefs of the Orthodox Party in the Church 
of England. 

So much, then, for the son’s narrative. By the death of Dr. Mould there has 
been removed one of the oldest of our members. For some years he had retired 
from all active work, and has not been seen at our meetings, so that the majority 
of members did not even know him by sight. Those of us seniors who knew 
him will always have a very warm and kindly recollection of him. Small in 
stature, with the most untiring energy, he planned and carried out great designs 
for the development of the treatment of the insane. His real life-work was 
connected with the Royal Asylum at Cheadle, near Manchester. He found it 
a small institution, and left it a model mental hospital. He had very strong 
views on developing the personal interests of patients and making the hospital 
a success. He enlarged its scope by adding country and seaside branches and 
convalescent homes. 

As already stated, he was a man of iron constitution and most unusual powers 
of endurance. In the earlier days of the Association he was one of the leaders 
in visiting the institutions controlled by other doctors, and very pleasant were the 
reunions which then took place. Dr. Mould’s hospitality was of the most gracious 
kind : welcome and good cheer made visitors feel happy and at home. 


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I38 NOTES AND NEWS. [April, 

As already remarked, he was a keen sportsman, and for years coursing was his 
favourite pastime, and he was an excellent judge of both dogs and men. 

He was too busy a man to write much for medical papers. The only production 
we have in the Journal by him is the address when he was President of the 
Association. Writing of any kind he abhorred, and many amusing accounts 
used to be given of the difficulties which arose from his ignoring the letters even 
of the authorities. If I wanted an answer myself, I used to enclose a directed 
post-card, with the information that this would be repeated until 1 did get an 
answer. 

The time is coming when men like Mould, I fear, will not be available. The 
tendency is for the administration to be separated from the medical control, and 
once more there will be a return to lay control and more medical research. Of 
this 1 will not write more, but I recognise that such men as Mould have done 
enormously good work. 

Dr. Mould gave his address as President of the Medico-Psychological Associa¬ 
tion in 1880. As might have been expected, it was a very practical one, and in 
many ways pointed to alterations in lunacy law, which have since been made or 
are still under consideration. He referred to an agitation, which was then taking 
place, against private asylums, and pointed out that there was no sufficient evidence 
that there was neglect of patients or selfish interests in the management which 
needed any drastic measures of reform. He referred to the development of 
single cottages in asylum grounds, and also to convalescent homes. And here one 
may say that although this has been established and recognised by the Board of 
Control for some years, there seems to be a tendency on their part just now to 
modify the permission. He pointed out the objection he had to certain lunacy 
forms, and protested against the alleged necessity for the two doctors who had to 
see the patient and sign the certificate being forced to see the patient separately, 
as he maintained that in many cases a full, complete and accurate knowledge of 
the symptoms of the patient and his condition was not to be derived by a single 
independent inspection. He made the suggestion that the Board of Control 
should not only arrange to visit asylums, but that it would be a good thing if 
the committees of the asylums could see them personally, and confer on any 
suggestions that they might make. 

On the need for proper training of mental nurses, espeoially those to be pro¬ 
vided for the nursing of mental patients away from asylums, he insisted very 
strongly. He urged, what was secured in 1890, some protection for the medical 
men who provided the certificates of lunacy. He also directed attention to 
pensions for doctors and nurses connected with the various institutions, and 
pointed out that the service in such institutions should be regarded as continuous, 
so that a doctor or a nurse moving from one county asylum to another should have 
the service at the two asylums as contributing to the pension. A thoroughly 
useful paper was given, which made quite clear the views derived by Dr. Mould 
from a very vast experience. 


An Appreciation. 

By Dr. D. Nicolson, C.B. 

Lord Chancellor's Visitor. 

In 1862 Dr. Maudsley visited Prestwich Asylum and said to Dr. Mould, then 
the Assistant Superintendent, “ You must come to Cheadle after me and you will 
either mar it or make it. Dr. Mould went, and he made it. It was the home and 
the centre of his activities for nearly half a century. Not only did he increase the 
accommodation of Cheadle itself fivefold up to a population of over 300 patients, 
but he was a pioneer in the establishment of villas, cottages, and outlying houses, 
where individual inmates or limited number of inmates were provided with home¬ 
like surroundings, where more freedom of movement and association with the outer 
world were encouraged, and where the sanction of visits by relations and friends 
was greatly appreciated. More important and larger branches were started in 
Staffordshire and North Wales and met with a success which was especially 
gratifying to Dr. Mould, who had ever in his mind the well-being of his many 
patients with their varied mental idiosyncrasies. 


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It was not my privilege to know Dr. Mould well until about the year 1896 
when I visited Cheadle officially and had an opportunity of realising the important 
nature of the work he had done, and the wisdom which had guided him in catering 
for the comfort and happiness not only of his Chancery patients but of the 
inmates generally. After that, and more especially after his retirement from 
active work, I saw a good deal of him from time to time, and could not fail to appre¬ 
ciate his strong and attractive personality, his general force of character, his san¬ 
guine temperament and his sympathetic and unselfish disposition—characteristics 
which were knit together in happy union by a generously hospitable nature, and a 
keen and all-pervading sense of humour. 

Dr. Mould's shortness of stature was counterbalanced by a development of brain 
which was proportionately large, and which provided him with a special intelligence 
and intuitive ability for diagnosis and treatment. 

His wiry physique was well adapted for the good all-round sportsman that he 
was, and he never was in better form than when telling of his runs with the 
Cheshire or the Meynell Hounds, or recounting his adventures with his fishing- 
rod or on the moor. He was fond of coursing, and won steeplechases, and is 
believed to have played on Cheadle Asylum ground in the first game of polo in 
England. He was very successful with his pack of greyhounds and in breeding 
mountain ponies. I have only recently heard that he served as a volunteer officer 
in the days when we were expecting invasion by Napoleon III. 

In lunacy matters Dr. Mould was a law unto himself and rather sketchy in his 
interpretation of legal formalities; but I am not aware that he came to grief or 
was other than successful in his independent schemes or methods. He had a 
pleasant memory of compliments paid to him by Lord Shaftesbury, who was 
a guest at his dinner as President of the Medico-Psychological Association in 
1880; and he told me with a merry chuckle that when dining in London on one 
occasion with Sir James Crichton-Browne he met Mr. Phillips, one of the Legal 
Commissioners in Lunacy, who said to him: “I know you are a very good 
fellow, but you have given me more trouble than all the other superintendents 
put together.” 

Outside his professional work and his sporting proclivities, Mould was a 
raconteur whom it would be difficult to beat, and a keen Freemason and a good 
fellow. His stories were very largely original and often told against himself. 
Once when taking his University class round the asylum after his lecture—and 
he was an instructive lecturer and good speaker—they happened upon a patient, 
a gentleman of the philosopher type, who took the opportunity of orating for the 
benefit of the students, and concluded by saying: “ Well, gentlemen, perhaps you 
don’t know much yet, and they say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but 
since I came here I have found a little doctor who is a damned sight more 
dangerous.” The " little doctor ” was beloved by his students, but they enjoyed 
the piece of banter. Space limits me to one more story. Mould used to relate 
with some pride how he persuaded a jury to bring in a verdict of “ accidental 
death ” in a case where one of his patients had deliberately stood up facing a train 
and got run over. The coroner afterwards told him he ought to have been an 
advocate. 

On his retirement, eleven years ago, he for some time found life and its concerns 
irksome and depressing, but he got over this stage and settled down in his easy 
chair, reading novels and light literature, and welcomed his friends gladly up to 
the good old age of 84 years, retaining his marvellous memory of his manifold 
experiences to the end, when he 11 passed peacefully from sleep into uncon¬ 
sciousness.” 

Dr. Mould was three times married. By his second wife he had two sons and 
three daughters. The sons, Gilbert and Philip, are doing extensive work in 
lunacy and diseases of the nervous system throughout the north and west of 
England. His third wife, who was Miss Edith Sharp, of Manchester, and who 
survives him, is a lady of much charm and sagacity, and did excellent work during 
the war as Commandant of the Red Cross Hospital at Colwyn Bay. She was the 
constant helpmeet of her husband and looked after him with untiring devotion. 


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NOTES AND NEWS. 


[April, 1919. 


NOTICES BY THE REGISTRAR. 

Nursing Examinations. 

Preliminary Examination . . Monday, May 5th, 1919. 

Final Examination .... Monday, May 12th, 1919. 

An Examination for Certificate in Psychological Medicine will be held in 
London first week in July. 

Essays for Bronze Medal must reach Registrar not later than June 10th. 

There will be an Examination for Gaskell Prize first week in July. 

Particulars of above from Registrar, County Asylum, Hatton, Warwick. 


THE LIBRARY OF THE MEDICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. 

Members are reminded that the Library of the Association at 11, Chandos 
Street, Cavendish Square, W., contains many books which are of great value for 
the purpose of reference. Recent publications are bought from time to time, and 
if any member desires the use of a book not in the Library, it can be obtained by 
means of the subscription which is paid to Messrs. Lewis’s Lending Library. 
Application for any book should be made to Mr. Geo. Bethell, II, Chandos 
Street, Cavendish Square, W. 

R. H. Steen, 

Secretary to Library Committee. 


APPOINTMENTS. 

Townsend, Arthur, M.D., Medical Superintendent, Barnwood House, Gloucester, 
vice Dr. Soutar, resigned. 

Brown, R. Dods, M.D., F.R.C.P.Edin., Medical Superintendent, Royal Asylum, 
Aberdeen. 

Kennedy, Hugh T. J., L.R.C.P.&S.I., Enniscorthy District Asylum, vice Dr. 
Drapes, resigned. 


NOTICE TO CONTRIBUTORS. 

N.B. —The Editors will be glad to receive contributions of interest, clinical 
records, etc., from any members who can find time to write (whether these have 
been read at meetings or not) for publication in the Journal. They will also feel 
obliged if contributors will send in their papers at as early a date in each quarter 
as possible. 

Writers are requested kindly to bear in mind that, according to Lix(a) of the 
Articles of Association, “ all papers read at the Annual, General, or Divisional 
Meetings of the Association shall be the property of the Association, unless the 
author shall have previously obtained the written consent of the Editors to the 
contrary.” 

Papers read at Association Meetings should, therefore, not be published in other 
Journals without suck sanction having been previously granted. 


Dr. Drapes having resigned office as Medical Superintendent of the Enniscorthy 
Asylum, his address after May 20th prox. will be: Milleen, Dalkey, Co. Dublin, 
where all correspondence in future should be addressed. 


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JOURNAL OF MENTAL SCIENCE, JULY, 1919. 



Joseph Wiglesworth, M.D., F.R.C.P.Lond. 
Obiit May i6th, 1919. President, 1902-3. 


A,Hard <5s Son <5r* West \ etvman , I . fd . 


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THE 


JOURNAL OF MENTAL SCIENCE 


[.Published by Authority of the Medico-Psychological Association 
of Great Britain and Ireland.] 


No. 270 [ 


NSW BBRIIft 

No. 234. 


] 


JULY, 1919. 


Vol. LXV. 


Part I.—Original Articles. 


The Present Position in Clinical Psychology. Presidential Address 
by William McDougall, Major, R.A.M.C.(Temp)., M.B., 
F.R.S., at a meeting of the Section of Psychiatry of the Royal 
Society of Medicine held November 19th, 1918. [By kind 
permission of the writer and of the Royal Society of Medicine ] 

In choosing a subject for this address, I have felt at liberty to go 
outside the boundary of psychiatry , and 1 propose to put before you a 
slight sketch of the present position in clinical psychology. First, it is 
necessary to explain what I intend to denote by this term. It may be 
said that there is not and cannot beany branch or section of psychology 
that can properly be so called ; for the clinician necessarily deals with 
his patient as an entire organism, and cannot, in considering his mental 
life, abstract from any one part or function of the mind to concentrate 
his attention upon another; his psychology therefore must be concrete 
and must deal with the mind as a whole. This is true, and it follows 
from this truth that, when our knowledge of the human mind shall 
have become an adequate and well-established science, that science 
must be the theoretic basis for all who are practically concerned with 
the working of the mind, whether they are chiefly and immediately 
concerned with the normal mind or with minds in disorder. 

But, as I shall presently show, it is just because we have hitherto had 
no such psychology that there has been growing up of late years a 
specialised form of mental science which may conveniently be desig¬ 
nated clinical psycholog)'. There can, I think, be little doubt that a 
century hence the present time will be held to be remarkable for the 
great advances made in our understanding of the mind, and it will be 
recognised with gratitude that clinicians have played a great and 
leading part in this achievement. My purpose is to attempt a rough 
LXV. IO 


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142 PRESENT POSITION IN CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY, [July, 

sketch of the way in which this achievement of the clinical psychologists 
will appear to the historian of science in that future age. 

In order to understand the rise of clinical psychology as a semi¬ 
independent body of thought, we must glance at the state of academic 
psychology in the later decades of last century. There is some 
foundation for the jibe that there were then as many psychologies as 
psychologists ; yet there were certain doctrines which, especially in 
the psychologies that claimed to be scientific rather than philosophical, 
dominated the scene. 

The chief of these were: (1) Atomism, or sensationism; (2) 

associationism ; (3) hedonism. 

Sensationism, the theory that all mental states, broadly spoken of as 
presentations or ideas, are aggregates formed by the compounding or 
clustering together of smaller fragments of conscious stuff, the ele¬ 
mentary sensations ; one idea differing from another merely in the 
number and variety of the units of sensation combined in it (hence the 
name mind-dust theory). 

Associationism, the theory that all this compounding and clustering 
of units to form ideas, as well as all the succession and interplay of 
ideas, was ruled by the one great principle of association. 

These two great principles were natural complements, and, therefore, 
were almost inevitably and everywhere combined. This combination 
was very widely accepted, owing not cnly to the seductive simplicity of 
the notion, but still more perhaps to the fact that it lent itself to 
combination with the increasing knowledge of the structure of the 
brain, to form a purely mechanical and materialistic theory of mental 
life. For the mental elements were regarded as being functions of the 
brain-elements or cells, as the sound of a plucked string is a function 
of the string ; and the ideas or clusters of elements were likened to the 
chord heard when many strings are plucked or sounded together. 
Association was a function of the connections between brain-cells; and 
all the play of mental life was but a matter of the ringing up of brain- 
cells and groups of cells by the spreading of the nervous impulse 
from group to group, according to the simple principles of mechanical 
association. 

British thinkers, Locke, Hartley, the Mills, Bain, and Herbert 
Spencer, to mention only a few of the most distinguished, were chiefly 
responsible for the immense success of these two principles. 

To some thinkers these two principles alone seemed. sufficient to 
account for all thought and all action ; for to will was to have an idea 
of an action or movement, and these ideas of movement were, like all 
others, subject only to the great law of association. This was the 
theory of ideo motor action, dearly beloved of so many of our French 
colleagues, and unduly emphasised by many of them.- But others 


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could not overlook the fact iliat men commonly act, not merely because 
an idea of action comes into their minds, but because they have a 
purpose, seek some end, or strive to achieve some effect; and, looking 
round'for some formula to define that end, they said—It is pleasure l 
In acting, in seeking, in striving, men, they said, are always moved by 
the desire of pleasure. There you have the third great principle of 
hedonism. 

The psychologies which did not base themselves upon these principles 
were in the main highly metaphysical, and not such as to engage the 
attention of physicians struggling with the problems of mental and 
nervous disorder. And so we find that these physicians adopted, 
almost without exception, the mechanistic psychology founded on 
atomism, association, and hedonism. 

This psychology, however, was wholly inadequate to the needs of 
psychiatrists. Its specious principles afforded little or no help when 
brought to the practical test of use in the interpretation of mental 
disorder. 

And the natural consequence of its acceptance by psychiatrists was 
that those among them who were moved to research devoted themselves 
almost wholly to the attempt to discover the material basis-, the neuro¬ 
pathology, of mental disease, this tendency being strongest where the 
mechanistic psychology was best established—namely, in England and 
Scotland ; while the practical physician used the psjchology of common 
sense and common speech, supplemented by his own intuition and 
large experience of men—a condition of affairs illustrated by the 
majority of the older text-books still in use. 

I will further illustrate the position by reference to the writings of 
three leaders of psychological medicine, in Germany, France, and 
England respectively. 

Prof. Ziehen, whose works have enjoyed a wide circulation, repre¬ 
sents the pure principles of mechanistic materialistic psychology based 
on the three principles mentioned above. His psychology claims to be 
a physiological psychology; in reality it is a speculative and highly 
dubious brain-physiology which for psychiatry is utterly sterile. 
Psychology of this sort seemed at one time to have achieved a triumph 
in its interpretation of the varieties of aphasia, but it is, I think, now 
generally recognised that this triumph was illusory, and that in the main 
it obscured and distorted the facts. 

Prof. Pierre Janet may justly claim to be the father or founder of 
clinical psychology. Starting with the principles of the mechanistic 
psychology, and, like other French write s, attaching great importance 
to the notion of ideo-motor action, he greatly developed the conception 
of mental dissociation. But valuable as was this contribution, his work 
would have remained on the purely descriptive plane had he not 


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broken away from the mechanistic psychology by introducing a new 
conception quite incompatible with it—namely, he conceived the mind 
to be pervaded by a synthetic energy, variable in quantity, whose 
function is to hold together in one stream of consciousness the various 
sensory elements, and in defect of which dissociation of consciousness 
into partial streams occurs. 

In this country, the transition from old to new doctrine which I am 
attempting to sketch is illustrated in the most striking way by the work 
of Dr. C. Mercier. This brilliant writer, after having expounded the 
mechanistic psychology with great force and confidence, has made the 
discovery that in presence of all problems of action it leaves us utterly 
helpless. Thereupon, instead of undertaking a radical revision of his 
psychology, he announces our need of a new and distinct science— 
namely, a science of conduct (which he proposes to call praxiology )— 
and writes a new volume to lay the foundations of this much-needed 
science. No happier illustration of the inadequacy and sterility of the 
mechanistic psychology could be found. In taking this course Dr. 
Mercier was unconsciously following the example of John Stuart Mill, 
who began by adopting and expounding the purely mechanistic psycho¬ 
logy of his father; and then, discovering, like Dr. Mercier, that it 
threw no light on problems of conduct and of character, sketched out a 
new science to fill this gap, proposing to call it ethology. Thus does 
history repeat itself even in the realm of science. 

These three thinkers I have cited fairly represent the many others 
who have vainly striven to bring the mechanistic psychology to the aid 
of medicine. No wonder, then, that others have thrown aside all 
academic psychology in approaching the problems of the disordered 
mind; and it is perhaps well that they have done so; for their relative 
freedom from the paralysing shackles of the mechanistic psychology has 
enabled them to make progress; but their repudiation of all academic 
psychology has inevitably resulted in those peculiarities of the clinical 
psychology of our time which mark it off from the main stream of 
psychological tradition and development. 

This method of approach and these consequences are best illustrated 
by the work of Prof. S. Freud, who, whatever verdict may ultimately be 
passed on his psycho therapeutic methods, will certainly rank as one 
who has .given a great impulse to psychological inquiry, Freud’s 
psychological work may be said, from the logical point of view, to 
have begun from the wrong end. Without any preliminary attempt to 
consider first principles of mental life, to analyse consciousness, or even 
to define the terms which he uses, this daring and original inquirer has 
wrestled at first hand with the problems of conduct, and especially with 
the problems of disordered conduct as presented to him by his patients 
in all their concreteness and complexity. Thus approaching, he has 


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been deeply impressed by the great fact that much of human conduct, 
both normal and abnormal, proceeds not from consciously reasoned 
motives nor from any chain of association of clear ideas, but from a 
great impelling force that works within us, expressing itself only very 
obscurely in consciousness as vague feeling and uneasiness. This he 
has recognised as the sexual impulse; and, having been deeply 
impressed by the far reaching effects of this upon conduct, and by the 
obscure and devious modes of its operation, he has gone on to bring 
under the same heading whatever other forces of a similar nature he 
has seemed to detect as co-operating with and subserving it, or which 
the vagueness of common speech seems in any way to connect with it. 
In this way, in his reaction from the mechanistic psychology, he has 
brought to light two great allied facts: (1) The impulsive, demoniac, 
illogical nature of much of human thought and conduct; (2) the very 
partial and inadequate way in which consciousness or self-consciousness 
reflects or represents the workings of this impulsive force. Freud’s 
insistence on these two facts is his fundamental contribution to psycho*- 
logy; and it is the recognition and emphasis of them, thanks largely to 
his labours, that is the key-note of clinical psychology at the present 
time. 

Freud’s development of these two truths has been marred by several 
errors : First, his attribution to the sexual impulse of much of conduct 
that is not properly so attributable, and his consequent exaggeration of 
the role of sex; secondly, he has not wholly freed himself from the 
errors of the mechanistic psychology, in spite of his detachment from 
tradition, so natural are these errors to the scientific mind; two 
especially he has retained— (a) instead of repudiating the mechanistic 
determinism, he claims that he has for the first time established this 
principle in psychology ; ( b) instead of repudiating hedonism, he has 
made it his own and attempted to combine it with his recbgnition of 
the impulsive nature of conduct, as what he calls the pleasure principle , 
in a very confusing way that largely vitiates his thinking. A third 
great blemish is, that, having repudiated the traditional terminology of 
psychology and having neglected to define his own terms by careful 
analysis, his terminology is often obscure and misleading, and, as a 
further consequence, the large unanalysed conceptions with which he 
operates tend to become anthropomorphic agencies—the unconscious, 
the censor, the foreconscious, etc. 

But in spite of these large blemishes and beyond the two funda¬ 
mental principles we may, I think, see in his work permanent contribu¬ 
tions to psychology which are of especial value to clinical psychology 
and are playing a great part in its development. Notably (1) the 
conception of active continued repression of distressing memories—a 
conception distinct from and much more fertile than the dissociation of 


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146 PRESENT POSITION IN CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY, [July, 

Janet ; (2) the conception of conflict in the mind going on below the 
threshold of consciousness and capable of giving rise to disorder of 
thought and conduct; (3) the symbolical significance of some dreams 
and of some forms of waking thought and conduct, and the value of 
these as indicators of conflict and repression ; (4) the conception of 
the “ affect ” as a quantity of energy that attaches to ideas, and gives 
them their impulsive force in the determination of thought and conduct. 

Let us now glance at the way in which others have contributed to 
the further development of these lines of thought. I refer first to 
Adler, who, working by methods similar to Freud’s, has diverged widely 
from h'm. His chief contribution has been to secure recognition by 
clinical psychology of two great impulses which seem to have escaped 
the notice of Freud. He has recognised the great pait in human life 
of an impulse of self-assertion, and of one of only less importance, an 
impulse of self-abasement or submission ; and, applying to these what 
may perhaps without impropriety be called the Freudian method in 
psychology, he has assigned them an immense rd/e, and seeks to show 
that their distoited working is the source of all the neuroses, just as 
Freud finds that source in the sex-impulse. And, though he has without 
doubt exaggerated their role in the neuroses, we mu>t forgive this natural 
exaggeration in gratefully recognising that he has secured recognition by 
clinical psychology of these two important impulses. 

An English clinician has in a similar way secured recognition for 
another great impulse. Mr. W. Trotter has discovered the gregarious 
impulse, and, in a brilliant and persuasive little book, has treated it by 
the Freudian method , that is to say, postulating this impulse, without 
first stopping to inquire—What is its nature? What are the limits and 
scope of its action ? But, sweeping into its province whatever human 
activities are social or in any way dependent upon or related to the 
social groupings of mankind, he has made it appear as the mainspring 
of well-nigh all human activity, normal and pathological. 

An American clinician has performed a similar service in regard to 
yet another fundamental impulse of the human mind. Dr. Boris Sidis 
has, by applying the Freudian method, sought to show that fear is the 
source of all the psychoneuroses, all those troubles of thought and 
conduct which Freud attributes to the sex impulse, and Adler to the 
self-assertive tendency and its opposite. And though, like them, he 
must be judged to have overdone his part and proved too much, he yet 
may claim the credit of having given to fear a secure place in clinical 
psychology. But this place has been overwhelmingly established by the 
observations of a large number of physicians upon the psychoneuroses 
of war; for they have learnt that many, if not all, of the modes of 
neurosis may be generated by the terrifying experiences of the battle¬ 
field—that is by fear, or, as they commonly prefer to call it, by the 


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instinct of self-preservation. Thus tear takes its place alongside sex, 
self-assertion, and the gregarious impulse, as one of the great impelling 
forces of thought and conduct which work independently of the 
promptings of pleasure and override the principles of mechanical 
association. 

We may, I think, assume that clinical psychology has not yet come 
to an end of its advance along this line, and may confidently expect 
that there remain other fundamental impulses of like nature to be dis¬ 
covered by it playing their parts in the genesis of mental and nervous 
disorders. 

Now, it is of the essence of these great fundamental impulses, thus 
revealed as the underlying motive powers of so much of thought and 
action, both normal and abnormal, that they are purposive or teleo¬ 
logical, and are not to be deterred by pain, nor turned aside from their 
biological ends by pleasure. They override and dominate for their own 
purposes all the mechanisms of association and the hedonistic influences. 
Therefore their recognition in clinical psychology necessarily leads to 
a complete break with the mechanistic psychology. Freud’s own 
teachings show clearly the purposive character of much in human 
conduct that had been regarded as merely the fortuitous outcome of 
mechanical haphazard association ; that, in fact, is rightly claimed by 
his disciples as one of his greatest achievements. Thus he has himself 
undermined both the mechanistic determinism and the hedonism 
which he professes to maintain. And although clinical psychologists 
commonly use the phrase “ mental mechanisms,” this is only for lack 
of a better mode of expression; and some of them have grasped the 
radical transformation of psychology that must result from the recog¬ 
nition of the great role of these primary impulses—a transformation 
from the deterministic mechanical psychology to a teleological and inde¬ 
terministic psychology, a radical transformation, because, in spite of the 
ingenuity of German metaphysicians, mechanical process and purposive 
action remain utterly and fundamentally different. Most notable 
among these is Dr. C. J. Jung, who in his Analytical Psychology has 
forcibly shown the practical clinical importance of this revolution, 
insisting that so long as we regard the symptoms of our nervous patients 
as wholly and mechanically determined by the past, we miss their true 
significance and render our psycho-therapy relatively sterile ; he insists 
that we have constantly to bear in mind in all our procedures the fact 
that conduct is determined by ideals of the future that we strive 
towards as well as by the events of the past. 

Jung also has made a further great step of a more speculative kind. 
Repudiating the excessive sexualism of Freud and insisting upon the 
importance of the food-seeking impulse, especially in childhood, he 
regards all the primary impulses as differentiations of one fundamental 


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energy, the life-force which sustains all our strivings, both conscious 
and unconscious, thus approaching, but from a very different direction, 
the conception of the Han vital which the greatest of contemporary 
thinkers, Prof. Bergson, has so eloquently expounded. 

Turn now for a moment to that other distinctive feature of clinical 
psychology—the increasing recognition of the part played in conduct 
and mental life by processes that remain hidden from consciousness. 
It is difficult to make any general statements about this, because the 
greatest obscurity and confusion still reign. The facts have not been 
brought to light by clinical psychologists alone. Others have been 
impressed by their importance and have prepared the way—Schopenhauer 
and Hartmann, and F. W. H. Myers notably. 

Janet, with his conception of dissociated sensations and ideas, has 
attempted to give greater precision to the conception of unconscious 
mental process; and others who, like Janet, have made large use of 
hypnosis, have brought forward as justifying the conception all the 
striking facts of post-hypnotic suggestion. Morton Prince especially, 
following in the line of Janet, has striven to introduce some clarity into 
the vagueness which enshrouds this region, by his demonstrations of 
co-conscious personalities and co-conscious ideas; and to my mind he 
seems to have made out his case for the truth of these conceptions in 
certain abnormal cases. But his conception does not cover the whole 
ground ; it does not cover the unconscious or subconscious operations 
of normal life ; and on these Freud has rightly insisted. 

The reality, the richness, and the importance of these subconscious 
operations of the mind have been brought home to many of us with a 
new force by our experience of the functional disorders of warfare; for 
no one working among these cases can have failed to come across many 
instances in which the symptoms, both bodily and mental—amnesias, 
war-dreams, phobias, anxiety states, paralyses, contractures, epileptiform 
seizures, headaches, tics—have been undeniably traceable to emotional 
conflicts and repressed tendencies and ideas, which have operated 
wholly or partly beneath or without the clear consciousness of the 
patient. 

But Freud and most of his disciples have followed in the line of the 
“ unconscious ” of Hartmann, of Myers’ “ subliminal self,” and the 
“ unconscious mind ” of other authors—that is to say they have tended 
to confuse together in one unanalysed mass whatever contents and 
operations of the mind are not clearly conscious at each moment, and 
to make of this an anthropomorphic entity, a demon, a god in the 
machine, whose nature and powers remain entirely unlimited and 
incomprehensible. And Jung and his followers seem to me to fall in 
some degree into the same error. I say “ error ” because this way of 
treating of “ the unconscious ” seems to me unscientific; it tends 


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towards a vaguely mystical attitude which, however much in place in 
religious or metaphysical thinking, does not directly promote, but 
rather checks, further scientific inquiry into this problem. 

I venture to think that this error is again the outcome of the 
contamination of clinical psychology with the fallacies of the mechanistic 
psychology which it professes to repudiate. For that psychology all 
mental life was a succession of clearly conscious ideas. It ignored the 
fact that these ideas are but the eddies and ripples on the surface of a 
stream, deep within which are the currents and forces of which those 
eddies and ripples afford only very imperfect indications. This truth is 
manifested all down the scale of animal life—the instinctive strivings 
of the animals generally bring them surely to their biological ends, 
without clear consciousness either of those ends, or of the means by 
which they are achieved, or of the objects which, by impressing their 
senses, guide their successive steps. And it is not otherwise with man : 
he also is borne on to his biological ends, for the most part but dimly 
conscious of those ends or of the mental forces and processes by which 
he achieves them. 

Just because the mechanistic psychology had ignored these surging 
hidden streams of the life force, those who, revolting from its inade¬ 
quacies, have found themselves confronted by evidence of their reality 
in man, have been startled by the revelation and have seemed to see 
beneath the only form of mind recognised by the older psychology 
another system of forces greater and more mysterious, which they have 
thus been led to regard as a distinct mind or entity—the unconscious, 
the subliminal, or subsconscious self. 

A third way in which clinical psychology is diverging widely from the 
mechanistic psychology is by its discovery of the mind’s wealth of innate 
endowment. The mechanistic psychology inherited Locke’s dogma 
that each mind starts out upon its course of individual experience as a 
tabula rasa —a blank sheet on which experience writes as chance 
determines. 

The recognition of the primary or instinctive impulses, of which we 
have already spoken, carries clinical psychology a long way beyond this 
primitive and untenable position, showing the strong native bias of the 
mind to select and react upon impressions from the outer world, not 
only according to its individual past experience, but also and chiefly 
according to its inherited constitution. But among clinical psycho¬ 
logists there is a strong tendency to go further than this, to believe that 
much of the development of the individual mind is literally a recapitu¬ 
lation of the racial mind, a gradual unfolding at the touch of experience 
of modes of thinking and feeling and doing gradually acquired by many 
generations of ancestors. Only by this assumption can they explain the 
striking uniformity of symptoms which characterise certain mental 


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disorders, and the equally striking uniformity of thinking and feeling 
revealed by primitive myth and custom among the most diverse races of 
mankind. 

This line of work in clinical psychology promises to contribute very 
importantly towards two of the greatest problems that confront the 
human intellect—one strictly biological, the other of more general and 
philosophical import. 

The one is the problem of heredity. If that wealth of inherited 
forms of thought and feeling, towards which clinical psychology seems 
strongly to point at present, should be further substantiated, this result 
will decide the issue of the great controversy between those who deny 
and those who affirm the inheritance of acquired characters. For 
while it may, perhaps, be plausibly maintained that a few simple 
instinctive modes of feeling and action may have been impressed upon 
the race by natural selection alone, every demonstration of a greater 
richness of this inherited structure of the mind renders this explanation 
more hopelessly inadequate, and drives us back upon the Neo-Lamarckian 
view that the experience of each generation impresses itself enduringly 
upon the race. 

The other great problem is that of the constitution of mar., the age¬ 
long controversy between materialism and what in the widest sense may 
be called spiritualism. For so long as it is held, w'ith the mechanistic 
psychology, that congenitally the mind is a tabula rasa , and the brain 
little more than a mass of indifferent nerve-tissue waiting to be moulded 
by impressions from the outer world, it may seem plausible to hold 
that all mental potentialities are somehow comprised in the material 
structure of the germ-plasm. But, with every addition to the 
demonstrable wealth of innate mental powers and tendencies, this 
hypothesis becomes more impossible and incredible. And it may 
safely be affirmed that, if anything like the wealth of innate endow¬ 
ment claimed now by some— e.g., by Jung in his latest w r ork—should 
become well established, then all the world would see that the 
materialistic hypothesis is outworn and outrun, and that each man is 
bound to his race and ancestry by links which, conceive them how 
we may, are certainly of such a nature that in principle they can never 
be apprehended by the senses, no matter how refined and indefinitely 
augmented by the ultramicroscope or by the utmost refinements of 
physical chemistry. I venture to insist upon this contribution of 
clinical psychologists towards the solution of these great problems, 
because few of them seem to have adequately realised the bearing of 
their work on these issues, which so far transcend in interest even the 
fascinating and important questions with which they are more directly 
concerned. 

There are many other features of interest in the present position on 


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which I might dwell if time allowed. I have had time to touch only 
on these few which seem to me the most significant. I have said 
nothing of the burning questions of method in psycho-therapy, and to 
do so would perhaps be presumption on my part. But I would like to 
say one word in the nature of a warning criticism. We are repeatedly 
asked to accept satisfactory clinical results not only as evidence of the 
value of the therapeutic methods applied, but also as evidence of the 
truth of the psychological doctrines on which they claimed to be based. 
The whole history of medicine seems to me to show the danger and 
the fallacy of this claim. How many accepted therapeutic procedures 
have been shown to be worthless ! How many others, whose value has 
been proved, have been founded upon, or held to prove the truth of, 
hypotheses which are for ever dead. And we are relieved from any 
compulsion to accept such evidence when we notice that the exponents 
of different methods, based upon different psychological doctrines, claim 
equally brilliant therapeutic results in the same class of cases; and how 
even the same clinical worker continues to a< hieve equally brilliant 
therapeutic results before and after a radical change of doctrine and 
procedure. I insist on this as a warning against dogmatism, as an 
appeal for mutual tolerance and the open mind in this great field 
where we all wander, groping more or less blindly, among the deepest 
mysteries of Nature. 

I have tried to hint that clinical psychology, now launched upon a 
great career, is in the position of a brilliant and wayward child, which, 
throwing aside the traditional wisdom of its parent as of no account, 
sets forth to acquire a new wisdom ab initio , and which, though making 
great strides, is hampered through retaining all unawares some of ihe 
prejudices and errors that it believes to have put off. And this brilliant 
child, as it advances, will inevitably find that there was truth as well as 
error in that parental wisdom. For the mechanistic psychology was not 
the whole or even the better part of psychology : it was the work of a 
sect, a series of persuasive and brilliant writers, who evolved it by 
deduction from principles set up by physical science, rather than by the 
patient and detailed study of human and animal life; and it enjoyed a 
great vogue because it harmonised with the materialistic tendencies of 
the great age of physical discovery. 

But we are now in the age of biological discovery, and since Darwin 
initiated this new age there has been growing up a biological and 
inductive psychology, a science not springing full blown, like the psycho¬ 
logy of James Mill, or of Herbert Spencer, from the reasonings of one 
powerful mind, but a science, based like other sciences, on a vast mass 
of minute and careful observation, a slowly growing product of the 
co-operation of a multitude of workers. 

This science is showing the same main tendencies, the same trends, 


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as clinical psychology. And it is a bigger thing than clinical psychology . 
because it is based upon a wider field of observation and induction; it 
is greater as the whole is greater than the part. Clinical psychology 
cannot afford to ignore this greater stream and to remain in splendid 
isolation. It is to be hoped that it will renounce the effort to do so, 
that the brilliant child will return to the parental fold, bringing rich 
gifts, but gaining in return a greater breadth of view, a greater sanity 
and balance, a more precise terminology, a greater clarity of thought, 
and with these, a greater power of dealing effectively with those most 
distressing of the disorders that afflict mankind—the nervous and mental 
diseases. 


Menial Wards with the British Expeditionary Force: A Review of 
Ten Months’ Experience. By W. D. Chambers, M.A., M.D., 
Senior Assistant Physician, Crichton Royal, Dumfries (late temp. 
Capt. R.A.M.C ). 

During the period from March ist, 1918, to January nth, 1919, the 
writer held the appointment of Mental Specialist to Boulogne Base, and 
was in charge of the mental wards for that area. These were located at 
No. 8 Stationary Hospital at Wimereux, and received all the mental 
cases developing in or brought to the Boulogne and Calais areas. In 
addition a number of cases were sent for report from the local standing 
medical board, and many cases were seen at other hospitals. 

Staff .—At the time of my appointment the staff consisted of myself, 
two nursing sisters by day and one by night, a ward-master, twelve 
nursing orderlies, and one general duty orderly. The nursing orderlies 
worked eight-hour shifts, one shift relieving the other for meals, and 
taking night duty in rotation. All twelve had had previous mental 
experience, but in March, 1918, seven of them, being of category A, were 
removed and replaced by men of low category and having no experience. 
As there were frequently sixty or seventy acute patients in the wards 
this made their management difficult at times. 

Accommodation .—At first this consisted of two huts at right angles, 
one containing forty beds, the other twelve beds and a day room, which 
served as overflow dormitory. There were four cubicles, only one of 
which had a door, two baths, three w.c. seats, and the usual 
offices. The other two sides of the square were formed by a corrugated 
iron fence, seven feet high, enclosing an airing court. All windows to 
the exterior were not only heavily barred, but covered with heavy iron 
mesh, immovably fixed and impossible to clean. The dayroom and 
cubicles were lit only by skylights. 


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1919.] 

Theoretically the accommodation was for fifty-six, but on my 
arrival I found ninety-two patients. The excess slept on mattresses on 
the floor. Fortunately a new hut containing forty-four beds opening from 
the day room was ready for use by May, 1918. The more oppressive of 
the bars and iron-mesh window-guards were removed, making the wards 
lighter and more airy, and towards the end of the year windows were 
provided in the day rooms, greatly diminishing the prison-like aspect of 
the place. 

After urgent application a space of 35 by 40 square yards on the 
seaward side was obtained for exercise. It was surrounded by a forbid¬ 
ding fence of barbed wire, but allowed room for more free movements 
and some games, and afforded an unsurpassable view of the Channel and 
its traffic, and on a clear day of the cliffs of “ Blighty.” There was no 
verandah, but the bed-patients were taken out whenever possible. Their 
number varied from six to forty, but averaged twenty. 

Admissions .—During the io£ months under review there were 893 
admissions, in addition to the 92 patients I found in the ward. This 
number included, besides men from Britain and all the Dominions, 12 
Americans, 14 Portuguese, 2 French, 12 West Indian Negroes, 3 Indians, 
3 Russians, 4 Poles, 1 Serbian, and 16 Germans. No officers were 
admitted. The admission-rate was always lower during active fighting, 
but this diminution was more apparent than real, and was largely due 
to mental cases being detained in other units when the trains were busy 
with wounded. The rate tended to be higher before a battle, as a result 
of units clearing out inefficients and hospitals near the line freeing beds. 
The additional stress and strain of a battle undoubtedly precipitates the 
symptoms of the psycho-neuroses in those already sickening, but I was 
unable to detect any notable increase in the incidence of insanity at 
such times. It appeared that a larger number of defectives broke down 
during heavy fighting, but my numbers were not conclusive. Cases 
from any part of the Front may be sent to any Base, and only the 
statistics for the whole battle-line could be of value in this connection. 

General Management .—Another hospital at the base was appointed 
to take all cases of neurosis and psychoneurosis, and it was intended 
that only “ mental ” patients should be sent to my wards. A large 
number, however, of patients of the former classes were sent in. Some 
of them were greatly upset to find themselves in a mental ward, the fear 
of insanity being ever close to the psychoneurotic, but after I got a 
second ward I was as a rule able to keep them away from the worst 
cases and save them this anxiety. 

All cases found to be suffering from a psycho-neurosis or from mental 
disease or deficiency were transferred to the United Kingdom. The 
doors of the convalescent ward were open all day. Parole was freely 
given and was only abused on one occasion—Armistice night. I was 


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fortunate in only having one escape, a syphilophobic psychasthenic, not 
on parole, who spent a night in the local venereal hospital and returned 
voluntarily. He had gained a knowledge of the symptoms of the 
dreaded disease which did him good. There were no suicides. 

On the whole I found the soldiers extraordinarily good patients, and 
incredibly more amenable than similar civilian patients. The Army 
and its methods make their mark on a man soon. On two occasions 
when the wards were crowded and the weather bad, a few malcontents 
threatened to attack the orderlies and break out—there was always a 
considerable proportion of prisoners uneasy about their fate—but both 
threats fizzled out. Care was taken to avoid oppressive “ militarism,” 
especially in dealing with neurotics, but no man was permitted a degree 
of slackness which would diminish his self-respect. 

Air-raids were rather a problem. We were situated unfortunately on 
a convenient landmark—the coast from Gris-Nez to Boulogne—and the 
enemy aircraft, though they seldom dropped bombs very near, frequently 
passed overhead, meeting there the local barrage. All electric light was 
cut off on the merest hint of a raid, and we were dependent for light in 
the observation ward on three hurricane lamps turned very low. The 
first considerable concussion put these out, leaving a ward full of unreliable 
patients of various tendencies perilously free scope for their activities. 
Fortunately no accidents happened. Defectives and hysterical cases 
and the negroes were most alarmed on these occasions and needed 
encouragement. Maniacs and general paretics were the envy of all. 
Cases of depression and confusion, stuporose and delusional cases were 
unaffected as a rule. I used hypnotics rather freely on fine nights when 
a raid might be expected. 

Prisoners .—Of the admissions, 125 were prisoners, either convicted 
or waiting disposal, including 22 cases of self-inflicted wounds. In most 
cases the offences were purely military in nature. Charges of desertion 
and absence without leave were, as might be supposed, particularly 
common. Cases of theft, insubordination, and assault also occurred, 
mostly in defective and paranoic cases. I was required to examine 
one murderer, in whom I failed to find any signs of mental disease or 
deficiency. 

In the Army a very slight variation from the normal in conduct 
quickly attracts attention. In many cases the earliest attention takes 
the form of committal to the guard-room, but the occasional individual 
unfairness of this procedure is more than counterbalanced by the 
advantages of having the incipient psychotic put under treatment at 
once. I had never any difficulty in protecting a man from the 
consequences of an offence committed while he was not responsible for 
his actions. 

Of the cases of desertion and absence without leave—the distinction 


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is delicate but definite—the majority were the subjects of simple 
hysterical fugues. All degrees of dissociation were found. Some after 
a comparatively prolonged absence were clean and tidy, apparently well 
fed, and in no way likely to attract attention. Others were dirty and 
exhausted, and had obviously been less able to look after themselves. 
Some on admission were completely dissociated and disorientated; 
others, except for slight retardation, behaved and conversed naturally, 
and said they had, for a time, forgotten their name and unit and had 
been wandering about. Others in an intermediate condition were still 
unaware of their identity, showed some confusion, had no conscious 
insight, yet accepted a hospital bed without surprise. 

As was natural, considering the psychological mechanisms at work, 
the majority of these cases made for Boulogne, and were arrested in or 
near that town. Some, however, wandered aimlessly about the country. 
The French peasants fed them, and they got stray meals in British 
camps and billets. The fact that so many profoundly dissociated cases 
managed to elude the numerous and inquisitive military police as long 
as they did is astonishing, and argues a very considerable degree of 
unconscious alertness and cunning. In many of these fugues the amnesia 
was absolute only for the act of leaving the unit, and a gradually 
diminishing haziness of recollection covered the remainder of the period. 
In other cases the amnesia was clear cut at both ends. In some cases 
the offence occurred while the patient was on leave in England—usually 
after he had left home for the return journey. Few of these cases were 
of longer duration than a few days, and they differed in no way from 
those which took place in France. 

I had had little previous experience with this type of case, and found 
that some of them gave me considerable difficulty, particularly those of 
longer duration with few symptoms on admission. In some of them 
the restoration of the amnesic period led to an unfeigned emotional 
outburst. In some I was able to obtain a history of definite physical 
or psychical shock. In some the fugue was apparently motiveless and 
unlikely to be of service. One case, presenting practically no other 
symptoms, had frequent terrifying battle dreams. In almost all analytic 
conversation revealed the activity of a complex. A common symptom 
was a fixed local feeling of painful pressure or tightness in the head, 
which varied with the degree and extent of the amnesia. Many also 
showed listlessness or apathy, which with the headache vanished wdien 
the memory became complete. 

Panic flights by defectives accounted for most of the remaining 
absentees. Absences in this category tended to be shorter and there 
was no real amnesia. The diagnosis was easy. 

The estimation of responsibility for crime in the case of men who 
plead amnesia is highly important, and has not received very much 


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attention. Even admitting the amnesia to be genuine, in the absence 
of other psychoneurotic symptoms can responsibility be denied ? 
Amnesia is a result of dissociation and repression which are by no 
means pathological processes, but are in minor degrees normal and 
natural to all. Wishes, tendencies or thoughts which are unpalatable 
or unacceptable or antisocial are being harboured by most of us, and 
are constantly being repressed and kept from consciousness by the 
psychic censor, and their continued repression and powerlessness to 
affect our consciousness or our conduct is due to the watchfulness and 
strength of this censor. The psycho-pathological explanation of the 
crimes we are discussing is that a wholly or partly repressed complex 
eludes or overcomes the psychic censor, and becomes sufficiently power¬ 
ful temporarily to suppress consciousness and to gain control of the 
bodily activities. The mechanism is the same whether the desired end 
be trifling and unimportant, or antisocial and an infringement of law 
and custom. The difference is solely one of degree. The man who 
abstractedly burns or loses his tailor’s bill, and he who unconsciously 
leaves his regiment on the eve of an attack are actuated by the same 
driving force working in the same way. The conduct is favourable to 
the individual but unfavourable to the herd. In some people the 
instinctive individualistic wishes are very completely suppressed, and are 
never able to influence conduct. In some the suppression is less 
thorough, and activities incompatible with conscious control may be 
aroused and displace consciousness. In others the altruism demanded 
by herd instinct is feebler or non-existent, and a more or less consciously 
deliberate career of crime is chosen. Excepting certain outstanding 
cases, who are called moral defectives, and incarcerated in asylums 
instead of prisons, members of this third class are commonly regarded 
as being in all respects responsible for their actions. It would appear 
difficult to justify the universal exoneration of wrong-doers of the 
second class, whose psychic censorship is powerful enough to entail a 
temporary dissociation of consciousness during their anti-herd activities, 
but not to prevent those activities altogether. The force of example 
afforded by the condemnation and punishment of others will assist and 
reinforce the censorship that is inclined to waver. Those cases, 
however, who have offended against the herd, but who, as a result of 
prolonged and stubborn resistance to the tendencies of individualism, 
exhibit pathological symptoms of the conflict in the form of insomnia, 
anxiety, terrifying dreams, etc., appear to be entitled to exoneration 
and to removal if possible to an environment where the psychic control 
may be able to cope with the desires of the individual. 

In three cases of absence I was satisfied that the offender was in all 
respects responsible for his actions. 

Pte. H— was found near the docks in Boulogne, clean and tidy 


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and behaving naturally. He was without pay-book* identity disc, or 
papers, and a portion of the side pocket of his tunic on which a 
soldier commonly writes his name had been recently cut away. He 
complained of nothing, but stated he could give no information 
whatever about himself, or any part of his history. He had no 
physical signs of disease. During examination he seemed uneasy 
and on his guard. He had no headache, showed no confusion or 
retardation, and gave his answers quickly. In a long conversation 
it was possible to trap him in inconsistencies. His “amnesia” was 
unusually resistive, and the order in which he eventually “ remembered ” 
his particulars, etc., was unnatural. He had a bad record with his 
unit. 

Pte. S—, also with a bad record and charges of desertion and prison- 
breaking both in England and France against him, was sent in com¬ 
plaining of “ loss of memory and not knowing what he was doing.” I 
found his amnesia capricious and variable, and quite unsupported by 
other symptoms or by a suggestive history. I was unable to hypnotise 
him. After prolonged observation I discharged him as fit to stand his 
trial. 

Pte. P— had, among other charges, one of desertion to the United 
Kingdom for twelve months against him. On admission he feigned 
symptoms which he conceived to be psychotic ; later he pretended to be 
a defective, and finally, after his medical board, he stated lie had 
recovered. At no time did he show signs of mental or nervous disease. 
It was only after great hesitation I decided he fell outside the class of 
moral defectives and sent him for trial. From this man and from one 
or two others I gained some knowledge of the remarkable trade in 
pay-books, passes, leave-warrants and other evidences of identity carried 
on in soldiers’ hostels and clubs. 

Other offences were rare and as a rule unimportant. I shall allude 
to them elsewhere. 

Self-inflicted, wounds .—Of the 22 “self-inflicted” cases, 3 were 
definitely not suicidal in intent, 1 being deliberate to avoid duty, 1 
the result of a drunken fight, and 1 following the attempt of a general 
paretic to kill rats with a Mills’s bomb. The suicidal wounds comprised 
the following: 14 cut throats, 2 gunshot wounds, 1 bayonet wound, 1 
precipitation from a train, and 1 man who threw himself under a lorry. 
None of these patients were responsible for their actions. The very 
small proportion of cases in which firearms were used is striking, and in 
my opinion results partly from the probability that when a soldier attempts 
suicide by shooting he is almost invariably successful, and so rarely 
gains a place in statistics. There is no doubt that in heavy fighting 
under adverse conditions, as at Passchendaele in November, 1917 
numbers of men kill themselves. I agree with Stanford Read that mere 
mechanical difficulties in the use of the rifle are quite insufficient to 
explain why it is neglected. The choice of means is undoubtedly due 
to some unconscious psychic factor or factors, and I suggest a loathing 
of everything military as one possibility. It is also probable that the 
LXV. 1 I 


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daily contact of the razor with the throat in shaving exerts unconscious 
but cumulative suggestion on a mind torn asunder by hidden conflict, 
and revolting to the end from the rifle—that ever-present symbol of the 
hated environment. The two cases of gunshot wound which reached 
me were of the lower jaw. They illustrate incidentally the comparative 
absence of explosive effect resulting from close proximity of the muzzle 
of the modern rifle. In both cases the chin bad been resting on the 
rifle, and there was a compound fracture communicating with the mouth. 
One man was an epileptic imbecile, four months in France and four days in 
the trenches, who ascribed a scolding from his sergeant-major as a cause 
for his act; the other was a “ persecuted ” paranoiac, ast. 38. 

Of the cut-throat cases, 3 were due to hallucinations of alcoholic 
origin, but in one there was an obvious underlying psychosis, which was 
the cause of the alcoholism. In these cases the wounds were very 
severe. Six occurred in acute “ persecuted ” paranoiacs with hallucina¬ 
tions. It was remarkable how the mental condition of these cases 
improved in hospital. Two were cases of more or less pure depression, 
and the remaining three showed hysterical dissociation with dream 
delirium. In only one was there admitted conscious premeditation, and 
it is interesting to note that one of the dissociated cases was awarded 
the Military Medal for an act of gallantry performed a day or two before 
his suicidal attempt. In addition to these two men who attempted 
suicide by drowning in a state of dissociation were admitted, and two 
similar cases made resolute attempts by hanging and strangulation in 
the ward. 

Almost all the suicidal cases showed amnesia for the event. This is 
the rule in civilian cases too, and is the natural consequence of the 
cleavage of the personality necessary before an act of self-destruction 
can be achieved. It would seem that such a reversal of the great 
primordial instinct of self-preservation could only result from some 
very profound disturbance of the mind. Yet that in certain cases this 
instinct can be apparently without difficulty neglected and set at naught 
is obvious. Defectives, and in some countries children, commit suicide 
on wholly inadequate and trifling grounds. The double suicides of 
lovers which occur almost weekly are remarkable instances of the—one 
might call it—levity with which this step may be taken. The common 
combination of murder and suicide is equally notable in its apparent 
absence of sufficient motive. The hara-kiri of Japan, the suttee of 
India, carry the strong approbation of the herd, and are less difficult to 
conceive, yet they are notable perversions. Epidemics of suicide such 
as have occurred at intervals in the world’s history are in this class. 

The psychological basis of the act is in all cases conflict, represented 
by psychic pain. Idiosyncrasy, the product of previous experiences, 
alone can explain the reactions of individuals to certain situations. 


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Suicide is reaction of an individual to a psychic conflict which may be 
partly conscious or wholly unconscious. This conflict may be compara¬ 
tively superficial and recognisable as such, in the form of a feeling of 
inadequacy, of inefficiency, of failure. It may be ignored and concealed, 
but recognisable under a web of rationalisations. It may be buried and 
repressed and active only through distorted and fantastic hallucinations. 
It may be of intolerable pitch, yet so repressed that it betrays itself not 
at all. But whatever its relation to consciousness, this mental conflict 
may at any time attain sufficient momentum to over-ride the self-preser¬ 
vation instinct and provide its own final solution. 

The following case illustrates the intensity of the conflict occupying 
the minds of some of the men who are driven to self-destruction, and 
the manner of its distortion in presentation to consciousness. In this 
case the content of the dream-delirium was remarkably vivid, and con¬ 
sisted of illusory distortions of the actual surroundings and not of 
hallucinations. The memory of it persisted very strongly during 
convalescence. 

Pte. S—, aet. 38, two years’ active service. Admitted in a state of 
terror and apprehension—restless and confused, not hallucinated, able 
to give his particulars. He had a long incised wound across his throat, 
not very deep. He soon became more dull and almost stuporose; 
apprehension diminished ; had a fairly good night. Wept at intervals 
during the following day, but was obviously improving. Beyond feeding 
him and dressing his wound no notice was taken of him. On the third 
day he gave me the following account of himself. He said lie had 
been one of a machine-gun detachment of four, guarding a road. (It 
was on the Somme during the German advance in April, 1918.) There 
were two other detachments near, all three under an officer. He 
illustrated the relative positions and the direction of the Germans, and 
he knew the names of his comrades. There were some shells passing 
over. Suddenly it dawned on him that his companions were Germans 
disguised in British uniform. One of them appeared to be a “ nigger ” 
as well. (He was hazy about this.) He realised it was his duty to 
inform his officer. He tried to steal away to do this, but was seized by 
the “ Germans ” and knocked down. He then became aware that the 
officer and men at the other posts were Germans also, and realised he 
had been captured. He was taken away and put in a bell tent with a 
“black German” guard, and given straw to lie on. He heard voices 
without, saying the straw was to be set alight and the prisoner burnt 
alive. There was loud mocking laughter. Then he heard the ticking 
of a time-bomb, which was concealed in the straw'. He searched 
frantically but fruitlessly, and finally to end his misery he took his razor 
from his pocket and cut his throat. Finding he did not die, he burst 
from the tent and tried to escape. He was pursued and dragged back 
among laughter and jeers. He “ remembered ” vividly the remarks and 
chaff to which he was subjected. He was hazy as to how he got back 
to the British lines. 

No notes had come with him and for some days I believed he had 


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been in German hands and escaped. Many of our men had this 
experience in the open fighting of this period. I was able later, 
however, to ascertain the facts, which were as follows: He had had 
little rest or food for some days. He suddenly became very excited and 
uncontrollable while in a machine-gun post as he described. There 
was little shelling going on, and the Germans were not near. Two men 
took him to the aid-post, where he was put in a tent by himself and 
seemed to settle down. Presently he broke from the tent with his 
throat cut, and fled. He resisted capture and fought fiercely. For 
a few weeks he was depressed and dull, ate and slept poorly, stuck to his 
story without variation, but became unwilling to talk of it. At the time 
of his transfer to the United Kingdom he remembered his dream 
experience, but had little or no confidence in it, though he still had 
partial amnesia for the actual events. 

Classification of cases .—In the classification of cases dealt with the 
nomenclature of mental disorders as laid down by the Army Council 
was necessarily followed in all official records. In view, however, of the 
extremely incomplete investigation possible in most of the cases, dia¬ 
gnosis was out of the question, and a temporary label for the patient’s 
condition was all that was aimed at. Under the circumstances such 
records are almost valueless, and it is only with a view to indicating the 
types of mental disorder more prominently met with that I include 


the following table covering the 966 cases dealt with. 

Feeble-mindedness . . . . . . 153 

Nervous debility ........ 29 

Mental instability.26 

Moral imbecility.4 

Confusional insanity, including exhaustion psychosis . 136 

Delusional insanity ....... 94 

Mania.82 

Melancholia.98 

Dementia prsecox ....... 101 

General paralysis. . . . . . . .21 

Alcoholic psychosis.12 

Stupor.5 

Constitutional psychasthenia.7 

Epileptic psychosis.27 

No appreciable mental disease.22 

Psychoneurosis . . . . . . . -134 

Various.15 


As regards disposal, 763 were sent to D. Block, Netley; 127 were 
transferred to England as functional neurological cases ; 39 (Americans, 
Portuguese, etc.) were transferred to other mental hospitals in France; 
12 were evacuated as ordinary medical cases ; 22 were discharged 


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direct; and there were 3 deaths. I will now proceed to discuss the 
different classes in more detail. 

Feeble-mindedness .—Mental deficiency accounted for 153 of the cases. 
In many the degree of deficiency was amazingly high, and one wondered 
whether recruiting boards had any conception of the conditions of active 
service. Stigmata of degeneration were common, and many displayed 
infantile characters in greater or less degree. There was one striking 
case of physical and mental infantilism. About half of the defectives 
were sent to me for opinion by the classifying medical board at 
Boulogne, and belonged to the Labour Corps. Their average service 
in France was a few weeks, and in many cases they showed already 
early signs of psychosis, usually confusion or depression. These cases 
were particularly numerous in the early summer after the much-needed 
reinforcements had been hurried out from England. Numbers of these 
men were back in England within a fortnight of their original sailing. 
It is perhaps comforting to note that one U.S. soldier, a low-grade 
defective, was admitted within a week of his landing at Calais and within 
two months of his enlistment, with the history that his feeble-mindedness 
had been recognised before leaving America, but the procedure for 
leaving him behind worked so slowly that his unit was compelled to 
bring him. 

The other type of defective, of a higher grade, had a belter average 
length of service, and had made an effort towards adaptation. Many 
had two or three years’ service in France with a labour unit, or even a 
regiment, though in the latter case seldom carrying out the duties of a 
fighting man. In all these cases psychotic symptoms gradually deve¬ 
loped, confusion, stuporose states, and persecutory paranoiac ideas being 
the most common. It is unnecessary to dwell on the objections to 
placing such types in positions so full of possibilities of danger to them¬ 
selves and others. Among the cases I had to deal with were one of 
attempted murder by shooting, one of indiscriminate shooting under the 
influence of hallucinations, and one of attempted suicide by shooting. 
All were definitely feeble-minded, with a tendency to the formation of 
delusions of reference and persecution. I have great sympathy with the 
units which are compelled to retain such types, as I have had personal 
experience of the difficulty in getting rid of them before the onset of 
psychotic symptoms. Even employment at a base or on the lines of 
communication is unsatisfactory and unsafe. The hours are long, con¬ 
ditions are hard, military discipline makes few allowances, and the 
“ Gotha ” and its kind provide thrills and shocks enough to unsettle at 
times the most stable. The defective, uprooted from the limited and 
comparatively simple environment he has known all his life, finds com¬ 
plete adaptation in his new state quite impossible, and his breakdown is 
but a question of time. On the other hand, the high wages some of 


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162 MENTAL WARDS WITH THE B.E.F., [July, 

these men had been able to earn in civil life amazed me. A vocabulary 
limited to two hundred words with general knowledge to correspond 
does not prevent a Lancashire cotton spinner from earning his ^3-^4 
a week. 

As might be expected many of the defectives had got into trouble and 
were admitted as prisoners. I do not think the authorities who send 
such types abroad realise how conduct which in a civilian would be 
unimportant may on active service constitute a serious technical mis¬ 
demeanour, and lead to heavy punishment. The most common offence 
in this class was absence without leave or desertion—a purely military 
offence. The absences were as a rule short and often rather aimless. 
Some of the patients had already been sentenced on admission, and a 
few had even served part in a military prison. A Canadian soldier, 
Pte. R—, set. 21, with nearly three years’service, was under sentence of 
death for desertion. He showed marked retardation, was backward and 
stupid, was undersized and poorly developed, and suffered from a 
striking hydrocephalus, the circumference of his head being 24^ ins. 
Some of the defectives attempted to assume psychoneurotic symptoms, 
but they were poorly executed, and when ignored soon dropped without 
remark. Pte. M—, set. 18, with three months’ service, was micro- 
cephalic, had never been to school, and could not read or write. He 
was a prisoner for desertion, pretended to the court to be completely 
amnesic for his past, and was sent down as “? mental.” In reply to all 
questions, he said, “ I dont know,” “ I forget,” etc. I satisfied myself 
that he was feigning, and was able in a short interview to convince him 
the game was up, after which he answered very willingly. Another 
defective, a barefaced and incorrigible rogue, had in civil life been in 
the habit of etherising himself with collodion-soaked cotton wool placed 
in the nostrils. 

Nervous debility .—In this class, which numbered twenty-nine, I 
included those who, not being feeble-minded in the usual meaning of the 
term, and without developing a psychosis, were unable to adapt them¬ 
selves to new situations and environment. Their symptoms were 
constitutional timidity and diffidence, a tendency to hypochondriasis 
and introspection, and an indifferent hold on their mental balance. A 
few had had transient psychotic or psychoneurotic periods. They were 
all men who would in all probability have been able to cope with the 
problems of civilian life. 

Mental instability .—I place next the class of those who, having no 
permanent psychosis, were pathologically unstable. They numbered 
twenty-six. In the main their condition was betrayed by increased and 
exaggerated reactions of various types, most frequently a short bout of 
excitement, and in many the differentiation from defectives was vague, 
and one or two suggested epileptic equivalents. By some these cases 


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163 


are described as impulsive insanity. As a rule, however, the insane 
conduct, though sudden in onset, is of the nature of a reaction to a 
recognisable stimulus, marked mental enfeeblement being absent. 
Their symptoms were repeated, but transient, and I was rarely able to 
observe the patient during an attack. Such patients appear to escape 
certification in civil life. Two were old soldiers with twenty-four years’ 
service and an alcoholic past, serving under N.C.O.’s of the new armies. 
One was a remarkable man, whose hereditary profession was having 
paving-stones, placed on his head, broken by blows with a sledge¬ 
hammer. His nottt de thiatre was “ Upper,” and his sub-title “ The 
Human Pincushion.” He had apparently complete anaesthesia to heat 
and pain, but not to touch, cold, or deep pressure, below the elbows and 
on the face and neck. He stuck pins into these regions with 
indifference and showed many circular scars, the result of pressing 
lighted cigarettes into the skin. As side lines he broke bottles by 
hitting himself on the head with them. He was a clever tumbler, and I 
believe an expert at releasing himself when bound with ropes. He was 
a powerfully built man, looking more than his age, which was 45. 
He confessed that for many of his feats of endurance he fortified himself 
with liquor, and it was a demonstration in a canteen with beer bottles 
which led to his being sent to the mental ward. He stated that his 
antesthesta had existed in its present condition as long as he could 
remember. Sensation elsewhere was normal. The superficial and 
deep reflexes were considerably increased, equally on both sides. There 
was no atrophic change pointing to acquired syringo-myelia, no 
spasticity or neuritis, and in view of the distribution the condition was 
probably hysterical. The notes which accompanied him stated that he 
was impulsive and violent-tempered, unduly susceptible to small 
quantities of alcohol, and liable to spells of furious excitement on little 
or no provocation. He was rational and lucid while under my obser¬ 
vation, and complained of no disability. He showed neither physical 
nor mental signs of excessive alcoholism. 

Moral imbecility .—There were four cases, in no way differing from 
those met with in civilian practice. 

Confusional insanity .—Under this heading 1 placed 136 cases. 
They were of the most varied types, including all the degrees of 
intellectual obfuscation and retardation found in civilian practice. At 
one end they merged into delirium, at the other into stupor, and many 
cases similar to those placed in this group are classified with the 
“ confusion ” sub-group of the psychoneuroses. 

The cases of pure confusion fell into two vaguely defined types, the 
toxic cases and those showing hysterical dissociation, but no definite 
differentiation can be made—in fact the psychological basis is probably 
identical. In the lattei* disorientation appeared to be more complete, 


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164 MENTAL WARDS WITH THE B.E.F., [July, 

and the patient was part of, and living among, his hallucinatory sur¬ 
roundings. In the toxic cases the patient was, on the whole, less 
inaccessible, and his hallucinations were more superficial and affected 
his conduct less. In some of the hysterical cases imperception was so 
marked that the motions were passed into the bed, yet within a few 
hours reintegration took place, leaving no symptom but slight retarda¬ 
tion and amnesia. Evidence of toxic origin, influenza, trench fever, 
etc., was obtained in about 20 per cent, of the cases, and in many of 
the others a septic condition of the alimentary tract was obvious. I 
had an opportunity of observing considerable numbers of severely 
wounded men suffering from delirium. All were gravely toxic, but 
some showed quite clearly a delirium of the hysterical type. Many of 
the cases were probably passing through a confused phase of manic 
depression or dementia pnecox. 

It appears that many very different conditions are commonly 
included under the heading of exhaustion psychosis or confusional 
insanity. As stated above, in about 20 per cent, of my cases a toxic 
element appeared to operate as a cause. But other patients displaying 
the same or similar symptoms brought a history which seemed to exclude 
toxaemia, and pointed very definitely to psychic trauma, prolonged or 
sudden. The influence of physical exhaustion as a cause of psychosis 
seems to have been greatly over-estimated. The pathological processes 
by which these varying causal factors produce the same syndrome are 
obscure. Kraepelin’s opinion that nutritive changes occur with produc¬ 
tion of toxins, and neuronic poisoning does not throw much light on the 
question. The theory of Jelliffe and White seems of more value. 
They believe that the symptoms which a damaged neuron can produce 
during dissolution are limited in number and complexity, and depend, 
not on the nature of the destructive agent, but on the function of the 
neuron, and that minor variations are the result of individual make-up, 
not of differences in the agent. This theo.y, however, also predicates 
the existence of a toxin or metatoxin in all cases of marked confusion— 
a hypothesis which does not appear to be proved. 

I will describe a case of dissociation illustrating a type of case which 
I returned under this group in which the causal factors were partly 
physical, partly psychic. 

Pte. G—, tet. 21, service three and a half years—three years in France. 
Wounded once. Sound heredity and normal youth. No neurotic 
symptoms observed. Was noticed to be “run down ” and sleepless for 
a few days only. Was sent to a forward rest-camp, where he received 
a wire informing him of his mother’s death. Disappeared for four 
days, and turned up again dirty, unkempt, and starving. Was unable 
to speak, and was confused and restless. Sent to casualty clearing 
station he became agitated, apprehensive, terrified of the orderlies, 
etc., sleepless, refused food, habits dirty, and began to verbigerate 
“ Back to my Army,” and “ 100,000 black men in the north.” 


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i9*9-] by w. d. chambers, m.d. 165 

During this stage he was evidently suffering an acute and vivid 
hallucinosis. On admission was exhausted and weak, stared unsee- 
ingly about, had marked imperception and disorientation, was not 
restless, allowed himself to be fed, etc. In answer to all questions he 
said “ Back to my Army ” again and again in a terrified and later in 
a pleading way, as if trying to make me understand. In a few days he 
lost all his apprehension, and began to sleep well and look well and 
content. Mentally, his condition was one of very profound impercep¬ 
tion. If put to bed, and his eyes closed, he went to sleep. Pin pricks, 
loud, sudden noises, the sound of his own name or nickname entirely 
failed to attract his attention, but if one stood in front of him he could 
hear and repeat single words, and later he learnt the meanings of a few, 
such as bed, smoke, eat, etc. When given food he was able to feed 
himself tidily, he could wash and dry himself, he went quickly and 
directly to the w.c. when necessary and made his arrangements 
perfectly when there, but he never learnt to adjust his clothes or his own 
bed, and would get into the first open bed he saw. He showed a 
curious degree of apraxia. He smoked cigarettes very efficiently and 
with enjoyment, but he would make earnest attempts to draw smoke 
from pencils, pocket-knives, etc. He could close a pocket-knife— 
taking infinite precautions—but could not open one. He learnt to 
strike a match if given one from a box, but he never learnt to open the 
box. He lit his cigarette well, inspected the burning end in the most 
typical “Tommy’s” way, but was unable to lay down or blow out the 
match, and watched it burning down to his fingers with a growing look 
of horror. When it had burnt out he was able to place it in the ash 
tray. He appeared to enjoy cigarettes, but made no attempt to take one 
from his pocket, etc. He showed great delight when the canaries sang 
if he was looking at them, but he would sit for hours with hi»back to 
them, taking no notice whatever. His sense of possession was feeble. 
Anything he was given he tried to put under the nearest pillow. The 
predominance of his mental automatism was shown in his games with 
other patients. He could catch a slowly moving ball, but he invariably 
returned it with the hand he used to catch, and to the man who had 
thrown it to him. Nothing would induce him to depart from this. 
He slept unmoved through air-raids. Except in going to the w.c. I 
never saw him display any initiative. Taken out for a walk, he would 
walk straight on indefinitely. He experienced emotions of joy and 
sorrow, but very seldom and very superficially. His expression was one 
of happy idiocy, with an indescribable element of reproachful amaze¬ 
ment. I was unable to hypnotise him or get in touch with him during 
sleep or by automatic writing. He was in the state described when 
transferred to England. 

This case illustrates the combination of profound dissociation with 
absence of hallucinations, showing a condition distinct from the more 
typical “ exhaustion psychosis ” on one hand, and from the oneiric 
delirium with an hallucinatory or illusory system on the other. It is 
akin to the aprosexic form of confusion described by Rhoussy and 
Lhermite. 

Delusional insanity .—I found a delusional state the most prominent 


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1 66 MENTAL WARDS WITH THE B.E.F., [July, 

feature in ninety-four cases, excluding those who appeared, fairly 
conclusively, to be paranoid dements. Delusions of course occurred 
in all types of psychosis, but in a number of those returned as melan¬ 
cholia urgent delusions of a persecutory type, at times supported by and 
based on auditory hallucinations, were so marked as to render their 
classification doubtful. In some the condition was quite transient 
(notably in some of the defectives returned as such); the delusions were 
of a reasonable nature, not held with much conviction, and probably arose 
from a conscious or unconscious feeling of inferiority or inadequacy, and 
these cases responded well to rest and encouraging suggestion. The 
majority of the cases seemed to betray more or less distinctly the 
paranoiac disposition, and though only one-third had a well-fixed system 
of delusions, it appeared likely that many of the others would eventually 
develop the same. A type, showing fairly rapid development and the 
most intense conviction, frequently hallucinated, with delusions of 
persecution and reference and great suspicion, was strikingly evident. 
In most war-colouring, if present at all, was quite superficial; as a rule 
the sergeant-major or some officer formed the nodal point of the 
persecutory system. Homosexual ideas were distinctly more obvious 
than among civilians, and in this connection Stanford Read makes 
the interesting suggestion that “ it would be suggestive to investigate the 
theory that the herding of men together in the Army where heterosexual 
intercourse is mostly excluded tends to arouse a latent homosexual trend 
against which the personality defends itself by ‘ projection.’ ” It appears 
to me, however, that the mechanism of projection, without necessarily 
a homosexual foundation, will satisfactorily explain this acute perse¬ 
cuted state, with ideas of suspicion and reference, and early support 
from hallucinations. In an army at war a soldier lives close to the 
essentials; the comforting minor rationalisations permitted in times of 
peace are denied him; the “mitigating circumstance” has little sway; 
if the other man is the better of the two, it is likely to be publicly 
proved beyond argument and with cruel directness. Intellectual talent 
is at a discount, and physical powers are predominant, and it is 
remarkable that the average man bears disparagement of the latter 
with much less equanimity than of the former. Projection then comes 
to the aid of the discomfited, and protects his peace of mind at the 
expense of his reason. 

Almost all observers of the war have noted an unusually high 
proportion of such cases, and it is interesting that a similar psychosis 
was reported as common in the Russo-Japanese war. The patient in 
some cases reacts to his painful ideas by over-indulgence in alcohol. 
Similar mental states in civilians are almost invariably associated with 
alcoholic excess, and in these authorities differ in assigning the relative 
importance of cause and effect. 


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I 9 I 9 -] BY W. D. CHAMBERS, M.D. 1 67 

One or two interesting cases at an early stage passed through my 
hands. 

Pte. P—, ret. 24, four years’ service. No history of neurotic 
symptoms. Wounded once, sent down suffering from an (admittedly) 
self-inflicted wound, not as a mental case. Displayed the most intense 
and unfounded pessimism and distrust, without actual construction 
of delusions. No hallucinations or confusion. Irritable, unruly, 
difficult to control, reasonably polite to me only with an effort, insolent 
and objectionable to sisters, etc. Threatened suicide, though had 
numerous facilities. Took ungraciously and without thanks all privileges 
and attentions. No complaint of disability. Displayed no motion 
during air-raids. 

Pte. H—, ret. 38, three years’ service. Two self-inflicted wounds 
(denied, but certain). Symptoms as above. 

Were these merely cases of the “ fed-upness ” of the average soldier 
carried to an extreme, or were they early stages of a progressive delusional 
nature ? They suggested the delire chronique of Magnan. In favour 
of the latter theory was the unaltered scowl with which they greeted the 
first stage of their journey to England. 

Dementia prcecox .—One hundred and one cases presented symptoms 
which appeared to point to one or other of the types of schizophrenia. 
Their differentiation from hysterical and exhaustion cases was very 
difficult on a short period of observation. The resemblance was 
particularly close in cases showing mild stupor, with general retardation, 
motor and ideational inertia, emotional apathy, flexibilitas cerea, 
agreeable hallucinations, etc., combined with good orientation and 
grasp of the surroundings. Some such cases cleared up apparently 
completely in a few days in a way I have not seen precocious dements 
do. Most of the deluded types had made use of scenes and material 
of war for their delusions; for example, an army signaller said he 
received messages in Morse code from enemy aircraft on his teeth, and 
that he sent them false information in the same way. I was struck by 
the advanced stage of disease shown by some of these paranoid dements 
on admission, with vivid and abundant hallucinations. The disease 
had been developing in some for many months, and yet the patients had 
been able to carry on their duties without exciting remark. In this 
they differ from the paranoiac, whose delusions, even though unsupported 
by hallucinations, gain publicity more forcefully and at a much earlier 
stage. The enviable apathy of the schizophrenic during exciting air¬ 
raids was remarkable and occasionally indicated the diagnosis in a 
doubtful case. 

Melancholia .—There were ninty-eight cases in which depression was 
the most important feature. About half were involutional or pre-senile 
melancholia, and were in no way different in pathology or sj mptoms 
from the cases met with in civilian asylums. The remainder were of a 
type not so common. They were younger men, ret. 25-35, and the 


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MENTAL WARDS WITH THE B.E.F. 


[July, 


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symptoms tended to merge either into “ persecuted ” paranoia or 
anxiety neurasthenia. The latter was the more striking symptom, and 
was almost universally present in the younger depressed cases. Fatigue 
seemed indicative as a causal factor in the anxious depressed group 
because of the remarkable improvement which took place in many of 
them after a week or two in bed, indicated not only by abatement of 
the symptoms, but also by ability to stand air-raids with comparative 
composure. It is probable, as Stanford Read points out, that most of 
the cases in which delusions are at all prominent should be regarded as 
primarily paranoiacs, with a secondary emotional depression. Domestic 
unhappiness or trouble was a common cause in this group. The 
soldier would appear to react to distress of this kind by depression and 
to occupational worries by paranoia. 

Mania .—There were eighty-two cases in which manic excitement 
occurred. They included fourteen severe cases of classical acute 
mania, two of them associated with wounds, and twenty-six cases of 
acute excitement with more marked confusion and hallucinations. The 
remainder were subacute and more transient. Some cases in this group 
were probably hysterical dissociations with illusory dream states, but 
their violence and unreliability rendered it justifiable temporarily to 
label them as cases of mania. The two wounded were both severe 
cases, and showed wonderful recuperative powers. One of them, a 
most powerful man with an enormous sloughing wound of the calf, ran 
about the ward, and at various times scrubbed his wound with a nail 
brush and filled it with fseces. He made a good recovery. The 
hallucinated cases merged with those I have classified as confusional. 
Many of the milder degrees of excitement would no doubt turn out to 
be katatonic in nature. 

Among the subacute cases were three curious cases of exaltation, with 
perfect orientation and lucidity, no motor, and little mental acceleration, 
no evidence of hallucinations, suffering from fairly severe mustard-gas 
burns. They were quite accessible, had no delusions, felt no pain or 
discomfort from their burns, as a rule most uncomfortable, and simply 
lay in bed and smiled approvingly at everything. 

General paralysis .—I diagnosed general paralysis in twenty-one 
cases, all but one having globulin and a pleocytosis in the cerebro¬ 
spinal fluid. The signs of general paralysis are liable to be closely 
simulated by commotion neuroses. In my cases the average age of onset, 
thirty-eight years, was not earlier than in civilians, but the symptoms 
showed unusually rapid progress, most of the cases having a history of 
only a few days’ illness. Probably the early moral deterioration was less 
noticeable in the Army than in home surroundings. One man had 
been a competent N.C.O. on a supply train, broke down completely 
after three days of the stress of the German advance in April, 1918, 


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1919 -] BY w - D - CHAMBERS, M.D. 169 

left his unit, and was arrested walking among a group of peasant 
refugees wearing a pair of civilian trousers with his uniform, and 
carrying a dead fowl. He was markedly expansive on admission, and 
during the three weeks he was under my observation his speech became 
almost unintelligible, and general mental dilapidation became extreme. 
Stanford Read, working with a very much larger number of cases, 
states that he found the average age of incidence in soldiers very much 
earlier, and that a very short period existed between the syphilitic 
infection and the commencement of symptoms. As it appears that in 
very many cases of quite early syphilis the central nervous system is 
seriously affected without symptoms, one might expect to find that the 
stresses of war would increase and hasten the syphilitic cerebro- 
pathies. 

Alcoholic psychoses .—Cases in which the symptoms were wholly due 
to alcoholic excess were very few. In twelve of my cases, or i'25 per 
cent, only, was alcohol the immediate causal factor. Acute halluci¬ 
natory states, developed while on home leave or during the return 
journey to France, accounted for six, and the remainder were chronic 
intoxications. Eager found the percentage of alcoholic cases from 
the B.E.F. to be ri over 1,652 cases, which agrees closely with my 
figures, whereas Hotchkis estimated that 18 per cent, of 831 Expedi¬ 
tionary Force cases were of alcoholic origin. The figures of other 
observers show similar striking disparity. Stanford Read, reviewing a 
very large number of expeditionary cases received at Netley, found the 
percentage of alcoholic cases “ very small,” but quotes Lepine’s figures 
for 6,000 cases in the French army, in which he ascribed to alcoholic 
excess the astounding proportion of 50 to 66 per cent. Other French 
writers agree closely with these figures. Obviously the personal 
equation enters largely into the question, and different observers adopt 
different points of view. That alcoholic excess is a protection against 
imperfectly repressed mental pain is revealed by the most superficial 
analysis of the vast majority of so-called alcohol cases. In these 
alcoholism and its symptoms are secondary. Perhaps the most ele¬ 
mentary example is that afforded by the self-conscious man, who takes 
a few drinks to render his social manner easy and confident, and to 
anaesthetise his feeling of inefficiency. The same applies to intoxica- 
cations by other narcotic drugs. Temporary or prolonged absorption 
of such substances produces definite syndromes, which obscure the 
real psycho-pathological process. I would except only certain defectives 
who probably seek the elementary pleasurable sensation of intoxication 
for its own sake. The acutely hallucinated alcoholic cases provided 
three of the cut-throats. All the acute cases showed some depression 
and a distinct tendency to the paranoiac temperament and outlook. The 
chronic cases were all past middle age, and all rather pathetic failures: 


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T70 MENTAL WARDS WITH THE B.E.F., [July, 

a private soldier of twenty-one years’ service, a master mariner of twenty- 
four years’ standing cleaning motor bicycles, etc. 

Epilepsy. —Of thirty-six cases who had had fits, I was of opinion 
that twenty-seven were epileptic. These included three defectives, two 
cases of head-injury, four cases of petit mal , eight cases with psychotic 
symptoms. Five of the cases had had pre-war fits. I judged the other 
ten cases to be epileptic from the nature of the fit, the time and manner 
of its occurrence, etc. 

Modern observations point convincingly to the very indefinite 
differentiation between epileptic and hysterical fits. As the distribu¬ 
tion and intensity of the motor discharge may be identical, it is not 
easy to see how a diagnosis may be made on such signs as cyanosis, 
extensor plantar response, etc. Many authorities base their diagnosis 
on the accompanying mental symptoms only, and others assert that the 
conditions are continuous with one another and not to be rigidly 
separated, which appears to be most probable. In certain cases of 
trauma, sometimes somatic, sometimes psychic, resulting in the blocking 
or closing of many paths of outlet, either structurally or by inhibition, 
according to the theory of White and Jelliffe, there occurs a periodic 
discharge of energy of a certain intensity, and accompanied or followed 
by a certain degree of dissociation. This dammed-up and suddenly 
liberated energy may be of the most elementary type, or it may be 
sublimated and take a more purposive form, such as oneiric delirium, 
furor epilepticus, or any epileptic equivalents. Epileptic automatism is 
in itself indistinguishable from hysterical somnambulism. It is probable, 
too, that petit mal, tremors, tics and habit spasms differ only in degree 
from the major manifestations, and constitute vents for energy denied 
its proper outlet. The objectionable egocentricity of the chronic 
asylum epileptic is merely another aspect of the fit—equally mis¬ 
directed. 

Psychasthenia. —I have included in this class only the constitutional 
psychopaths, of whom there were seven. They presented no features 
of interest. 

Stupor .—There were five cases which appeared to be manic-stupor. 
There was no history of concussion, undue emotional stress, or fatigue ; 
there were no hallucinations, and recovery was gradual, without dipping 
of consciousness. Two of them, apparently in deep stupor, trembled 
violently during air-raids. A number of cases exhibiting greater or less 
degrees of stupor are included under the headings of “dementia 
prtecox ” and “ neurasthenia.” 

Various. —In addition to the above, I had one case of senile 
dementia, an Irishman, ret. 68; one case each of tubercular and 
cerebro-spinal meningitis (the former died); two cases of varicocele 
with hypochondriacal and psychasthenic complaints; three cases of 


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I919O BY w - D. CHAMBERS, M.D. I 7 T 

chorea; three of tabes; two of cerebral syphilis; one of severe 
cranial neuralgia of uncertain origin ; and one chronic morphia 
taker. 

No appreciable mental disease. —Twenty-two cases were admitted in 
whom no nervous or mental disease was discovered. Of these, in my 
opinion, only five were deliberate attempts to feign insanity, or 5 per 
cent, of all admissions. Two were deserters and have been mentioned 
under the heading of prisoners. One stole a sum of money from a 
comrade, posted it to his fiancee, and had a good time on his next leave. 
He pleaded amnesia for the theft, and stated he had suffered from and 
had treatment for similar losses of memory all his life. On reference 
to his relatives this was shown to be false. One while waiting 
discharge from hospital tied a handkerchief to a stick and marched 
about in a foolish way. On examination he was tremulous and on his 
guard, and soon broke down and became ashamed and repentant. One 
charged with desertion and theft, after spending some weeks in prison, 
suddenly reported that he had suffered all his life from headaches, and 
that at the time of his offence he was unconscious of what he was doing. 
He had no amnesia or signs of nervous disease. He was unable 
satisfactorily to explain why he had not reported sick sooner (he had 
served other sentences without complaint), and I was satisfied he was 
exaggerating his disability. 

In none of these cases did I lay a charge. Four already had 
sentences to face, and the other appeared so genuinely ashamed that a 
scolding appeared to meet the case. Five more in this group had been 
guilty merely of silly or unusual conduct which was not in my opinion 
pathological in origin. One case, perhaps, deserves mention. He was 
a youth, set. 19, only son of a widow, his father, a drunkard, having 
died sixteen years ago. The boy had been sent to a good school and 
took every possible prize, but he had never played a game or had a friend, 
or spent an hour, except at school, away from his mother. He was a 
voracious reader, and had a really good education, though his know¬ 
ledge of affairs was poor. He was living at home completely wrapped 
up in his mother, when he was hurled into a conscript camp. He was 
reserved and sensitive and could not bear the rough ways of the men, 
nor join them in their work or pastimes. He had flickerings of a desire 
to improve his wretched condition, but wept when one spoke of 
manliness, etc., and pleaded to be sent back to his mother, with whom 
he corresponded almost daily in very affectionate terms. Physically he 
was slight and poorly developed, but neither infantile nor effeminate. I 
have never seen the cedipus-complex so near the surface. As the 
armistice had been signed and there was little chance of his coming to 
harm, I sent him forth to look for his manhood once more. The 
remaining twelve cases in this category were transferred to medical 


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172 MENTAL WARDS WITH THE B.E.F., [July, 

wards on account of minor physical ailments. 1 was unable to discover 
on what grounds they had been sent to a mental ward. 

The psychoneuroses .—I returned 134 of my patients as suffering from 
psychoneuroses. These were nearly all fairly severe cases, as only those 
exhibiting psychotic symptoms were supposed to be sent to my wards. 
I would further classify them as follows : 


States of anxiety.52 

States of confusion, delirium, and stupor . -34 

“Neurasthenia”. 13 

“ Psychasthenia ” . . . . . . . .10 

Conversion hysteria . . . . . . .16 

Hysterical “ fits ” ..9 


These groups are by no means mutually exclusive. Many bringing a 
history of temporary dissociation presented symptoms only of anxiety, 
and others made this change under my eye. All the “conversion” 
cases and some of the “ fit ” cases displayed greater or less anxiety. 
Further, the cases shown here merged with those returned as 
melancholia, confusional insanity, etc. 

The setiology and psychopathology of the war neuroses have engaged 
much attention, and many different views receive support. Exhaustion 
per se as a causal factor would appear to be definitely excluded not 
only by the experience of Bonhoeffer with the Serbian Army, but by 
the observations of Maitland, Farrar and others with our own. The 
other materialistic theory of causation, that of commotion or trauma, 
advanced principally by Mott, does not appear to afford a complete or 
satisfactory explanation for the multiplicity of neurotic phenomena 
which occur. The unimportance of concussion and fatigue factors is 
also generally supported by German experiences as given at the Munich 
Congress of 1916 and elsewhere. Evidence is growing on every hand 
of the paramount importance of the psychogenic factor, but it is 
probable that fatigue and exhaustion, commotion and emotion partici¬ 
pate in varying proportions in the aetiology. MacCurdy, who gives first 
place to the psychogenic factor, distinguishes between physical and 
mental fatigue, and gives due place to commotion. Hurst differentiates 
between cases the result of exhaustion and those following prolonged 
emotion, but it appears unlikely that the latter can be separated from a 
considerable degree of fatigue. 

In my experience many cases ascribed to each of these causes 
occurred, supported by evidence of varying degrees of value; a man’s 
own statement as to how near he was to a shell burst is wholly untrust¬ 
worthy, and the greatest caution is required in the interpretation of the 
word “ buried.” I was quite unable to trace any connection between 
the apparent cause and the form of the neurosis. For example, two 


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cases admitted as “N.Y.D. ? Mental” and showing typical anxiety 
states, were afterwards classified as “ shell concussion ” by the official 
Army form, made out by neurologists in the front area after reference to 
the patient’s units ; and as stated above, the symptoms of individual 
patients altered completely while under my observation. 

I will now discuss separately the various groups into which I 
subdivided the psychoneurotic cases. 

States of anxiety or “Angst .”—In this group I placed 52, or 39 per 
cent, of the whole. Their symptoms have been exhaustively described 
by McCurdy and others. All degrees occurred, from simple “jumpi¬ 
ness ” without conscious fear—a state well recognised by all soldiers—up 
to a condition of agitated melancholia. Some had developed gradually 
and without incident, others showed marked exacerbation after an 
unpleasant episode, others followed a phase of confusion or stupor. In 
all evidence of prolonged and increasingly powerful emotion was to be 
found. Insomnia, painful hypnagogic hallucinations, battle-dreams and 
nightmares were common. The terror shown by some during air raids 
was pitiful and out of all proportion to the conceivable degree of danger, 
and was, I think, due to conscious or unconscious abandonment of all 
attempt at control. I have noticed that all soldiers tend to make more 
fuss about an air raid at the Base than about the same degree of noise 
and danger at the Front. 

Distortion occurs very rarely in the battle-dreams and deliria of 
neurotic soldiers, but in two cases—both young boys—dreams of 
amorphous black and green monsters occurred. In the case of Pte. S—, 
described under “ suicide,” slight distortion was found. When the 
neurosis is at its height the patient is always defeated in his dream 
combats, but as he recovers he begins to turn upon his nightly attackers, 
and in the end to drive them before him in flight. 

Physical signs of hyperthyroidism occurred in just half of the anxiety 
cases and were extremely prominent in a few’. The apparent degree of 
hypersecretion by no means corresponded to the severity of the mental 
symptoms. Exophthalmos and enlargement of the gland were rare, 
but tachycardia, sweating, the pilomotor reflex described by Hurst, 
tremors and hyper-excitability were common. In mental symptoms 
these did not differ from the cases showing no signs of increased 
secretion, which had probably been present at an earlier stage. Some 
of the more severe cases had obsessive ideas towards suicide, and all 
had a dread of insanity. 

Few of these cases made any real progress while in my ward. As 
regards treatment, I cleared up amnesias when possible, and in most 
cases made use of therapeutic conversations and superficial analysis, 
but the presence of definitely “ mental ” patients, the air raids, and the 
loss of self-control shown by so many made my results poor. Such 
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cases should be retained in the Front area, or evacuated completely out 
of reach of the alarms of war. 

States of confusion , delirium and stupor .—Of these I had thirty-four 
cases. They merge with cases described as confusional insanity, and 
include a large number of conditions difficult to distinguish clinically or 
causally. Simple retardation, simple confusion, confusion with stupor, 
and confusion with a vague and imperfect dream state are among the 
phenomena observed. As regards the forms produced by concussion, 
I place so little reliance on the histories of most of the cases that I am 
unable to venture an opinion. The patient himself is naturally unable 
to distinguish between an amnesia and a period of unconsciousness 
following a blow. MacCurdy states that low mental tension and dipping 
of consciousness are pathognomonic of concussion types, but I found 
both symptoms where concussion could with reasonable certainty be 
excluded. In the following cases concussion and physical exhaustion 
do not seem to have occurred, and the syndrome resulted solely from 
prolonged emotion : 

Pte. L—, ret. 29, four years’ pre-war service. In October, 1914, 
was on patrol with three others. They realised they had got too far 
ahead and were among Germans. They lost their heads and kept 
pushing on, gradually divesting themselves of kit, concealed in ditches, 
etc. After going some distance they found some civilians and succeeded 
in getting into plain clothes. They had now some idea of getting 
across country to Antwerp. They had some hair-breadth escapes— 
once lying on a haystack while a German party lunched at the foot— 
and got separated. The patient pushed on alone and got into Lille. 
He could speak no French, and was taken in by some French people 
and sheltered in a garret. He was fairly well fed, and later a forged 
billet didentity was obtained for him. He had once been a cobbler, 
and was able to earn some money repairing boots, occasionally got out 
and had some exercise. He lived naturally in a constant state of dread 
and anxiety until the British entered the town. With other escaped 
prisoners of war he was sent to hospital. Early next morning he 
passed into a dream state, got up, partly dressed, and began musketry 
exercises, presenting arms, etc. He remained somnambulistic till 
admission, when he was apprehensive, disorientated, and quite imper- 
ceptive, inclined to resist attention blindly, and was suffering from 
retention of urine. He lay with eyes fixed unseeingly, periodically 
raising his chest in opisthotonos, and rolling slowly round to the left till 
he would have fallen from the bed. He was able to swallow. He 
slept at intervals for forty-eight hours, and then began to have short 
lucid intervals, but with considerable retardation. He took some 
interest and was able to give his particulars. He cursed the Germans 
with violence. The stuporose condition kept recurring, when the same 
opisthotonic movements were repeated. After several days only was I 
able to get his history, and during his account he passed into a somnam¬ 
bulistic state, going through in pantomime the experiences of his 
original flight, crawling about the floor, peeping over tables, etc. He 
remained unstable till his transfer to England if questioned about his 


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captivity. A complicating causal factor was his fear that he might be 
regarded as a deserter and punished. 

The following case of hysterical dissociation with hallucinations 
appears to be worth recording at some length : 

Gnr. W—, a Canadian, set. 21, service two and a-half years ; precocious 
boy and youth. Studious, clever, eccentric, not a social. Worked with 
father, who was an analyst, etc. Learned French, chemistry, etc. 
Quarrelled with father and twice ran away, getting employment as “ boots ” 
in hotels. Precocious sexual experiences. Ran away from university and 
enlisted. Got on well; was promoted to sergeant. Transferred to Uni¬ 
versity unit as gunner and came to France After eleven months with 
battery was rendered unconscious by a bursting shell. Had had no 
premonitory signs of neurosis, and had felt happy. Seemed shaken, and 
was sent to his transport lines for a rest. Began to have impulses to do 
silly, senseless things; these he recognised as abnormal, and was, as a 
rule, able to resist, but committed some profitless petty thefts. Began 
to have the idea that he had been a spy. At first realised the absurdity 
of this, but later conviction became intense, and hallucinations and a 
state of anxiety developed. Could hear his chums saying he was a spy, 
and ought to be shot. About this time he was sent down to a neuro¬ 
logical hospital. He began to consider himself a martyr, thought 
what a fine thing it would be to be shot as a spy, how all his friends, 
and especially his father, would be startled, and think more about him, 
and so on. He also enjoyed the idea that someone would get into trouble 
if he was shot unnecessarily and the mistake came to light. At this 
point he reported himself as a spy, giving a most circumstantial account. 
He stated that as a “ boots ” he had got into the power of a German 
agent, who had used him for years. He described how he sent his 

information to a Mons. F-in Paris. (By a remarkable coincidence 

a German agent named F-happened to be known in Paris at this 

time.) He attracted considerable attention. After a few weeks the 
hallucinations ceased, and the patient realised his position. He con¬ 
fessed to his fabrications, and after some delay was sent to the base. 
Consciousness was complete on admission, and he had no amnesia. He 
gave me his history in an ashamed and humble way. His conduct was 
natural. He was still liable to impulses, however, usually to petty 
thefts, and on two or three occasions rifled the lockers, replacing the 
plunder shamefacedly later. He had an impulse to poison himself, 
partly to be a martyr, partly to cause a fuss. He had several dis¬ 
sociations with hallucinations, in which he heard me describing him 
to the sisters as a spy, and saying he would have to be shot. These 
attacks began with headaches, and passed on into deep sleep. It is 
interesting to note the recrudescence of the “spy” idea with a totally 
different emotional colouring. Between them the patient showed an ego¬ 
centric vain temperament; he was proud of his knowledge of French, 
etc .; fancied himself as a writer of prose and poetry and as a lady- 
killer, and on the whole was rather pleased with his illness and the 
attention it had attracted. 

A case similar to the above is described by Dr. W. S. Dunn, in which 
the patient made two attempts at suicide, and my own case, Pte. S—, 


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176 MENTAL WARDS WITH THE B.E.F., [July, 

described under the heading of suicide, is of the same type. Unfortu¬ 
nately the probable degree of dissociation, as shown by resolution in 
the suicidal attempts, is not discussed by Dr. Dunn, nor is the degree 
of amnesia. All these cases sought to appear in a romantic and 
interesting light, and to attract attention and notability. In a case 
reported by D. K. Henderson the same object is visible, but in this case 
there was apparently no dissociation or somnambulistic state at all. 

There would appear to be an infinite gradation between a true 
somnambulism followed by amnesia and a simple paramnesia, with 
pseudologia phantastica occupying an intermediate position. It is also 
probable that somnambulisms also show degrees according as their 
content is purely delirious or hallucinatory, or distorted and illusory. 
Towards the lower end of the scale one finds such cases of confabula¬ 
tion as that described by Henderson—the “white lies” of children, and 
the genuine distortions of memory which are familiar to all. (The 
externally changing paramnesite of an alcoholic probably arise from a 
different mechanism.) The degree of conviction or self-deception in 
all these grades is a most interesting problem. Obviously it is 
inadequate to call a man a “liar” who is willing to stake his life on his 
beliefs. I do not know if the psychopathology of the lady who con¬ 
fabulated the story of the “ Dundee nurse,” or of the journalist who 
“visited” the Russian armies in Belgium in October, 1914, has been 
reported, but they seem eligible for inclusion in this class. 

In the following case the dream-content took an unusual form, the 
patient’s attitude being very like that of the acutely hallucinated 
“ persecuted ” paranoiacs. Probably similar mechanisms were at work. 

Pte. B—, French-Canadian, one year’s service, one month in France. 
On his first trip to trenches a few' shells passed over and burst some 
considerable distance away. He fell down, look wildly round, trembled, 
refused to speak or walk, and was finally carried to an aid-post. In 
the C.C.S. he became very excited and violent, attacked orderlies and 
other patients savagely, and was hurriedly transferred to the base, 
labelled “ mania.” On admission he was extremely suspicious, glared 
around, resented any attention, but did not resist, and remained silent. 
He seemed to have a severe headache. He was microcephalic, and had 
a low, cunning, vicious face. He paid no attention to the sisters, was 
suspicious of orderlies and other patients, and glared furiously at 
anyone who went near him, but allowed me to examine him, occasionally 
answering in a low monosyllable. He lay beneath the bedclothes, ate 
and slept well, smoked, kept himself clean, would not help to carry 
out his own bed to the garden, refused all information about himself. 
He was put on small doses of bromide and aspirin for his headache, 
which seemed severe. After a few' days he made a violent and quite 
unexpected attempt to strangle me, and it taxed the strength of four 
men to control him. His lips were retracted till his incisor teeth were 
entirely exposed, he shook violently, and his face was contorted with fury. 
He made several other attacks upon me, but was always more easily 


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mastered. Fortunately he relaxed his suspicions of the orderlies 
correspondingly. He made attempts on two occasions to assault a 
distinguished visitor, a Lieutenant-Colonel, R.A.M.C., who was interested 
in him. He was in the same mental condition when transferred to 
England. I failed to get into touch with him, but I should like to have 
known with what he identified me in his illusory world. 

In the majority of these cases the delirium, etc., was of short 
duration, and disappeared in a few days. Active interference was 
impossible, and there was nothing to do but wait. Some of them, as 
the integrity of their consciousness was restored, tended to develop 
states of anxiety or “ conversion ” symptoms. The latter were easily 
dealt with and prevented, but as a rule little impression could be made 
on the former. 

In four of the cases in this group the stupor was deep enough to be 
considered narcolepsy. In others the stupor was less, and was combined 
with confusio n. In all recovery was quite sudden. 

“ Neurasthenic” states .—Using the word in its popular sense, in this 
group I placed thirteen cases complaining of headache, fatiguability, 
weakness, and general bodily ailments. Two were cases of neurasthenia 
proper. Both were over forty, had suffered for many years, had had 
light comfortable billets at the base. In the others the occurrence of 
battle-dreams showed them to be true war neuroses lying intermediate 
between the conversion hysterias and states of anxiety. 

“ Psychasthenic" states .—These are to be distinguished from consti¬ 
tutional psychopaths. There were ten, the symptoms being diffidence, 
indecision, loss of concentration, etc. 

Conversion hysterias .—I had sixteen cases of conversion hysteria, all 
mutism, three with deafness. Tremor is a common conversion symptom 
but is usually associated with anxiety. Stammering was rare, and 
appears to be a symptom of late development. Five were relapsed 
cases, and all responded at once to treatment. They displayed more 
distress at their condition, and greater relief at its removal. Two were 
cured by hypnosis, and the rest by persuasive suggestion. 

In addition to these I had two cases of hysterical vomiting, combined 
with other psychoneurotic symptoms. 

The following case illustrates the combination of conversion and 
delirious symptoms in the same patient: 

Pte. B—, aet. 19, service three years eleven months. Married. 
Professional boxer. Exceptionally well-built boy. Blown up four months 
previously, with mutism, deafness and an amnesic period. Recovered 
voice and hearing by suggestion, but still stammered badly. Relapsed 
after air raid while in convalescent camp. Admitted in a state of great 
terror and excitement, confused and disorientated, shouting and crying 
aloud. Vivid hallucinations and illusions of Germans advancing on 
him with rifles, etc. Fought and struggled violently, and was given 
hyoscine and morphia. Had some hours’ sleep and woke apprehensive, 


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but more composed, and deaf and mute. Hallucinations returned at 
intervals, but illusions ceased. Orientation returned, and we were able to 
approach and soothe him. On the third day I restored his hearing and 
speech, but he had a violent inspiratory spasm, which made the latter 
most painful. Later I was able to remove this, so that he could speak 
freely in a low voice. His delight was unbounded. He had amnesia 
for his excitement on admission. For two days he seemed stable and 
well, then suddenly and for no apparent cause his dream-state returned, 
he had the same terrifying hallucinations, and he had to be held down. 
He cried out, showing the same severe stutter. After half an hour he 
came to, with a hazy memory. After this he was uneasy, nervous and 
apprehensive, and needed constant encouragement. He had a restless, 
suspicious night. He told me he kept seeing Germans everywhere, 
pointing rifles and bayonets at him. These were not illusions, but 
pseudo-hallucinations. He improved steadily, but for some days was 
subject to the pseudo-hallucinations with short intervals of dissociation 
and real hallucinations. I have not seen these combined in this way 
in any other case. A few nights before he left for England he went 
through a noisy air raid tremulously, but without ill-effects. 

Hysterical fits .—I have already discussed these cases under the 
heading of “epilepsy.” There were nine cases of convulsive attacks, 
obviously hysterical in origin. 

Conclusions. —(i) A consultant psychiatrist, understanding and having 
sufficient. authority to protect the interests of those suffering from 
mental disorders, is essential. Such a post, held up to 1917 by 
Lieut.-Col. C. S. Myers, R.A.M.C., was afterwards abolished or left 
unfilled. The accommodation in the mental wards at Boulogne com¬ 
pared unfavourably with that provided for surgical and medical cases, 
and when seven out of the twelve trained mental attendants were 
combed out in 1918 no attempt was made to replace them by trained 
men of lower category, numbers of whom were available, but totally 
inexperienced men were sent. This obviously increased very con¬ 
siderably the risks in the safeguarding of three score acute mental 
patients, apart from the fact that only one single room, provided with a 
door, was available. 

(2) No special “ war-psychosis ” was evident, but the proportion of 
acutely suspicious and persecuted delusional cases noted by various 
writers was certainly higher than in the same number of civilian cases. 

(3) The patients were admitted at a much earlier stage than is usual 
with civilians, and their psychotic symptoms were, as a rule, corre¬ 
spondingly more responsive to treatment. On the whole, however, I 
found soldiers in acute excitement, confusion, etc., very much more 
amenable to external influences than the same types of patients in a 
county asylum. The ideas of discipline and rank are thoroughly 
stamped in during training, and are slow to disappear. It is difficult 
to see how such drastic interference with personal liberty as compulsory 


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detention in a mental hospital could be arranged in civil life without 
some safeguard analogous to certification, but there is no possible 
doubt that earlier treatment of mental disorders is urgently called for, 
and must be made more easily available than at present. Further, 
curative mental hospitals should be kept completely distinct from 
repositories for the defective and the organic dement. The influence 
upon the temporary and curable psychoneurotic of daily mixing with 
the gravely deteriorated chronic insane cannot but be harmful. 

(4) Little psycho-analysis was done, but all cases were interrogated 
in private, simple explanations of psychological mechanisms given 
where suitable, and superficial analysis on the evidence of dreams, 
association tests, etc., were carried out, with satisfactory results. Many 
of the depressed and deluded cases had little conviction, and were 
remarkably susceptible to persuasive suggestion. Hypnosis was used 
rarely and less frequently in later months. Other means of over¬ 
coming psychic resistance, if slower, are more satisfactory. All patients 
were in the open air every possible hour—labour was plentiful, and 
the beds were light—and everything was done to foster the hospital 
atmosphere. I was fortunate in being able to maintain a spirit of 
orderliness, of self-control, and of “ will to recover,” which was of the 
greatest possible assistance, and which of itself was responsible for most 
of the improvement which occurred in the patients. 

(5) Neurotics and psychoneurotics, if allowed to leave the Front 
area for treatment, should be sent out of risk of all the alarms of war. 
Their treatment in a base, exposed to air raids at short intervals, is 
extremely difficult. 

(6) Defectives, if enlisted at all, should be retained strictly for home 
service 

References. 

Read, Stanford.—“A Survey of War Neuro-Psychiatry,” Mental 
Hygiene , vol. ii, No. 3, July, 1918. 

Jelliffe and White.— Diseases of the Nervous System , London, 1917. 

Rhoussy and Lhermitte.— Psychoneuroses of War, London, 1918. 

Armstrong-Jones, Sir Robert.—“The Relation of Alcohol to Mental 
States,” Journ. Ment. Sci., April, 1918. 

Fildes, Parnell and Maitland.— Brain, vol. xli, pt. 3, 1918. 

Hotchkis.—“A War Hospital for Mental Invalids,” Journ. Ment. 
Sci., April, 1917. 

Eager, R.—“Admissions to the Mental Section of the Lord Derby 
War Hospital,” Journ. Ment. Sci., July, 1918. 

Farrar, C. B.—“War and Neurosis,” Amer. Journ. of Insanity, April, 
1917. 

MacCurdy.— War Neuroses, Cambridge, 1918. 

Babinski and Froment.— Hysteria or Pythiatism, London, 1918. 

Mott.—“Shell Shock,” Proc. Roy. Soc. Med., February, 1916. 


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1 80 PSYCHIC SECRETION, ' [July, 

Dunn, W. S.—“Pseudologia Phantastica,” Journ. Ment. Sci ., July, 

i 9i8. 

Henderson, D. K.—“ Pathological Lying in a Soldier,” Rev. Neurol, 
and Psych., July, 1917. 

Wholey.—“Revelations of the Unconscious in a Toxic (Alcoholic) 
Psychosis,” Arner. Journ. Insanity, January, 1918. 

Henderson.—“War Psychoses: Analysis of 202 Cases,” Journ. Ment. 
Sci., April, 1918. 


“Psychic Secretion: The Influence of the Environment." {}) By Lieut. 
Col. E. P. Cathcart, M.D., R.A.M.C., Professor of Physio¬ 
logy, London Hospital Medical School. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, —Probably most of what 
I shall say to you this afternoon will be well known to you; indeed, 
many of you may think the information self-evident and trivial, but in 
spite of this I hope that what I say may serve to re-emphasise in your 
minds the fact that we are all very subject to our environment. 

Consciously or unconsciously we are all inclined to look upon 
mankind as a superior caste of living organism—a something which 
occupies a place apart in the kingdom of the living. But this assumed 
divergence from all other life arises solely from the fact that some few 
of mankind think or pretend to think, and therefore have not unnaturally 
arrived at the view, that mankind is a class apart. We recognise and state 
in a superior sort of a way that the lower living organisms are subject 
to their environment—are indeed at the mercy of their environment, that 
their actions and manner of life are governed by their surroundings. 

Yet in spite of our superiority we, too, as a class are subject to, and 
in fact one might almost sayare victims of, our environment. We respond 
to the various types of stimuli which affect the despised lower members 
of creation, but unless we respond in a way divergent from the conven¬ 
tional social standard of conduct, we pursue the even tenor of our way 
almost blissfully unconscious of the fact. On the other hand, if we 
respond irregularly, or too actively, we immediately attract the notice of 
.our friends, mayhap of the alienist, and sometimes even of the police. 

Now, some of you may quite correctly inquire what has all this wordy 
preamble to do with the subject of my lecture, “ Psychic Secretion.” I 
wbuld reply that it has everything to do with it. The so-called psychic 
secretion is only a demonstration of one of the simplest of the relations 
which we have to the outside world. The commonly used term 
“ psychic secretion ” is really a misnomer ; all it is, in reality, is a reflex 
secretion in which the stimulus is not the usual commonplace one. 

Let us for a moment consider the type of secretion to which the term 


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“ psychic ” has been applied. It is common knowledge that under certain 
conditions, quite apart from the taking of food, our “ mouths water.” 
This mouth-watering was not considered worthy of the attention of 
physiologists until Pavloff—in whose laboratory at Petrograd I had the 
honour of working—took up the matter, and thoroughly investigated the 
conditions associated with salivary secretion. Pavloff first of all showed 
that it is not the mere flow of saliva which has to be considered : the 
composition of the saliva which results is also under control. If you 
tempt a dog with a mass of raw meat it gets very excited, but no saliva 
is secreted from the parotid gland. But show it dried meat powder, 
or dry bread, and immediately there is a free flow of watery saliva 
from the parotid gland. If, on the other hand, you are making 
observations on the submaxillary gland, and you show the animal 
the raw meat, a free secretion results. Pavloff then demonstrated that 
the different salivary glands are very sharply differentiated as to the 
conditions necessary for their activity; they show a marked selective 
action in the choice of an adequate stimulus. A very interesting point 
is, that the mechanical stimulus in the form of a material object is not 
the only potent stimulus. 

The psychic stimulus is not confined to the salivary glands. Pavloff 
has demonstrated that the gastric glands react in the same way, thus 
confirming a very early observation of Bidder and Schmidt, who had 
noted that the offering of food to a hungry dog evoked a flow of gastric 
juice. The interesting fact about the gastric psychic secretion is, as 
Pavloff has clearly demonstrated, that the latent period of secretion is 
identical— viz., five minutes—with that which follows the normal stimula¬ 
tion of the buccal mucous membrane. Pavloff further showed that the 
temperament of the animal tested plays a large part in the flow of the 
gastric juice. Lazy or impatient animals do not act as good subjects. 

One of the practical results arising from these experiments was the 
conclusion that the taking of food is, or should be, a serious function ; 
unless the meal is eaten with interest and enjoyment the full value is not 
obtained. Hence we are, indeed, at the mercy of our environment. It 
is not the mere food which is of primary importance; there are many 
additional factors which play an important part in this question of the 
taking of food. The refinements of life in our prandial ritual have 
gradually assumed a position of primary importance. Under normal 
conditions most of us make certain demands in connection with our 
meals : spotless linen, bright silver, a well-decorated table, and everything 
set in a special room. Unless we get this, along with well-flavoured, 
well-cooked, and well-served food, our appetites are apt to fail. Hunger 
is indeed the best sauce, but indoor work is not the best stimulus for 
the creation of hunger. 

But there is still another side of the question, and this is an aspect 


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which you here will appreciate perhaps more fully than I can, and that is 
the effect of mental strain or emotion on the appetite. We all know how 
often, when we are deeply interested in a piece of work, the usual meal- 
hour can come and go, and yet we are indifferent; or, on the other hand, 
how strain and worry literally destroy the appetite—the food may be 
taken, but it is eaten without enjoyment or interest, and the all-impor¬ 
tant psychic secretion fails. Or still further, we may be heartily 
enjoying a meal when some emotional storm sets in—say a quarrel 
starts, the temper is raised, and as a result of the violent emotion the 
digestion is actually brought to a complete cessation. Truly we are 
at the mercy of our environment. We respond to stimuli which of 
themselves play, and can play, no first-hand part in the secretion of the 
digestive uses, but yet which, in conjunction with a very early reflex, 
can be gradually converted into true stimuli of the first order. In other 
words, we form secretory habits, and unless the particular concatenation 
of events is present, or unless certain well-defined specific stimuli are 
present, the result is failure. You, above all other workers, appreciate 
the true importance of these apparently subsidiary factors in the realm 
of psychopathic studies—how certain individuals must have certain 
stimuli before what may be regarded as a perfectly normal act can be 
performed. Take for example a certain well-known speaker. What 
would he do if coat-lapels went out of fashion and his tailor failed to 
provide them ! Then take those individuals who cannot speak without 
having something to play with. The stimulus of the coat-lapel or the 
piece of string, in themselves perfectly indifferent, and perfectly incapable 
of forming adequate stimuli for thought and speech, yet play a very 
real part in the smooth flow of thought and speech. 

The facts underlying this reflex secretion have been investigated by 
Pavloff and his pupils, using the secretion of the salivary glands as the 
test. Pavloff carried into the realm of the central nervous system the 
methods of experimentation which had given such successful results in 
connection with mere glandular activity. The particular methods which 
he employed he has called the formation of “ conditioned reflexes.” 
He divided the salivary reflexes into two classes ; he spoke of the “ con¬ 
ditioned reflexes ” and the “ unconditioned reflexes.” Pavloff would 
say that the so-called psychic secretion which resulted from a stimulus, 
perhaps indifferent in itself, was a conditioned reflex, whereas the 
ordinary stimulation of the buccal cavity on the taking of food—the 
normal way in which saliva is caused to flow—he calls the unconditioned 
reflex. From a study of these two reflexes Pavloff has evolved a 
wonderful method of gaining information about our relationships to the 
external world, that is, of our relationship to our environment. 

In developing this relationship there are two fundamental mechanisms 
involved. The first is by what he called “ temporary association ”—that 


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1919] by E. 1 >. cathcart, m.d. 183 

is to say, the bringing of external phenomena into relation with the 
reactions of the organism, this connection becoming more and more 
complex and the more subject to modification or influence as evolution 
of the higher centres proceeds. The other fundamental mechanism 
is that associated with the “ analysers ” usually called the sense-organs, 
ie., the eye, the ear, etc., the organs which sort out the many and 
complicated stimuli which bring us into relation with the external 
world. 

As one of the simplest and most primitive of our relationships to the 
external world is the necessity of procuring food, in the course of the 
quest for a suitable supply of nutriment the means by which food is 
detected increase in number and complexity as the analysers are 
differentiated. As a result the variety of phenomena which gradually 
become associated with food increases in number, so that in the end, 
owing to the variety and number of the adequate stimuli, the impos¬ 
sibility of other than mere temporary or evanescent association is 
obvious. 

How is the conditioned reflex—the formation of the temporary 
association—brought about? How is an indifferent stimulus converted 
into an active one ? Why is it, for example, that one man reading in a 
newspaper—an indifferent stimulus—that coupons are no longer required 
for meat in a restaurant has, if he is a lover of a well-grilled steak, an 
anticipatory flow of saliva, whereas a man who is a vegetarian is left 
cold, except, perhaps, for a feeling of disgust that more meat is to be 
liberated, by the same announcement. 

Pavloff showed that if a new indifferent stimulus be presented 
sufficiently often in conjunction with one which is known to cause a 
secretion, in the end the indifferent stimulus presented alone will evoke 
a response. It means that the reflex arc has taken on a new afferent 
neuron, but it has not taken it on unconditionally; the path is not yet 
beaten down hard : no right-of-way has been formed. 

I shall now give you an account of how an indifferent stimulus may 
become a true reflex, lake, first of all, an example of an unconditioned 
reflex. As you know, if you give an animal food saliva will be secreted. 
Suppose, now, that every time food is given to a dog—for example, 
meat powder thrown into its mouth, so as to leave out the factor of 
chewing—a bell is rung, or a light shown, or a single note sounded on 
an organ, or the dog has its skin scratched on a particular spot. If 
the giving of the food and the application of the particular stimulus 
selected be made to synchronise a number of times—the actual number 
varies a good deal with' the individual dog—it will be found that one 
day the superimposed indifferent stimulus, the ringing of the bell, if 
that were chosen, used alone, will evoke the secretion. In other 
words, a conditioned reflex to a specific stimulus has been created. 


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This is an example of the genesis of a conditioned reflex, and similar 
reflexes can be generated by practically any phenomenon of the external 
world, provided the animal possesses a suitable analyser or receptor— 
that is to say, if it can form temporary associations between the external 
phenomena and the mechanism for the salivary secretion. 

The point that is thus emphasised is that, provided a well-established 
primitive unconditioned reflex exists, by suitable treatment a previously 
indifferent external stimulus can be brought into intimate relationship 
with it. 

The investigation would be very simple if it all ended here, but 
Pavloff has definitely shown that the problem of inhibition must be 
considered : that not only can one inhibit either externally or internally 
these reflexes, but in the end an inhibition of the inhibition may be 
brought about. Any external phenomenon may act under suitable 
conditions as an inhibitant. This fact is of serious import when the 
conditioned reflex is being developed in the laboratory : the experi¬ 
ments have to be carried out in dead silence every day; each time one 
has to use the same movements. Very frequently the very slightest 
outside disturbance—the banging of the door in another laboratory, for 
example—is enough to upset the experimental dog for the day. 

The question of internal inhibition is much more subtle. When a 
conditioned reflex is properly developed, i.e., when the indifferent 
stimulus alone evokes a response, if the animal is not presented on 
several successive tests with the food which it has learned to expect on 
the application of the stimulus, the conditioned reflex ceases to be 
effective. As a rule this type of internal inhibition is merely temporary, 
the conditioned stimulus being effective at a later period. 

At the same time actual inhibition of secretion can be developed by 
suitable treatment—that is to say, we can build up reflexes for non¬ 
secretion or non-activity just as easily as we can build up a reflex for 
activity. It is a matter of training, and of the utilisation of special 
methods. 

In one animal under observation we had developed on its fore leg a 
little active spot which, when brushed, caused active salivary secretion. 
In the middle of its back, on the contrary, by a similar process we had 
developed an inactive cold spot, and when that spot was chilled inhibition 
of secretion took place ; it was a spot trained for non-secretion. If the 
non-secretion reflex is first evoked, naturally there is no flow of saliva ; 
if the active reflex is now called in there will still be no flow—active 
inhibition has taken place. The active stimulus, however, soon becomes 
effective again. You get the same thing if you try to present two 
different active reflexes simultaneously, or if an attempt be made to 
superimpose an active stimulus during the period of secretion produced 
by another active stimulus. 


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1 9 1 9*3 


BY E. P. CATHCART, M.D. 


.85 


It can also be demonstrated that the time element may play an 
important part. I have mentioned that in regard to the gastric flow 
there is a normal latent period of five minutes. A similar latent period 
may be developed in connection with conditioned reflexes. For instance, 
if in building up a conditioned reflex the food be not given until a 
definite constant period—say two minutes—after the application of the 
stimulus, it will be found that when the new conditioned stimulus is 
given alone there is a latent period of the duration established during 
the formation of the reflex, viz., two minutes. During these two minutes 
of latency an active inhibition is going on to prevent the secretion of 
saliva. If, during this latent period, you throw in another perfectly 
indifferent stimulus—a stimulus which of itself would not produce a flow 
of saliva, one which the animal has not been trained to respond to—an 
active flow of saliva takes place ; the indifferent stimulus has broken the 
spell, it has inhibited the inhibition, and an active flow of saliva ensues. 

In dogs at least the development of a conditioned reflex is a very 
sensitive affair. Supposing you train an animal to the stimulus of an 
organ note of exactly ioo vibrations per second, that animal will be 
indifferent to a note of ninety-six vibrations on the one hand and to a 
note of 104 vibrations on the other ; but as soon as the 100 vibrations 
are resumed the saliva flows again. Again, take the skin. One does 
not look upon the skin as in any way too sensitive when spacing it out 
with an resthesiometer ; yet the removal of the stimulating electrode or 
brush to a distance of only 1 cm. from an active spot will suffice to do 
away with the whole reflex. 

Even painful stimuli can be used for the building up of conditioned 
reflexes. Thus an electric current strong enough to cause signs of 
pain in an animal may be built up into an apparently non-painful 
conditioned stimulus. If each time such a stimulus is used the dog be 
given food, it will be found that after a few repetitions all signs of pain 
from the stimulation have disappeared and a free flow of saliva occurs : 
the stimulus has lost its power as a painful agent. But move the 
electrode even a centimetre away from the spot and the dog will again 
show every evidence of violent pain. It must be admitted it is only 
with difficulty and under special conditions that you can develop these 
painful stimuli into good conditioned reflexes. 

I think you will now see why I have insisted that we are victims of 
our environment—of the daily routine which is so dear to us ; how it is 
that as we “ get used ” to a certain setting, we work better and more 
happily, we enjoy our food better—in general we are more comfortable. 
All these little amenities of our social life which we have come to look 
upon as more or less essential to our comfort and well-being are 
but indifferent stimuli, which, through constant application, have been 
converted into conditioned reflexes. Our environment plays such an 


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enormous part in our happiness and well-being simply because we have 
physiologically developed conditioned reflexes. 

Sir Robert Armstroxg-Jones said this paper was a very difficult one to 
discuss. It was ex cathedrd, and in attempting to discuss it one was apt to 
wander off into platitudes. It was well known that if one's morning letters brought 
bad news, one did not want ond’s breakfast. As the Psalmist said, one’s tongue 
clove to the roof of one’s mouth, and altogether there was an inhibition of psychic 
secretion. He felt very grateful to the reader of the paper for having introduced 
a very charming phrase, which he hoped Colonel Cathcart would not regard as 
his copyright—namely, “ the prandial ritual.” It described very aptly all the 
social amenities and conventions which appertained to the taking of food. He 
had always said that the poor man and the rich man drank for two opposite 
reasons—the poor man because he mistook the feeling of stimulation imparted by 
a glass of beer for the satisfaction produced by a well-grilled chop, whereas the 
rich man drank in order to make his meal a better meal. The latter had all the 
assthetic reasons around him—the charming napery, the brilliant silver, the flowers 
arranged before him—he had practically all the nice amenities, and there was also 
the sight of the champagne bubbling in the glass. All those were points which 
had to do with psychic secretion. He was greatly interested in the fact that man 
was so much looked upon as a creature of environment. Man, however, was 
only an ordinary creature, not a superior mortal, but he had five or six windows 
to him, through which boundless energies came to him from without. We 
were, no doubt, deaf or blind or insensitive to many of the forms which came 
in, but we were open to others. He maintained that one was kept going by 
one’s environmental stimuli coming from without. He had seen many men who 
retired at 60, having made their pile, and he had seen them “ drop out of 
life,” so to speak ; they had become members of an asylum population merely 
because they had retired and no longer had the customary environmental stimuli. 
But there was one point he could not harmonise with what the reader had said. 
Dementia prascox was the unemotional type, but the subject of this never failed 
to secrete his saliva and never failed to grow fat in the early stage of his dementia 
prrecox. He also appreciated everything which came before him. If humanity 
was so much the creature of psychic secretion, why was it that in this charac¬ 
teristic form of insanity all the functions of the body seemed to go on satisfactorily 
for a time ? It had been a most excellent psychological lecture, touching on simi. 
larity, contiguity, the power of appeal to the cortex to inhibit all these things- 
One heard and read of various stigmata produced by thought and by suggestion. 
There was the question of the fine balance kept between the internal secretions. 
Perhaps it was the want of that balance which made Napoleon grow fat and sleek, 
and develop adiposis dolorosa. The same thing probably obtained in abnormal 
conditions of the thyroid. He had heard it said—and he had no reason to doubt 
it—that certain cases of goitre had been brought on by mental stress. Not 
infrequently he had seen neurasthenia in a shell-shocked soldier who had had 
goitre produced, perhaps by nervous influences. We had in our hands the creation 
of our own internal arrangements, and perhaps gigantism, acromegaly, goitre and 
similar conditions could be controlled if the inhibition were exercised. He had 
been well rewarded in coming to hear the lecture. 

(') Read at the Quarterly Meeting of the Medico-Psychological Association 
held in London on February 20th, 1919. 


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1919-] THE GENESIS OF DELUSIONS : CLINICAL NOTES. I 87 


The Genesis of Delusions : Clinical Notes. By Colin McDowall, 
M.D., Medical Superintendent, Ticehurst House. 

Men and women hold to and have faith in certain opinions as the 
result of long thinking around and along certain lines. Our social and 
political tendencies are the outcome of an analysis more or less critical, 
and believed by the individual to be impartial. A scattered phrase or 
an apparently insignificant incident may attract attention, and be the 
beginning of a prolonged mental conflict which is finally determined by 
a definite line of thought. It does not follow that the reasoning is 
always logical, or the argument conclusive to people of other opinions, 
but nevertheless a conclusion is arrived at, and it is final. 

How this is borne out in every-day life may be seen in the following 
narrative: A boy of Scotch descent, bearing a distinctly Scotch name 
but born in Ireland, was sent to a school in Scotland. His school¬ 
fellows pronounced him an Irishman at once. His accent was Irish, 
and he lived in Ireland, so his Scotch school companions would not 
admit him as a Scot though his parents had always fostered the idea 
that he was one. The view of his school mates was a rude awakening. 
When the International Rugby matches take place national feeling 
runs high in a Scotch public school. He found he was expected to 
support the land of his birth ; the land of his name rejected him with 
scorn. This result had its lasting effect. The boy against his inclina¬ 
tions and early teaching had to range himself against what he thought 
was his own country. Years passed and the man remains the same : he 
supports the land of his birth, and when the character of the Scots is 
discussed, though admiring much in silence, he takes a partisan side 
and brings out all that can be said against the country that years ago 
rejected him. 

A thoughtful and apparently honest man arives at a conclusion which 
another equally thoughtful and honest man will inform you is wicked, and 
nothing but the road to ruin for all those who think similarly. It is not 
necessary to pursue this subject, but it is mentioned because in those 
mental states in which distinct abnormality exists the mind of the 
patient works along the same lines, and false beliefs arise as the result 
of thought directed irregularly to experiences in the lives of the indi¬ 
viduals. An incident may or may not have an abiding effect upon the 
course of anyone’s life. Just as a chance phrase or sentence may 
influence for a lifetime the opinions of thinking persons, so may an 
incident be misunderstood and its effects misconstrued owing to lack of 
the sense of proportion in the mind of the psychopath. 

Abnormal mental states arise in persons with a varying personal and 
family history. Probably the presence of hereditary taint is the most 


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I 88 THE GENESIS OF DELUSIONS : CLINICAL NOTES, [July, 

important factor in the preparedness of anyone to become mentally 
disturbed or actually insane. Heredity is therefore important, as 
also are other predisposing factors, but these agents alone do not 
determine the course which the disability will take. The tendency to 
insanity exists, and it is the personal experience which goads the 
intellect along an illogical and unreasonable path. Just as reasoned 
thought, stimulated originally by an expression or form of words, 
produced a complicated line of thought which was held through life as 
an opinion or belief, so in the psychopath an incident may start a 
complicated system of delusions. The result is, after a space of time, 
a state of affairs very unlike the original condition. Delusions and 
hallucinations do not arise accidentally ; they have a definite basis, the 
foundation of which is in the personal experience of the sufferer. 

It is the duty of the medical man to analyse the mental processes by 
which the abnormality has arisen and work back to what may be called 
the taking-off point. It is not my general experience that these causal 
factors are always difficult to bring to light. A great step towards 
removing the difficulty is to gain the complete confidence of the 
patient, and there is no easier method to attain this end than to have 
the subject of one’s examination constantly intermingling with patients 
in whom treatment has previously been successful. Some of my most 
interesting cases have been encountered in dealing with enlisted soldiers. 
Whether the soldier is more readily made to talk than the civilian may 
not be easy of proof, but it is probable. In men the cause underlying 
a psychosis is often reached very quickly, whereas women are more 
reticent. Not only is this so, but I remember well a case in which a 
woman of good education deliberately invented what to her appeared to 
be a very satisfactory collection of dreams and association-tests merely 
to deceive me so that I might pronounce her recovered, and thus 
provide her with a suitable opportunity for suicide. 

I have said that the determining factor in the mental abnormality may 
not be far from the surface. It may indeed be so insistent that it is 
always present in the thoughts of the patient. The after-results of the 
personal experience may conceal the relationship of the cause and the 
effect in the patient’s mind, and he may describe his symptoms and 
almost in the same breath give the cause of all his troubles. The 
patient does not realise the relation of the one to the other, and cannot 
be expected to do so ; and here it is the necessary duty of the practitioner 
to explain to the patient his symptoms and educate him by showing the 
interconnection of cause and effect. The means placed at our disposal 
is through mental analysis. By that I mean an examination which will 
not only investigate the conscious problems of the patient, but also 
bring to light the factors of subconscious origin. 

When dealing with numbers of men suffering from war neuroses it 


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BY COLIN McDOWALL, M.D. 


1919.] 


I 89 


was noticeable that as a general rule the functional condition required 
a great deal more probing to arrive at something satisfying than was 
necessary in the more organised state of mental inability. And it may 
be added, paradoxical though it may seem, the functional condition is 
much more easily treated than the state in which delusions or hallucina¬ 
tions have begun to assert themselves. The mere elucidation of the 
cause is not enough to effect a cure, and the patient should be taught 
to follow in their logical sequence all the ideas which he had mis¬ 
interpreted and misunderstood. 

A man was admitted to Maghull Military Hospital showing all the 
signs of acute depression and considerable confusion. He had been in 
the trenches for four months in the early part of the war. There had 
been a mental breakdown nine years previously, in consequence of 
which he was invalided out of the Navy. He was a married man with 
three children. In addition to the general signs of depression there 
were delusions; he said he had only half a body, that the food he took 
did him no good as it ran out of him. When questioned as to what 
these ideas meant he explained he had had diarrhoea in the trenches 
and it had so weakened him he was only “ half his old self.” The food 
could not be retained as he thought his rectum had “ dropped out, I 
suppose.” The idea that his diarrhoea persisted was incorrect. He had 
a stool once a day as a matter of fact. Further inquiry elicited the 
following facts: He was an old naval man living at a seaside town and 
yet he had not rejoined his old service. He did not try to rejoin: he 
“ wanted nothing more to do with the Navy.” He complained he 
heard a voice saying, “You ought never to have done these things.” 
The patient for a time would say no more about himself. Later he 
related how he had joined the Navy at fifteen, and had received money 
regularly for allowing certain practices to take place. The clear 
relationship of the acts of his youth and the delusions of manhood is 
evident. The patient had begun to rationalise his bowel sensations 
and to misinterpret the normal bowel action. After a certain amount 
of instruction, and the explanation and interpretation of his symptoms, 
improvement set in. He said to me the voice was no more than his 
conscience—a correct estimate of the condition. 

The hallucination was a very helpful hint that there was more in the 
case than a superficial examination would show; he thought his food 
did him no good, that his rectum had dropped out. The man’s 
explanation of his delusions was only a rationalisation, and might have 
been considered satisfactory. He had passed through four months of 
strain and stress in France; terrifying experiences disturbing to the 
emotions would have had time to act upon a man who had previously 
been insane, but the hallucinations at once pointed the path along 
which further investigation should go. The patient was suffering from 

LXV. 1 3 


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190 THE GENESIS OF DELUSIONS: CLINICAL NOTES, [July, 

remorse in an aggravated form. His attitude was one of shame. He 
was unsocial and avoided others—even his own wife when she visited 
him. The hallucination was the product of his own thoughts. 

Hallucinations do not occur in states of depression at an early stage 
of the malady; delusions develop earlier. A simple anxiety state with 
depression may develop into a condition associated with delusions, and 
this is the more likely to happen if the case is untreated. There are 
quite enough causal factors associated together in modern warfare to 
cause a psychosis to develop. The patient, already tormented by a 
state of anxiety, begins to revert to these gloomy and sordid experiences 
of his life. Finally, one memory is able to take possession of all his 
thoughts, and round this subject he will weave his net. The hallucina¬ 
tion, “ You ought never to have done these things,” cannot be said to 
be in relation with a subconscious thought; quite the reverse. It is 
in relation with a painfully clear memory. The hallucination as it 
stands means nothing, and it is only when the man’s life episodes are 
revealed, and the personal matters are sifted, that it can be made 
intelligible. The presence of hallucinations may be taken as the 
measure of the intensity of the causal memory image. Just as dreams 
are helpful in the purely functional case, so hallucinations will surely 
point to a causal factor of the first importance. The subject of this 
case made a good recovery, although during his convalescence his wife 
died somewhat unexpectedly. 

The case just recorded may be said to be one in which the personal 
experience acted as a secondary or indirect agent in the production 
of the psychosis. In the story which follows the experience was the 
direct factor, and the mental state arose from looking at the occurrence 
from an altogether wrong point of view’. 

The patient was a man iet. 41—a north countryman. He had 
taken alcohol in the pre-war days rather freely. A reservist, with no 
previous experience in warfare, he went to France in August, 1914. 
He was invalided to England with rheumatism in February, 1915, was 
sent to France a few weeks later, but returned, as the rheumatism 
recurred in Havre. After some time in an English hospital he w r as 
given leave. He remembers getting his papers, but nothing after 
that. 

I did not see the patient until he had been in hospital some weeks. 
On examination he showed considerable uncertainty of memory, and 
was obviously depressed, of anxious countenance, his forehead deeply 
furrowed, the face thin and haggard. He was solitary, avoided his 
comrades, went for long walks alone, and in short showed all the signs 
of a man brooding over some occurrence recent or remote. 

For three months this man was with me. Any attempt at progress 
on my part was frustrated by an obstinate silence, or word manipulation. 


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1919.] BY COLIN McDOWALL, M.D. 191 

He was not improving mentally, but after much persuasion the facts of 
the case were disclosed. 

In the winter of 1914 he was sent out one night on a patrol. He 
was the leading man of six others. Suddenly he felt that he had lost 
touch with his companions. He was alone, but almost immediately he 
heard a voice say in English, “ Give me your rifle.” He could see 
nothing, but when the order was repeated he bent down and was able 
to make out against the sky-line the spike of a German officer’s helmet. 
He had little time to make a decision, but holding his rifle in the 
middle, he drove it upwards at the man in front of him. The officer 
gave a “dirty laugh, a sarcastic, scoffing laugh.” Our patient naturally 
enough thought he had struck into the lapel of the officer’s greatcoat. 
The next moment the officer fell dead at his feet. He had stabbed 
him through the floor of the mouth and the bayonet stuck in the skull. 
The officer carried a sword in one hand, a pistol in the other. The 
movements and voices of an enemy patrol were heard and our man 
escaped to his trench. The telling of this story takes time, but the 
actual occurrence was all enacted in a moment. 

Many emotions were stirred in this brief experience. The setting 
was fitting for a memory which can never leave the soldier. Fear 
firstly at finding himself isolated, the sudden voice asking for his rifle, 
the fearful thought that he had missed his man, as evidenced by the 
scoffing laugh, and lastly, fear of discovery as he attempted to regain 
his trench. 

The soldier from the beginning took an altogether false view of 
his action. On his return to his trench he only told one man what had 
happened. He was ashamed of what he had done. He said to me 
“ he would not have minded if it had been a fair fight in the open,” and 
“if he had cursed me I should not have minded, as he would have 
deserved what he got.” 

Depression and confusion followed some months later. At night, 
when in a state between sleeping and waking, he would see the whole 
incident. The laugh would waken him at night. He would hear the 
sarcastic laugh also in the daytime. He could not sit in the billiard 
room of the hospital, as men often laughed in the same sarcastic way 
when a player failed at a shot. He went away by himself so as to 
avoid the possibility of having the image recalled by a comrade’s laugh. 

It is not quite easy to explain the sequence of events in this man’s 
depression. Much would depend upon the mental make-up. He 
appeared to be a simple, kind-hearted man, but in no way a senti¬ 
mentalist. He had lived a normal life of boyhood and youth, and 
joined the Army, as many men do, in order to see the world. On going 
on the reserve, he had married and worked on the railway. 

The event in every-day life which to my mind is perhaps analogous 


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192 THE GENESIS OF DELUSIONS: CLINICAL NOTES, [July, 


to this war episode is one connected with association football. In 
football, when a player within a certain area infringes the law, a penalty 
kick is given against him. That means virtually a certain goal to the 
opposing side. In popular football, with the thoughts of the crowd 
interested more in bets and points than in the play of the game, a cheer 
goes up at the decision of a penalty kick; but in a truly sporting crowd 
there is no such demonstration; the feeling created is rather one of 
resentment against the offending player. The true sportsman would 
rather not gain a point under such circumstances. Once the decision 
is given the penalty must be taken, and the player, however much he 
may have the sporting instinct, must do his best. Reverting to the 
soldier, he merely did what was his duty. To have done nothing 
would have meant his own death; he acted under enormous stress. 
There was at first uncertainty as to the nationality of his opponent, but 
once he had made a decision on this point he had to act. The common- 
sense conclusion is that he did right. 

The method of treatment adopted was by explanation of his symptoms 
a comparison of his act with that of the football incident, and a strong 
appeal to the man’s own common sense. The unburdening of himself 
of the long-kept secret had an immediate effect. The dreams stopped 
almost at once. Following the first interview after the facts had been 
obtained, the patient had the best night’s rest he had had for months. 
Ultimately he lost all his depression and was sent home. 

I have used this case as it shows what results can be obtained by 
mental analysis in a patient in whom there is no connection with sexual 
matters. It is unfortunate that to many mental analysis should have 
reference to this subject of necessity. Many cases, when analysed, no 
doubt, have to do with sexual things, but in very many the reverse is 
found. 

Finally, I would record another example of the close connection 
between memory of an action in boyhood and the fully developed 
delusion in manhood. The patient was a soldier, ret. 24. When he 
came under notice he was acutely depressed and was under the 
impression that people were accusing him of being a murderer. 

His father was an alcoholic, and he himself had drunk very 
considerably. He has never been able to stand the sight of blood 
When twenty-two he was sick when he saw’ an ox killed. He went to 
France in August, 1914, and felt sick and faint when he saw a man 
blown off a horse and killed. He was returned to England within 
a fortnight with rheumatism. In March of the following year he went 
to the Dardanelles, and there worked with his battery for four months. 
He became confused on Gallipoli, and wandered about aimlessly, so 
that he was sent home. His memory of the events of the voyage home 
is very incomplete. 


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I 9 1 9-] BY COLIN MCDOWALL, M.D. I 93 

When examined he was highly emotional, wept whenever addressed, 
and went on his knees praying for forgiveness of his sins. 

A word analysis was tried, and it gave some interesting reactions. 
Many of the tests are omitted, and a few selected ones only given. 

Tired—very, thinking how he has always to be pushed on to work. 

Forget—never, the lessons he has had, all his past misdeeds. . 

Breath—holy, the breath given to us all is given by God. 

Fire—hell, hopes to keep out of hell fire. 

Mouth—river, after a considerable interval “no fastings.” The need 
of fasting on account of his wickedness. 

Happy—very, he should like to be very happy. 

Broken—often, refers to his promises. 

Hope—always, to do his duty and live another life. 

End—never, world without end. 

Death—an interval of twenty-four seconds, and then, “ Death did 
you say?” Sting, later he said his first thought was “Beautiful,” 
then “ Envy,” then “ Happy ” (these all refer to a sister’s death). 

It will be seen at once how the idea of self-reproach and unworthi¬ 
ness is running through many of the associated words. Some replies 
indicate his religion, and the tendency to seek relief from his present 
oppressive thoughts by an appeal through his spiritual beliefs. He 
shows in the words “ end—never’’that his outlook must indeed be 
terrible if his present misery is to last everlastingly; or possibly he 
means that his fate is unending as his sins are unforgiveable. Lastly, 
the reaction-time for the stimulus word “death” produces thoughts but 
no spoken word, except after a long interval. “ Death ” and “ sting ” 
are a normal reaction, and had the reaction-time not been taken the 
associated word would have caused no criticism. The man admitted, 
however, under pressure he had thought of three words and rejected 
each, as he did not want to talk about them. 

He heard people calling him a murderer, and he said he was the 
wickedest man on earth. In addition, he said he often thought of his 
home, of his sister who died, and he had heard her say to him at night, 
“ I am happy.” 

His youth had been a disturbed one. His parents were not of the 
same religion, and though he had embraced his mother’s religion, his 
father often quarrelled with him about it. His sexual life was an 
unhealthy one. Living in the same room with two sisters, he had had 
incestuous relations with one and had attempted similar things with the 
other. His sister died of lung disease at a time when these practices 
had not ceased. She was quite young. He thinks that by these 
practices he had so weakened her that lung disease overtook her. He 
used a forcible expression, which I cannot repeat here, of his belief in 
this subject. He was an ignorant boy, poorly educated, and running 


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wild with little control as a youth. He had read, however, in pamphlets 
of the dangers of sexual matters when carried to excess, especially in 
the young and immature. He applies this theory to his young sister, 
and blames himself for her death. The word “ beautiful ” refers to the 
dead girl lying surrounded by flowers preparatory to burial. Happy— 
he is expressing the hope that she is happy in Heaven, and the 
hallucination, “ I am happy,” is nothing more than a wish fulfilment. 
Envy—how he envies his sister in the pure state of the life hereafter as 
compared to his miserable, sordid life on earth. Self-accusatory thoughts 
are very usual in depression, and the word “murderer” is only an 
exaggerated impression of his own view of the result of his own wrong 
action. Unfortunately I lost sight of this patient, but when I last heard 
of him the opinion prevailed that he was not likely to do well. His 
psychosis, however, is interesting, and shows the relationship of the 
human side of the patient’s life and the later development of the 
delusion and hallucinations from which he suffered. 

Without such a personal history nothing in these cases could be 
understood, and the opportunities for treatment would resolve themselves 
into improved hygienic conditions and rest. 

Sir George Savage said the subject now under discussion had interested him 
for about half a century. He would have preferred to see the paper bearing the 
title he himself used many years ago, “ Morbid Mental Growths.” Taking it for 
granted that in nearly all these cases there was a starting-point—often of a physical 
or psychical nature—when one came to consider the growth of delusions it led one 
back, as an Irishman might say, to the present time, because psychic analysis and 
that kind of procedure led one back to the morbid mental growth. The develop¬ 
ment of former ideas from the subconscious was a very old subject of study. It 
had been generally recognised that nearly all delusions had a starting-point, and 
the influence the starting-point had upon any subconscious area was only that of 
moving it one step backwards. In treating of this subject he had said there were 
morbid mental growths which were simply inconvenient; probably most had 
similar morbid ideas—some obsession which did not really interfere—but all had 
seen individuals with one great dominant idea which influenced their whole life 
and yet destroyed nothing. These were innocent morbid mental growths. But 
there was another form of delusion—morbid growth it might also be called—which 
not only interfered with utility but probably with mental action, yet was not 
destructive. In the third group, however, there was destruction, so that the 
morbid mental growth seemed not only to invade but to destroy faculties. The 
manifestations varied according to whether there was hypochondriasis on the one 
hand or delusional insanity on the other. The hypochondriacal person, who was 
merely morbidly self-conscious, might yet not be mentally defective; but the 
person with delusions of persecution probably had a form of disorder which was 
very destructive. Most of the members knew, too, of the intermediate type, in 
which an individual had delusions growing out of his hallucinations, and yet such 
individual continued at his work. Thirty-five years ago, a gentleman who had 
occasionally attended the Association’s meetings was acting as dispenser to a 
doctor in the south of London. The doctor consulted me about him, and I 
said to the doctor, “ Good gracious, he ought to be locked up 1 ” He had what 
was called " clair audience,” “clairvoyance,” and occultism generally. That indi¬ 
vidual had not been in an asylum, but had been treating the poorer residents of a 
suburb of London all this time. Here was a morbid mental growth which did not 
interfere with the man's usefulness. Deafness had frequently been associated with 
forms of disorder. He believed that one lady novelist was so deaf that she never 


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heard anybody contradict her, and hence she had very exalted ideas of her own 
power. It was, however, much more common for those who were deaf to have the 
impression that other people were talking about them. 

Dr. Hl'bert Bond, in obeying the President’s invitation, said he did not feel he 
could add anything on the lines taken by the first speaker. During the reading of 
the paper, and while Dr. Stewart was speaking, he was thinking of how many of 
those present missed their revered confrere and former President, because of the 
magnificent opportunity afforded by such a paper as this for his criticisms and 
remarks on the relation between the branches of their work. As to the paper, he 
had a sense of very great encouragement as the result of the treatment detailed. 
There must be several men of standing in medicine present, and he assumed that 
they, like him, were taught the futility, if not the inadvisability, of attempting to 
reason with a delusional patient; that in a case of delusions and hallucinations 
the mind was not deluded because of hallucinations, but that both symptoms were 
the outcome of the morbid mental state. Was not that the case because the 
physician had no means of getting at the right topics of conversation when 
approaching the patient ? And was not the lesson which had been learned, not 
only from Dr. McDowall’s vivid description of the cases but also from other 
writings—some from war cases—that the profession now had before it the modern 
means ? He was aware that some were inclined to scoffingly assert that there was 
in this nothing new, and that it was what had been taught when they were younger, 
but he did not feel it was so. The results of the last few years’ experience had 
certainly taught him that they had now at hand modern means of attacking patients 
on the right lines and instilling reason into some of the most—apparently—hope¬ 
less cases, and in that way promoting their recovery. It was that feeling of 
encouragement which he wished to emphasise. 

Dr. R. H. Steen desired to thank Dr. McDowall for his paper. He, the 
speaker, wished to lay emphasis on the idea that delusions were often wish-fulfil¬ 
ments, and to ask if Dr. McDowall had noticed this fact in any of his cases. Of 
course, distortion of the wish existed in the case of delusions as in the case of 
dreams. A recent case which made a great impression on him he would relate, 
altering, of course, the names of the persons: A patient, Miss Smith, came into 
the institution, and he made a long and careful history of the case. It appeared 
that, years previously, she had known a Mr. Jones, a clergyman, and she considered 
that he was paying her special attention. But it could not be gleaned what form 
the advances had taken. She had once shaken hands with him, but had seldom 
conversed with him. She said that in his sermons he made remarks concerning 
her. A few months later he, the speaker, was surprised to learn that she had 
asked all to call her by the name “ Mrs. Smith Jones,” to emphasise what she 
stated as a fact—that she was now married to Mr. Jones. He related that as an 
instance of how the delusion came to be a definite fulfilment of a wish. 

Dr. Carswell said he regarded it as a matter for great satisfaction that the 
younger men were devoting themselves to fresh clinical studies. He was sure the 
outstanding need of the specialty at the present time was for the men who had an 
opportunity for seeing a large number of cases to make fresh clinical studies, 
with minds free from the preconceptions of the past. By habit he had always 
felt himself drawn intensely to the progressive side, yet he had a feeling that, after 
exploring along the lines stated in this paper, they would come back to most of 
the old views ; that they would not derive the satisfaction at present apparently 
promised by their theories, which were based on the conception of a conscious and 
subconscious mind. Nevertheless, good was bound to come of such studies as 
those set out in the paper. Of course, all the phenomena manifested in the cases 
related by Dr. McDowall could be explained without the nomenclature of the 
newer psychological point of view. They had all been familiar, because it was true 
to experience, with the fact that all delusional ideas had their origin in some 
experience. There was nothing which came to any man in the form of a fresh idea 
that had not had a basis in a previous experience of some sort; and the lunatic, or 
the person who became afflicted with a morbid idea, was simply basing his morbid 
idea on that past experience. To unearth that experience, to explain the road by 
which the patient had arrived at his false idea, was a very valuable thing to do, 
and he hoped it had been the usual practice, though he gleaned from the remarks 
of Dr. Bond that it had been avoided. No one could run a hospital for the 


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treatment of early mental conditions, before they arrived at the asylum stage, without 
feeling forced to adopt the method of quietly, calmly, and persistently seeking to 
explain to the patients the origin of their morbid ideas, and to surround them in the 
hospital arrangements with the pervading idea that they were suffering from an 
ailment, not a delusion in the sense of being a baseless alienation of the mind; 
that it was a disorder arising from some experience, taking on special colouring 
by some morbid emotional tone, and the whole associations connected with it 
being such as could be suitably handled by hospital methods, and by the educative 
methods so successfully adopted by the psycho-analysts. 

Dr. J. G. Soutar said he thought one of the most interesting features of Dr. 
McDowall’s paper was that he did not trouble his hearers very much with the sub¬ 
conscious, and he did not deal at all with what was termed “ psycho-analysis ” ; 
rather he found a common-sense explanation of the growth of delusions in the 
really conscious life of the patient; his analysis was the ordinary simple in¬ 
vestigation into the patient's life-history. In that way he had been able to 
bring out not really the genesis of delusion, but he had shown why it was that 
delusions took a particular direction and form. The author had not carried 
members back to what they really wanted to know—why a man who had hitherto 
been acting in what was termed the ordinary sound way, on the lines along 
which all their minds went, should, either suddenly or gradually, take on a 
morbid line of action, of which delusion was but one manifestation. The 
recognition of the pre-delusional stage—of that condition of mind in which delusions 
would be apt to flourish—was most important, for then it was that the patient was 
most amenable to to atment. He looked upon the delusions and the hallucinations 
as the later and obvious manifestations of an already unsound mind. The 
delusions did not arise only as wish-fulfilments. He thought many of them 
arose from the patient’s past experiences, failures which had not given any trouble 
through a long period of life, but for some reason, some departure from health, 
were keenly remembered, and there were crowded around them appropriate 
emotional states. Dr. McDowall said delusions preceded hallucinations, though 
he did not think it was laid down as a general statement. He (the speaker) 
thought hallucinations often preceded delusions, and the latter took their form 
from the hallucinations. A patient heard voices or had perception of unpleasant 
odours—in fact, there were general sensory hallucinations. Then there came a 
period of acute depression, followed by a period of questioning as to why he was 
singled out for persecution. Then the other emotional state, one of exaltation, 
followed, along with the definite delusion that the person was an individual of great 
importance, otherwise he would not be so persecuted. With regard to the method 
of dealing with delusions, the re-educating of a patient was, he considered, of 
the greatest possible value. Dr. Bond referred to the old teaching that it was 
not desirable to argue with a delusional case. That was true were arguing in 
question. But re-education was a different matter, as that enabled a patient to 
obtain an insight into his or her condition, and was of the greatest value. If one 
could succeed, even to some extent, in modifying the baneful influence of a 
delusion upon a patient, one thereby did a great deal towards getting that 
person into a sound state of health, because a delusion was irritating and 
worrying, and was consequently affecting the whole health of the patient. 
Even simple worry produced a deleterious effect upon an ordinary person, and 
if this worry could by some means be alleviated something was thereby being 
done to break the vicious circle which was keeping up the ill-health of the patient. 
Dr. McDowall had put his cases in the most vivid way, and he (the speaker) 
would like to add one to the list of the cases which had to-day been related. A 
lady, the only child of people who were in a very good position, but were in 
straightened circumstances, when 22 years of age married a very old man, a 
widower with no children, who, for his property's sake, was very anxious to have 
a child. She married in face of her parents’ strong opposition. In course of 
time both her father and mother died, as did also her husband, and there was no 
child. When between 50 and 60 years of age the lady herself broke down, and 
her delusion now was that she had got her father, her mother, and her husband in 
her womb. The association was easy to see, but the important question was, 
Why did that particular type of delusion arise? Indeed, why did she become 
deluded at all ? What was the state of mind into which she had got ? It was 


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true that the ordinary changes were taking place in her womb, but beyond that 
there was no reason for it. Here there was no question of wish-fulfilment, but a 
recognition of the painful episodes of her life. There had been no reconciliation 
between herself and her parents, there had been failure to produce a child, and she 
had crowded her failure into her womb. Past experience was not wish-fulfilment, 
and almost any experience of the human mind was capable of being perverted 
into a delusional condition. 

Capt. Prideaux suggested that probably the treatment in the sense Dr. Bond 
gave it was not really what was used by Dr. McDowall in the treatment of his 
cases; it was really more the use of emotional processes. Persuasion was based 
upon the use of these, and he thought that if one went back to the genesis of 
delusions it was found in the derangement of the patient’s emotional life. That 
emotion could produce dissociation in two ways—either suddenly, as in sudden 
fear, or gradually as a result of a prolonged mental conflict. To his mind the 
genesis of delusions seemed to be in the emotional sphere by subsequent dissocia¬ 
tion, and for that reason emotional processes may form part of the treatment 
adopted. For instance, a state of fear was instantly changed by a state of anger; 
as soon as the emotional state was changed there was set up a different arrangement 
of mental processes: the association of mental processes was governed by the 
emotional state of the person. Some of these delusions seemed to arise when 
a man was in a state of dissociation already. He had one case in which the 
patient, whilst undergoing treatment for shell-shock in a hospital in France, 
developed the hallucination that he saw his brother walking about with his head 
under his arm. This originated from a letter written to him by his mother describ¬ 
ing a similar hallucination she had had during a Zeppelin raid. After the origin 
of it had been cleared up he got perfectly well. 

Dr. McDowall, in reply, said he understood Dr. Steen to mean that many 
delusions were wish-fulfilments. (Dr. Steen: Yes.) In regard to the case related 
by Dr. Soutar, he (Dr. McDowall) thought that could be made out to be a wish- 
fulfilment. Dr. Soutar asked what was the soil which would best grow delusions. 
That was the great difficulty in the whole medical world. We did not yet know that. 
His only idea in the paper was to give some examples of delusions and to point 
out that they were quite capable of treatment along certain lines. Dr. Carswell 
had referred to nomenclature, but he (Dr. McDowall) thought he had been very 
discreet in avoiding many of the words in use at the present day. At the same 
time they were all very useful words. His own view was that delusions did come 
as a result of previous experience. With regard to the subconscious mind, it was 
not always necessary to suppose that in insanity the subconscious mind should of 
necessity contain the determining fact of the psychosis. In the first case he 
referred to he tried to point out that the real disturbing element was far from being 
subconscious; indeed, it was very much on the surface. But the subconscious 
mind was, undoubtedly, a very important factor, and his view was that it had more 
to do with functional cases than had the true psychosis. Dr. Soutar had asked 
about hallucinations. The sentence he (Dr. McDowall) read about that was: 
“ Hallucinations do not occur in states of depression at an early stage in the 
malady; in depressions delusions develop earlier.” He believed that to be true. 
In maniacal states hallucinations occurred before anything else. But in true depres¬ 
sion, simple depression came first, delusions followed and hallucinations came later. 
That was his feeling, though he might be wrong. With regard to the case referred to 
by Capt. Prideaux, the idea of the other boy who developed hallucinations regarding 
his brother came merely as a suggestion, and a man suffering from functional 
disorders such as he was was the very kind of case to be influenced by suggestion. 
No doubt he was already being treated by means of suggestion by someone else. 


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198 PROBLEMS OF ADMINISTRATION OF ASYLUMS, [July, 


Some Present-day Problems Connected with the Administration of 
Asylums. By Bedford Pierce, M.D., F.RC.P.Lond., Medical 
Superintendent, The Retreat, York. A contribution to a discussion 
on Administration of Asylums at the Spring Meeting of the 
Northern and Midland Division. 

In many respects the difficulties of administration are greater in 
hospitals and private institutions than in public asylums maintained out 
of the rates. The financial problems raised by the reduction of hours 
and the increase in salaries, as well as the greater cost of all commodities, 
are very serious when there is little prospect of increasing the income 
to meet the increasing expenditure. What will happen if the present 
tendency continues no one can foresee, but it seems quite clear that the 
middle classes will soon be unable to bear additional burdens. Already 
many patients with limited income cannot possibly pay increased 
charges, and it would be cruel to discharge, for financial reasons, aged 
patients who have been under care for years, and have no other home 
than the asylum in which they live. 

Serious as the financial problem is, there are other disturbing 
questions of even greater moment. There is, I fear, slowly developing 
a want of harmony with the staff and the management, and a deplorable 
tendency to ignore the welfare of the patients. In the recent demands 
of the Asylum Workers’ Union I could see no trace of any concern (or 
the patients. There was no sign of any proper nursing spirit; all the staff 
were counted equal in the Union, and demands were made for reduction 
of hours quite irrespective of the duties undertaken. I only judge from 
the printed circular, and I have not come into personal contact with 
any of the leaders of this movement, and possibly I may misjudge 
them to some extent. Still, there are many indications that the well¬ 
being of the patients is not the primary concern of members of the 
Union. 

But, as was remarked at one of the special meetings of the Medico- 
Psychological Association in London, we physicians have also been to 
blame to some extent, and we must not be surprised that the nursing 
staff do not readily accept our point of view. Long before the war the 
pay and the conditions of service of the mental nurse left much to be 
desired. I, have always felt that men or women who devote their lives 
to nursing the insane deserved much greater recognition than has been 
given. The work, as we know well, is often very arduous, and brings 
little reward beyond the satisfaction of doing difficult work well, the pay 
has been miserably poor, and there have been few signs of appreciation 
from patients, their friends or from managing committees. When we 
think of the daily routine in many wards, the discouraging nature of the 


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work, and the unpleasant duties that have to be performed day after 
day and week after week, we admit that the conditions of service ought 
to be good and the remuneration liberal. Yet we, who knew all this, 
did not, I fear, press upon our committees in season and out of season 
the urgent necessity for their giving attention to these aspects of the 
question. 

The situation seems to require some clear thinking, or I fear the 
work of the Association to raise the level of mental nursing will be 
undone. Hitherto the nurse who has obtained the certificate of the 
Association has only received a small increase of salary, with the 
result that in many asylums only a small proportion of the staff are 
trained nurses. The training itself has not always been thorough, 
so that the certificated nurse has frequently not been worth pro¬ 
motion to senior posts. The suggestion I would make is that the 
Association renews its efforts to train nurses well, and also that every 
effort be made to render the position of the certificated nurse much 
better than those not so trained. The man or woman who takes up 
this vocation should find that mental nursing is a career which brings 
not merely adequate remuneration, but also a social stains quite removed 
from that of the ward-maid or labourer. 

I have always tried to teach our nurses at the Retreat that they w r ere 
taking up a profession akin to that of the physician, and I have read to 
them extracts from the Hippocratic oath referring to the sacred nature 
of their responsibilities towards their patients. 

Thus, on the one hand, I would urge a far greater improvement 
in the conditions of service of the trained, experienced nurse than has 
already been obtained, and on the other I should demand much greater 
devotion to the work than seems to be compatible with the trade union 
spirit. 

I am quite certain that the more carefully we personally train our 
nurses, and the more we can infuse a proper professional spirit, the less 
we shall be troubled with disaffection and discontent. But at the same 
time, the more we bear in mind the conditions under which our nurses 
work and the more we understand and sympathise with them in the 
discharge of their truly arduous duties, the less we shall be satisfied 
with things as they have been in respect to hours, pay, and conditions 
of service generally. 

The practical difficulty is what to do with the many excellent persons 
in our employ whose education and general qualities do not permit 
them to reach a sufficiently high standard. I presume, for some years 
at least, we shall have two classes—the partially trained and the trained 
certificated nurse. At the Retreat we have begun to pay certificated 
male nurses jQ 20 per annum more than attendants, and it is intended 
this amount shall be increased. I look upon this only as a start, but 


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it is a step in the right direction. On the other hand, it will be desirable 
to arrange that special qualifications in the senior attendants should 
receive recognition. 

These proposals are only of value if the training the nurses receive is 
adequate. 

There seems to t>e room for considerable improvement in the present 
system of training, and the regulations of the Association require 
amendment. 

Some years ago, when I was examiner for the Certificate, it was 
clearly evident that many nurses who presented themselves for examina¬ 
tion were practically illiterate, whilst there was reason for concluding the 
training they received was poor. The number of lectures allowed by 
the regulations is far too few. There is no proper provision for 
demonstrations and instruction in practical nursing. Invalid cooking 
should be taught to all women nurses, and opportunities given for 
instruction in massage. The class examinations should be compulsory, 
and only those who succeed reasonably well should receive advances in 
salary. In this way the illiterate who fail to educate themselves would 
gradually be eliminated. 

Lastly, it has been the practice at the Retreat for many years only to 
take nurses who sign an agreement to go through a course of training 
for four years. I consider this period for training necessary, and it 
corresponds with the years of apprenticeship required in many trades. 
Nurses learning their profession should receive only a comparatively 
small initial salary, which should rise steeply as they progress, and when 
qualified they should command, as I have already said, a salary 
proportionate to the responsibility of their calling. 

If it be found impossible to secure men and women to train on lines 
such as these, then I suppose others must be engaged, but these would 
not be trained, would not attend classes, and should never reach 
responsible posts. They would be attendants and not nurses. Their 
initial salary might be higher, but the advances would be more gradual, 
and the final pay much less. This view of the matter is similar to that 
in many trades : the man who begins as a labourer gets more pay than 
an apprentice, but remains all his life in an inferior position. 

It seems to me that the Medico-Psychological Association can do 
much to help the nursing profession, and greatly benefit patients if 
it steadily perseveres in its policy of training mental nurses, and sees 
that the training given is really effective. This will inevitably result in 
improved status and better remuneration for the nursing staff. 

It may be interesting to give particulars of the introduction at the 
Retreat of Departmental Councils, on the lines of Whitley Councils now 
so general in industrial concerns. 

Three departmental councils have already been started—(i) For male 


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nurses; (2) for female nurses; (3) for the outside staff, including 
artisans and engineers. 

In each of these the staff concerned elect five or six representatives, 
care being taken that all classes in the department are represented. 
The management is represented by one or two members of the 
Committee, the responsible officers of the department affected and 
myself. 

Each Council appoints a clerk, who keeps the minutes, and the 
minutes are submitted each month to the Committee of Management. 
The Councils meet monthly. 

So far the meetings have been useful, the discussions have been 
frank, and the impression on my mind is that they will promote a better 
understanding. The attitude of all the Councils is thoroughly loyal to 
the institution. No doubt in time questions will be raised which the 
Committee may decline to take up, but there is a reasonable hope that 
the interchange of opinion will lessen the risk of dissatisfaction and 
discontent. 

The relations between the management and the staff at the Retreat 
have always been harmonious—indeed, it has been a sort of family 
party ; but I encouraged the establishment of these Councils in view of 
the tendency of the times, and if possible to anticipate the difficulties 
which I knew existed elsewhere. 

One question raised may be alluded to. It was asked whether the 
Committee would object to members of the staff joining a trades union. 
They received the formal reply that the Committee raised no objection 
whatever, but they wished it to be understood that they would not 
willingly retain on the staff any persons capable of leaving, and so 
neglecting their patients, without giving adequate notice. Other 
subjects referred to at these Councils have been the difficulty of 
reducing hours when short-handed ; the proposed new time-table giving 
fifty-three hours a week and a varying period of about three hours 
weekly to games and entertainment of patients; the stokers’ hours of 
fifty-six per week—three shifts of eight hours each ; the cultivation of 
games amongst the nurses ; holidays for gardeners, etc. All these 
subjects are discussed, but the final decision rests, as heretofore, with 
the Committee of Management. 

I cannot but think the old days of autocratic management are over, 
and though some who think a beneficent autocracy is the best form 
of government may lament the change, we can nevertheless look forward 
without dismay to the new era of democratic control if the proletariat 
recognises its responsibilities. The Works Councils are, I consider, 
useful as a means of introducing the spirit of mutual understanding 
and co-operation without which no institution can be successfully 
managed. 


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202 CLINICAL NOTES AND CASES. [July, 

Clinical Notes and Cases. 


A Group of Fits. By Alan McDougall, M.D., Director of the 
David Lewis Epileptic Colony. 

The patient was a girl, set. 13, who is stated to have been epileptic 
from the age of five. The group comprised 3,231 discrete fits, and 
occupied 17 days: 2,258 of these fits occurred in the course of 6 
consecutive days (averaging 1 every 3 8 minutes), and of these 1,694 
occurred in the course of 4 consecutive days (averaging 1 every 3-4 
minutes). On February 21st there were 443 fits; on February 22nd 
there were 437 ; on February 23rd there were 41 ; on February 24th 
there were 3; on February 25th the girl was up, dressed and going 
about. 

Here is her daily record of fits for the month of February : 


Fits during February , 1919. 


Day of 

Number 

Day of 

Number 

the month. 

of fits. 

the month. 

of fits. 

I 

• 17 

15 . 

• 195 

2 

11 

16 . 

. 160 

3 • 

. 6 

17 • 

• 236 

4 • 

. 8 

18 . 

• 323 

5 • 

• i 3 

19 . 

. 442 

6 . 

• i 3 

. 20 . 

• 372 

7 • 

• 50 

. 21 . 

• 443 

8 . 

. 187 

. 22 . 

■ 437 

9 • 

. 121 

23 . 

41 

10 

• 33 

24 . 

3 

11 

• i 7 

25 . 

4 

12 

• 14 

26 . 

6 

13 • 

. 68 

27 . 

. None 

14 • 

. 87 

28 . 

. 2 


Born on August 20th, 1905, the patient was admitted to the Colony 
in January, 1914. To the end of February, 1919, our record of her fits 
is 12,363 (practically 200 a month). This does not include fits that 
she may have had during visits to her home. She is lively, active, 
pretty, a little coquettish, and, though a poor learner in school, fully 
interested in her neighbours, her hair ribbons, and her pursuits. In 
physical appearance, development, and manner she might pass for a 
child of ten. 

Clinically, the fits in this February series were mild major epileptic 
attacks. The eyes and the head were twisted to the left; there was a 


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IQip.] 

tonic stage followed by a clonic. There was little cyanosis. There 
was no tendency to bedsores. There is no record of the temperature 
at any time reaching ioo° F. There was incontinence of urine. 

On February 7th, the first day of the group, a 15-gr. dose of chloral 
was given. No noticed benefit resulting, the dose was not repeated. 
Except for that one dose no drug was given while the group lasted. 
Till the fourteenth day of the group Benger’s food was given by the 
mouth ; on the three following days feeding was rectal, as the patient 
opposed feeding by the mouth. Judging by the eye, she did not lose 
weight during the illness. 

To those who were having the trouble of the case and writing down 
the time of onset of each fit to the nearest minute, it sometimes seemed 
that fits were suspended while the patient was being examined and 
began again as soon as the examination was over; at other times it 
seemed that the attacks ceased if the patient were left alone in the 
room, the observer being out of sight but within hearing. In the first 
days of convalescence the child, though as lively as ever, would not 
talk, but made somewhat ostentatiously the sounds of a baby that has 
still no vocabulary. Wherefore the fiat went forth on the Thursday 
morning that unless meanwhile she took to talking properly there would 
be no penny for her on the Saturday. That may or may not be the 
icason why she recovered normal speech on the Friday. 

What is the diagnosis ? 

The answer seems to be : The fits were epileptic, the condition was 
hysteria. 

For I take it that when the subconscious mind has ousted the 
conscious mind and has usurped sole command, the-condition is 
hysteria. Let the fits clinically be what they will, if they are of 
conscious origin the condition is malingering; if they are of sub¬ 
conscious origin the condition is hysteria; and if of unconscious origin 
the condition is epilepsy. 

For the most important of all purposes, that of treatment, the view 
that the physician takes of the origin of a group of fits is of more than 
philosophical interest. For it influences the treatment and consequently 
the result. Among those who had charge of the case now under 
consideration the opinion was general that a stimulating slap in the 
interval between two fits (by startling the conscious mind back to duty) 
would have cut short the series. The experiment was not made, 
because in the presence of good nursing and the absence of drugs the 
prognosis seemed to be quite good, and the introducing of a risk seemed 
only doubtfully justifiable. 

In certain patients at the Colony we have seemingly been able to 
prevent the recurrence of serial trouble by giving the patient good cause 
to wish series not to recur. For instance, one young woman who for 


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[July, 

years had been having several isolated fits a month began to have groups 
of four or five hundred. Clinically each fit in a series seemed similar 
to the fairly severe isolated major fits that were usual in her at other 
times. There was incontinence of urine and of faeces. Accumulation 
of mucus in the air-passages with cyanosis and difficult breathing gave 
the series a grave aspect. But on the patient being told that because 
of these series it would be necessary to discharge her from the Colony, 
she replied that she would have no more of them. She kept her 
promise. Isolated epileptic attacks continued to occur, but there were 
no more series. 

Markedly in epilepsy post hoc is not always propter hoc\ we see 
sudden improvement that we are unable to ascribe to changed treat¬ 
ment. But year by year the feeling grows stronger in me that the 
frequency of fits that are called epileptic may sometimes be diminished 
by treatment that is generally called anti-hysterical, and that it is not 
necessary in every case of serial epilepsy to give dangerous drugs. In 
other cases such drugs may give the patient his best chance of not 
dying. What we for practical purposes want to know is, which series 
are in themselves dangerous to life, and which are not. Is there any 
sign that will enable us to arrive at a decision? 


Part II.—Reviews. 


Papers on Psycho analysis. By Ernest Jones, M.D., M.R.C.P.Lond. 
Second edition, revised and enlarged. Pp. 715. London : Bailli&re, 
Tindall & Cox. 

Not so long ago, when the Darwinian theory was mentioned to many 
a man of superficial learning he would dismiss it with a contemptuous 
look and the statement “ Oh, that means that man is descended from 
monkeys,” and so far as he was concerned that ended the matter. At 
the present time when psycho-analysis is spoken of even in scientific 
circles a similar scorn may be shown, ending in the phrase that psycho¬ 
analysis puts everything down to sex. For such people Freud's 
psychology means the psychology of sex alone, and they are too high- 
minded to have anything to do with it. They know nothing of Freud’s 
views regarding determinism, the affective processes, the 'displacement 
of affect, and the dynamic nature of mental processes in general. 

The subject of conflict with its frequent termination in repression, 
the nature of unconscious processes and their manifestation in disguised 
forms are unknown territories to these people. Then there are dreams, 
the psychology of wit, the psychology of every-day life, etc. This list 
to be complete would need considerable extension, but enough has 
perhaps been said to indicate that Freud’s psychology cannot be 
limited to the catchword “ sex.” 

It is not the purpose of this review, however, to hold a brief for 


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psycho-analysis; it is rather the intention to indicate that it is unfair 
to judge of anything without studying it, and secondly, to suggest that 
ignorance is unseemly in anyone professing to be a specialist in diseases 
of the mind. It is not so surprising after all to find that numbers of 
the laity have more than a smattering of knowledge on these matters 
considering the numerous publications for general readers, and these 
same folk may ask for an opinion which cannot be given without 
some knowledge of the subject under discussion. 

Most of Freud’s writings are in German, and to the man unacquainted 
with this tongue such literature is a closed book. Moreover, Freud to 
the expert in German is, I am told, not easy to follow. It is therefore 
fortunate that we have in Dr. Ernest Jones one who is able to write clear 
and precise English. He is not merely a translator of the words, but an 
expositorof the ideas of Freud. In addition there is the satisfactory feeling 
that it is the orthodox Freud one is reading. In these days, when many 
of the original band are leaving their master to set up conventicles of 
their own, it is refreshing to find one who still holds the old faith. Dr. 
Jones will have nothing to do with the schools of Jung, Adler, and the 
other seceders. Dr. Jones also has contributed some original work on 
Freudian lines, and papers embodying this are included in the present 
volume. 

It is impossible to review in detail a book of this kind. It is much 
larger than the first edition, which was published in 1912. One chapter 
of the original twenty has been omitted, and twenty-one new ones 
have been added. It consists of a series of papers and lectures given 
at different times. Naturally there is some repetition, but it is 
surprising how small this is in amount, and even then it assists in 
understanding the subject and never becomes tiresome. When another 
edition is called for it is hoped that Dr. Jones will elaborate Freud’s 
views on wit and its relation to the unconscious. This matter is dealt 
with very briefly in the present volume. It is realised, however, that 
it is impossible for the author to deal with everything and keep the 
book down to a moderate size. Among many excellent papers it is not 
easy to pick out one for special praise, but Chapter VII, dealing with 
the theory of symbolism, is certainly a most interesting and valuable one. 
Taking, then, the book as a whole, it can be heartily commended to the 
readers of this Journal. Everyone interested in the psychology of 
Freud must possess a copy. The value of the book is enhanced by the 
glossary which is appended. R. H. Steen. 


Criminology. By Maurice Parmelee, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology 
in the University of Missouri. New York: Macmillan, 1918. 
Pp. 522. Price 82. 

Prof. Parmelee is known as the author of an esteemed work on The 
Principles of Anthropology and Sociology in their Relations to Criminal 
Procedure. It was published ten years ago, and since then, as the 
author tells us, the subject has been transformed. He here presents 
an entirely new work, a comprehensive but compact text-book of the 
whole subject of criminology. There are some among us who deny 

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that criminology has any right to exist. Everything brought forward 
under that head, they explain, could be included under some other 
head. It is quite true. At least a dozen different sciences contribute 
to make up what is called “ criminology.” That is precisely the justifica¬ 
tion of criminology in bringing together all that bears on the nature of 
crime and the treatment of the criminal. Certainly this has been a 
favourite field for doctrinaires and dogmatists, each worshipping his 
own particular fetich. Dr. Parmelee gives them but short shrift; for the 
most part he ignores them. We are conscious throughout of a calm 
and judicial mind, always able to see the various sides of a question, 
always carefully weighing and balancing before reaching the finally 
measured result. 

What is crime ? Primitively, crime is a violation of custom, magic 
and religion, as well as moral ideas, later coming in to reinforce custom. 
At the present time a crime is, in Dr. Parmelee’s view, best defined as 
“ an act forbidden and punished by the law, which is almost always 
immoral according to the prevailing ethical standard, which is usually 
harmful to society, which it is ordinarily feasible to repress by penal 
measures, and whose repression is necessary or is supposed to be 
necessary to the preservation of the existing social order.” There is 
consequently, as is indeed generally recognised, no hard and fast line 
between criminals and non-criminals. Legal and moral conventions, 
which are always changing, determine what acts are criminal, though— 
and this is sometimes overlooked—there are several types of persons 
who are always peculiarly prone to violate these conventions, whatever 
they may be. So that the criminal class at any time is determined in 
part by what acts are criminal, and in probably larger part by traits more 
or less universally characteristic of this class. But the fundamental 
factors in the determination of criminal conduct, as of every other kind 
of conduct, are the elementary traits of human nature. No one of 
these traits alone causes such conduct, so that it is inaccurate to speak 
of an instinctive criminal, but any instinct may under certain conditions 
lead to crime. There are, therefore, no peculiar crime factors in 
human nature. Every human being has in him the making of a 
criminal. No person is born criminal in the sense that he is predes¬ 
tined to crime at birth, though it is convenient to speak of several types 
of persons born with abnormal traits as congenitally criminal. Like 
every other kind of conduct, criminal conduct is the outcome of these 
internal factors of behaviour with the external factors of environment. 
These principles thus laid down by Dr. Parmelee at the outset are 
elementary and simple, but the failure to understand them has led to 
many unnecessary disputes. 

After the preliminary discussion of the nature and evolution of crime, 
the main part of the book falls into four parts : First, the discussion of 
the criminogenic factors in the environment—climatic, seasonal, demo¬ 
graphic, economic, and civilisational; then the organic basis in traits 
and types, with criminal aments and psychopathic criminals, as well as 
chapters on juvenile and feminine criminality; then criminal jurisprudence 
with the judicial and police functions ; and a final part discussing in a 
large and liberal spirit social readjustment and the prevention of crime. 
A selected bibliography of ten pages brings to an end a work which for 


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its purpose, as a text-book of criminology, probably deserves to super¬ 
sede the existing books, although on the narrower ground of the nature 
and treatment of the criminal it cannot of course compete with the 
masterly work on The Individual Delinquent by Healy, whose ex¬ 
perience and success in this field can at the present time scarcely be 
equalled. 

In his classification of criminals, Dr. Parmelee characteristically 
avoids the excesses alike of those who carry simplicity to an impossible 
extreme in the ordinary two fold grouping and those who indulge in 
fine-spun elaborations which cannot be applied in practice. He 
recognises five groups: (1) The criminal ament or feeble-minded 
criminal; (2) the psychopathic criminal; (3) the professional criminal; 
(4) the occasional criminal— (a) accidental, ( l>) by passion ; (5) the 
evolutive criminal (political). He reaches this statement after a 
detailed criticism of the earlier classifications. Lombroso’s classifica¬ 
tion, as we should expect, he discards, and points out that the “ born 
criminal” is not a simple group but really appears under several head¬ 
ings, chiefly in his own first and second groups. While, however, Dr. 
Parmelee sets forth in order Lombroso’s “egregious errors” with his 
usual fair-mindedness, he has no mercy for those guilty of the ignorant 
and prejudiced abuse of Lombroso which was at one time prevalent. 
Thus he shows an unwonted vivacity in dealing in a special appendix 
with the “ gross,” “inexcusable” and “ grotesque ” misrepresentations 
of Dr. Goring, though, he points out, that self-contradictory writer in 
his extreme emphasis on “criminal diathesis” was himself “more 
Lombrosian than Lombroso.” 

It is impossible to mention all the points of interest in Dr. Parmelee’s 
work. We do not expect new facts in a text-book, and we do not here 
find them. But every one of the thirty chapters is rich with thought 
and suggestion, not the less so because some of them may seem to the 
conservative English mind a little far ahead. In criminal procedure the 
author proposes a number of simplifications : he approves the modern 
approximation of the English procedure of accusation and the French 
procedure of investigation, for while the latter, based on the protection 
of society, is a higher and more advanced conception, in practice it 
tends to violate individual rights, and needs to be corrected by features 
belonging to the English procedure. With regard to medical jurispru¬ 
dence the author is averse to leaving any decision to lawyers and jurors 
who know nothing of the questions involved. The decision of medical 
questions must be left entirely to the medico-legal expert, whose posi¬ 
tion must be impartial like that of a judge. The foundation should be 
an organised system of medical jurisprudence which could supply a 
medico-legal court of appeal, since the system which permits ordinary 
physicians with no special training to act as medico-legal experts has 
been proved a failure. One result of this reform would be the abolition 
of the coroner’s office and the gradual elimination of the jury from law- 
courts. Dr. Parmelee also advocates a Public Defender to supplement 
the Public Prosecutor, and free civil justice. He thinks the idea of 
punishment can scarcely be altogether eliminated, but fully accepts the 
modern principle of individualisation in dealing with criminals. 

Havelock. Ellis. 

M§ 


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[July, 


A Plea for the Insane. By L. A. Weatherly, M.D. Pp. 238. 

London: Grant Richards, Ltd., 1918. 

This volume consists of a vigorous plea for the reform of the existing 
conditions in respect to the care and treatment of the insane. The 
wide experience which Dr. Weatherly has had of the practical applica¬ 
tions of the Lunacy Law, which is now generally recognised as quite 
inadequate to meet the needs of the subjects of mental disorder, has 
thoroughly fitted him for the task which he has undertaken. The book 
is designed in the main for the enlightenment of the general public and 
the general practitioner, as the writer feels that the demand for drastic 
reform by the public themselves will do much to accelerate the much- 
needed changes. The first ten chapters are mainly devoted to criticism 
of the Lunacy Act and those who are responsible for its administration, 
and incidentally this section furnishes facts of considerable service to the 
general practitioner, who is often at a loss to obtain information as to 
the legal complexities associated with lunacy administration. Many 
points are raised. Legislation, public officials, the various kinds of 
institutions for the insane, testamentary capacity, criminal responsibility, 
and the medical staff of public asylums are amongst the questions dis¬ 
cussed and subjected to considerable criticism. 

The last chapters are constructive, and they contain the writer’s views 
as to the directions in which reform should be carried out and the 
methods of doing so. Many of his suggestions coincide closely with 
those which are being advocated by various organisations interested in 
the problem of mental disorder. He feels strongly as to the necessity 
of adequate provision for the treatment of early mental cases, and he 
advocates legislation which will permit of simple notification to the 
Board of Control in incipient cases instead of certification. Such cases, 
he urges, must be treated quite apart from the chronic insane either “ in 
special wards of a general hospital, approved homes, private care, or 
separate cottage-like buildings in the grounds of a public asylum, or 
private villas in registered hospitals or licensed houses,” but he does 
not refer to separate clinics, which, perhaps, furnish the most suitable 
means for the treatment of early cases. The suggestion that no medical 
man be appointed to any post in such institutions who has not had at 
least two years’ experience in general practice is perhaps in need of 
qualification, and “ or post-graduate hospital appointments ” might be 
suitably added to the suggestion. Certainly some general experience 
should precede entrance to the speciality. Dr. Weatherby has a good 
deal to say in regard to criminal responsibility, and he urges very rightly 
the obliteration of the MacNaghten dictum from the Criminal Law as 
“ unscientific, untrue, and unjust.” 

The style of the author is extremely vigorous, the phraseology 
vehement, and his points are emphasised by reference to concrete 
cases which serve to illustrate the anomalies and injustices which are 
created by existing conditions. It is obvious that he feels very strongly 
in regard to his subject, and it is perhaps the strength of his feelings 
which produces in places a certain want of that scientific poise which 
would be expected from the writer. Thus he refers somewhat scathingly 
(page 62) to the pathological researches in asylums on the ground that 
they have not resulted in an increase of the recovery-rate. Surely the 


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EPITOME OF CURRENT LITERATURE. 


209 


scientific value of the pathological work which has been produced 
cannot be estimated merely by the recovery-rate, which obviously 
depends on a number of factors. It is certainly the case, as Dr. 
Weatherly states, that there has been a striking neglect of “ individual 
study of the living patient,” and it is a good thing to see this point 
emphasised; it is to be hoped, furthermore, that in the future a much 
more intensive study of patients and a search for the psychogenetic 
factors of the psychoses will be possible, but the fact that one aspect of 
insanity has been neglected does not diminish the value of work in 
other directions which has received more adequate attention. 

With the central purpose of this volume all psychiatrists will be in 
sympathy, and it is hoped that it will have a wide circulation amongst 
those for whom it is intended, since it cannot fail to exert an influence 
upon those who read it, and it will thus help to bring about those 
reforms which all who are interested in the treatment of mental disorder 
so earnestly desire. 

A sympathetic foreword to the book is provided by Dr. Theo. B. 
Hyslop. H. Devine. 


Part III—Epitome of Current Literature. 


A Form of Pseudo-hermaphroditism iti the Insane [ Certain Pluriglandular 
Anomalous Functions Associated with Psychopathic Sexual Interests\ 
iff our n. Nerv. and Ment. Pis., fuly , 1918.) O'Malley , Alary. 

The exact nature of the disturbance of endocrine function behind 
pseudo hermaphroditism—whether somatic, psychic, or mixed—has not 
yet been ascertained. The evidence tends to show an inter-relation of 
functioning in the pluriglandular system, the hormone of one gland 
being related to those of all the others, with definite syndromes due to 
physiological or pathological changes producing hyperfunction, hypo- 
function, or dysfunction of these glands. The secondary sex characters 
are known to depend upon the gonads, and abnormalities of the sex 
attributes, whether in the generative or secondary sex domain, are 
evidence of disturbance of these glands, and hence of the endocrine 
system. In a broad sense the term “ pseudo hermaphroditism ” may be 
applied to cases in which there are no evident somatic deviations in 
the essential sex apparatus, but the abnormalities are limited to the 
secondary sexual characters or to the individual’s psychic character, 
such psychic deviations sometimes being evident only when by the 
development of a psychosis “ the unconscious is given free expression 
in the dissociation of the personality,” and the sexual demands, whether 
heterosexual or homosexual, dominate conduct. It is as understood 
in this wider sense that the author—who is Clinical Director of the 
Washington Government Hospital of St. Elizabeth—seeks to study this 
syndrome by the examination of eleven insajie women. This series of 


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2 10 EPITOME OF CURRENT LITERATURE. [July, 

cases is selected from a large group of women showing decided variations 
in anatomical growth and development, as well as in mental develop¬ 
ment, in the direction of external hermaphroditism and hermaphroditic 
behaviour. There are extremely few anomalous conditions of the 
primary generative organs. Usually the bodily development seems to 
have been normal up to puberty, when male secondary sexual charac¬ 
teristics increased at the expense of female. Cases in which this 
syndrome only appeared after the menopause are excluded. 

The eleven cases are separately described in detail, the chief 
symtomatology being alteration of the secondary sex-characters during 
the developmental period in the hermaphroditic direction. It is 
remarked that the patients conform to the classic type called Leonard- 
esque, and especially illustrated by Vinci’s “ Monna Lisa,” with the same 
facies and the same gracile hands. It can, however, by no means be 
said that the photographs of cases, whether nude or clothed, here 
reproduced, bear out this contention. 

The most important symptoms in this syndrome are summed up 
under five heads : (i) Faulty skeletal development, male habitus, narrow 
pelvis, angularity, symmetrical but atypical features, the most striking 
deviation being, however, in the shape of the hands and feet, which are 
usually small, delicate, and well-formed, with tapering fingers—a type 
associated with pituitary disease. (2) Other abnormalities in general 
body contour, due to coarse skin, often vigorous musculature, and 
especially to obesity—one of the most prominent and frequent symptoms, 
sometimes beginning to appear even in infancy, and ascribed to under¬ 
functioning of the hypophysis, thyroid, and genital glands. (3) 
Disturbance of the pilous system, with excessive development of strong, 
coarse hair, where ordinarily there is only a light down, imitating in 
distribution that on the male face and body, a similar hereditary 
disposition being sometimes traceable, and several of the endocrinial 
glands probably involved. (4) Genital disturbance, with widely 
varying irregularities of menstruation, sometimes arrest, but few somatic 
anomalies of primary sex-organs beyond an infantile uterus and a 
few trifling external anomalies. (5) Disturbances of psycho-sexual 
development, with periodic reversals to a predominating homosexuality, 
sometimes, apparently, especially where there are manic-depressive 
reactions, on a bisexual foundation, the sexual inclination changing with 
change in the mood of the psychosis, but there is no definite mental 
reaction type associated with the endocrinopathies. 

While regarding the traits of this pseudo-hermaphroditic group as 
constituting a polyglandular syndrome, the author makes no attempt to 
interpret it, considering as still a subject for discussion whether it is 
due to glandular insufficiencies or over-activities. There is here, she 
concludes, a great unexplored field for further research. 

Havelock Eli.is. 


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NOTES AND NEWS. 


2 I I 


Part IV.—Notes and News. 


MEDICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF GREAT BRITAIN 

AND IRELAND. 

The Quarterly Meeting of the Association was held in the rooms of the 
Medical Society on Tuesday, May 20th, 1919, the chair being occupied by Lieut.- 
Col. Keay, President. 

The minutes of the previous meeting, having been printed in the Journal, were 
taken as read and approved. 

The General Secretary (Major R. Worth) read the minutes of a special 
meeting of medical superintendents, which was held in the same building on 
March 24th. These also were agreed to. 

Proposed New Bye-laws. 

The following new bye-laws were unanimously approved: 

(1) The seal of the Association to be affixed only after a resolution by the 
Council, and that it be affixed in the presence of two members of the Council 
and the Honorary Secretary or the Honorary Treasurer. 

(2) That a double lock be affixed to the Seal, and that the Honorary 
Secretary should hold the key of one lock, and the Honorary Treasurer the 
key of the second lock. 

Report on Maudsley Lectureship. 

The Secretary read the following report: 

We, your Committee, have the honour to report to the Council as requested. 

We would remind the Council of its decision “ That a lectureship should be 
founded, the lecturer to receive a medal," and that our duty is merely to formulate 
a detailed scheme on these lines. 

We accordingly suggest as follows : 

(1) The title to be “ The Maudsley Lectureship.” 

(2) The lecturer to be termed the “ Maudsley Lecturer.” 

(3) The " Maudsley Lecturer” to receive a suitable honorarium (the amount 
of this will depend on whether the lectures are annual or biennial) and a gold 
medal and ribbon of the value to be decided on later, to be presented to the 
lecturer on the occasion of his giving his scientific lecture. 

(4) The lecturer to be elected by the Council on the nomination of the 
Nominations Committee at the meeting in May of the year preceding that of 
the lecture. 

In the event of refusal or death of proposed lecturer a committee composed 
of the President, Ex-President and General Secretary shall have power to 
appoint. 

(5) The name of the Maudsley Lecturer to be announced at the Annual 
Meeting at the same time as the President announces winners of prizes. 

(6) The name of the Maudsley Lecturer to be printed in the first page 
of the Journal of Mental Science of January of the year of the lecture 
immediately after the list of the Council. 

(7) The lecturer shall be a person who has made contributions of well- 
recognised importance and value, bearing on the knowledge of mind and its 
disorders, and their prevention and treatment, be he anatomist, physiologist, 
psychologist, pathologist, neurologist or psychiatrist, of any nationality and 
of either sex. 

(8) The Lectures. —The lecturer shall be required to deliver two lectures. 

(9) The first a scientific, and the second a popular one. 

(10) The lectures must be delivered in English. 

(11) The subject of the scientific lecture to be an original contribution with 
regard to mental disease or any of the ancillary sciences. The widest 
possible choice of subject to be permitted to the lecturer so long as the lecture 
has some bearing on mind, normal or abnormal. 


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2 12 NOTES AND NEWS. [July, 

(12) The subject of the “ popular ” lecture to be on any subject connected 
with the hygiene of mind. 

(13) As regards the question as to whether the lectures should be biennial, 
the members who voted for the annual lecture made the valuable suggestion 
that a “ scientific ” lecture should be given one year and the " popular ” 
lecture the following year, and so on. 

(14) As regards the time and place of the lectures it was decided that the 
" popular ” lecture should be held at the Annual Meeting, followed the next 
May by a “ scientific ” lecture. 

(15) The President shall preside at the Lecture, with the General Secretary 
on his right and the Treasurer on his left, as at the Quarterly Meetings. 

(16) Your Committee anticipate that after all expenses are paid there will 
remain a sum which will accumulate from year to year, and they suggest this 
might be expended in two ways: (a) Assistance to assistant medical officers 
for original research; ( 6 ) propaganda work. Your Committee attach great 
importance to the latter, and suggest the printing and circulation of the 
“ popular ” lecture if deemed expedient. They would also recommend that 
other lectures might be given and suitable literature printed and circulated. 
The expenses of this could be provided out of the accumulated balance. 

(17) Your Committee feel that later experience might suggest some 
alteration of the above regulations, and suggest that the matter should be again 
considered by the Council. They would remind the Council that the will 
of the benefactor contains no restrictions as to how the bequest should be 
expended. 

(Signed) Robert B. Campbell, M.A., F.R.C.P.E., 

L. R. Oswald, M.B., etc., 

C. C. Easterbrook, M.D., F.R.C.P.E 
Richard R. Leeper, F.R.C.S.I., 

Jas. Greig Soutar, M B., 

R. H. Steen. 

The Report was unanimously approved. 


Election of New Members. 

The following were proposed and unanimously elected members of the 
Association: 

Fraser, Kate, B.Sc., M.D., D.P.H., Deputy Commissioner, General Board of 
Control, Scotland. 

Knight, Mary Reid, M.A., M.B., Ch.B., Assistant Medical Officer, Paisley 
District Asylum, Riccartsbar Asylum, Paisley. 

Latham, Capt. Oliver, Aust.A.M.C., M.B., C.M., Syd. Univ., Pathologist, 
Lunacy Department, Sydney, N.S.W. 

Adey, Lieut.-Col. J. K., Aust. A.M.C., M.B., C.M.Melb., Medical Officer, Lunacy 
Department, Melbourne, Victoria. 

Waddell, Arthur Robert, M.D., M.B., C.M.Glas. Univ., Deputy Commissioner, 
Medical Services, Exeter Area. 

Cuthbert, James Harvey, M.B., Ch.B.Edin., Senior Assistant Medical Officer, 
West Ham Mental Hospital, Goodmayes, Essex. 

Anthony, Mark, L.R.C.P.I., L.R.C.S.L, Assistant Medical Officer, Bucks County 
Asylum, Stone, Aylesbury. 

The President called upon Dr. McDowall to read his paper : “ The Genesis of 
Delusions: Clinical Notes.” 


NORTHERN AND MIDLAND DIVISION. 

The Spring Meeting of the Northern and Midland Division was held by the 
kind invitation of Dr. Alan McDougall at the David Lewis Colony, near Alderley 
Edge, Cheshire, on Thursday, April 24th, 1919. 

Dr. McDougall presided. 


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1919. ] 

The following eight members were present: Drs. A. J. Eades, R. W. Dale 
Hewson, C. L. Hopkins, A. McDougall, J. Moir Mathieson, Major R.A.M.C., 
G. E. Mould, W. Vincent, Lieut.-Col. R.A.M.C.,and T. S. Adair, and two visitors, 
Drs. E. Falkner Hill and A. Ramsbottom. 

Apologies for inability to attend were received from the President, Lt.-Col. 
Keay, the President-elect, Dr. Bedford Pierce, and a number of others. 

The minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed. 

Dr. T. Stewart Adair was re-elected Secretary to the Division. 

Dr. J. Geddes and Dr. R. Kirwan were elected Representative Members of 
Council for 1919-1920. 

The kind invitation of Dr. Eades to hold the Autumn Meeting, 1919, at the 
North Riding Asylum, York, and of Dr. Geddes to hold the Spring Meeting, 

1920, at the Mental Hospital, Middlesborough, were cordially accepted. 

Dr. McDougall then read a paper entitled “ A Group of Fits.” (See p. 202.) 
Col. Vincent, Major Mathieson and others gave their experiences, especially 
with regard to epilepsy caused by the war. 

A paper, by Dr. Pierce, on some present-day problems connected with the 
administration of asylums, was read by the Secretary. (See p. 198.) 

A hearty vote of thanks was accorded to Dr. McDougall for his kind hospitality 
and for so pleasant a meeting. 


SOUTH-WESTERN DIVISION. 

The Spring Meeting of the South-Western Division was held by the kind 
permission of Lieut.-Col. A. F. Hurst at Seale Hayne Military Hospital, Newton 
Abbot, on Friday, April 25th, 1919. 

The following members were present : Drs. Bainbridge, Davis, Eager, Aveline, 
Lavers, Mary Martin, Mules, Nelis, Prentice, Soutar, Starkey, Lieut.-Col. G. E. 
Miles, Major Phillips, and the Hon. Divisional Secretary (Dr. Bartlett). 

The visitors included Drs. Head, Waddell, Williamson, Rivers,- and many 
Service guests at Seale Hayne. 

Dr. Soutar was voted to the Chair. 

Letters of regret were received from Lieut.-Cols. Goodall, Lord, and McKeay, 
Major Worth, and Drs. McDonald, Rutherford, and Outterson Wood. 

Dr. Bartlett was elected as Secretary. 

Drs. Aveline and MacBryan were elected as Representative Members of Council. 

Drs. Eager and Soutar were elected as Members of the Committee of Management. 

The date of the Autumn Meeting was fixed for October 24th, 1919, of the Spring 
Meeting for April 24th, 1920 ; the place of the former meeting was left in the hands 
of the Secretary. 

New Member: Annie Shortridge Mules, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., Assistant House- 
Surgeon, Devon and Exeter Hospital, proposed by Drs. Eager, MacBryan, and 
Bartlett, was elected a member of the Association. 

A most interesting day was arranged by Lieut.-Col. Hurst. During the morning 
hysterical cases under treatment and cases of war neurosis were demonstrated by 
Lieut.-Col. Hurst, Major Venables, Capts. Gordon, Gill, Robin, and Wilkinson. 
This was followed by a cinematograph portrayal of cases before, during, and after 
treatment. After lunch and the Committee Meeting, Capt. Gordon ably debated 
the causes of psychasthenia, and was followed by Lieut.-Col. Hurst, who gave us 
much food for thought on the subject of the close alliance between hysteria and 
epilepsy ; Drs. Head, Lavers, Eager, and Soutar took part in the ensuing discussion. 
A most hearty vote of thanks was accorded to Lieut.-Col. Hurst and his officers 
for their kind hospitality and unsparing efforts in the provision of a most 
instructive and interesting programme, which was greatly appreciated by all 
present. 


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214 NOTES AND NEWS. [July, 


SOUTH-EASTERN DIVISION. 

A Meeting of the South-Eastern Division of the Medico-Psychological Asso¬ 
ciation was held at u, Chandos Street, W. i, on Wednesday, May 7th, 1919. 

Regrets at inability to be present had been received from Sir Robert Armstrong- 
Jones, Sir H. Bryant Donkin, Drs. G. N. Bartlett, Fletcher Beach, W. Bevan- 
Lewis, A. H. Boys, A. I. de Steiger, R. Eager, F. Elkins, G. C. Fitz-Gerald, John 
Keay, John R. Lord, David Rice, R. Percy Smith, D. G. Thomson, and F. Douglas 
Turner. 

Present: Drs. Archdale, Bower, Chambers, Collins, Evans, Fothergill, Fuller, 
Galpin, Haynes, Higson, Hughes, Norman, Prideaux, Stewart, Watson, and J. 
Noel Sergeant (Hon. Div. Sec.). 

Dr. David Bower took the Chair. 

The minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed. 

Drs. Bower, Craig, Daniel and Steen were elected to be members of the Council, 
and Dr. J. Noel Sergeant Hon. Divisional Secretary for the year 1919-1920. 

Drs. Gilfillan, Norman and Steen were elected members of the Divisional Com¬ 
mittee of Management. 

Dr. Mary Rushton Barkas, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., Temporary Assistant Medical 
Officer, Bethlem Royal Hospital, 46, Connaught Street, W.2, was elected a 
member of the Medico-Psychological Association. 

It was decided to accept with thanks Dr. Watson's kind invitation to hold the 
Autumn Divisional Meeting at Elm Lodge, Clay Hill Lane, Enfield, on Wednesday, 
October 1st, 1919. 

Dr. H. J. Norman opened a discussion on "Crime and Insanity.” Dr. Higson 
followed with some very interesting remarks on modern procedure in connection 
with the mental condition of criminals. Drs. Fuller, Sergeant and Stewart 
also spoke. 

Drs. Bower and Chambers expressed the thanks of the meeting to Drs. Norman 
and Higson, and the meeting then closed, the members taking tea. 

No dinner was held owing to the fact that insufficient members signified their 
desire to dine. 


SCOTTISH DIVISION. 

A Meeting of the Scottish Division of the Medico-Psychological Association 
was held in the Hall of the Royal Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons, Glasgow, 
on Friday, March 21st, 1919. 

Present: Lieut.-Col. Keay, Major Hotchkis, Capt. Patch, R.A.M.C., Drs. 
Buchanan, Carre, Easterbrook, Kerr, T. C. Mackenzie, McRae, Macdonald, 
Oswald, G. M. Robertson, Maxwell Ross, Shaw, and Surgeon-Commander R. B. 
Campbell, R.N., Divisional Secretary. 

Lieut.-Col. Keay, R.A.M.C., President of the Association, occupied the Chair. 

The minutes of the last Divisional Meeting were read and approved, and the 
Chairman was authorised to sign them. 

The Secretary submitted a letter of acknowledgment received from Mrs. Reid, 
thanking the members of the Division for the kind letter of sympathy sent to her. 

Apologies for absence were intimated from Drs. Thomson, Carr, Eager, Lord, 
Mills, Skeen, Alexander, Sutherland, Dods Brown, Orr and Crichlow. 

The Chairman stated that Dr. Donald Ross, who had come to Glasgow to 
attend the meeting, had been taken ill, and the Secretary was asked to write to 
Dr. Ross expressing the sympathy of those present, and to send him their best 
wishes for a speedy and complete recovery. 

The President thanked the members for the kind letter which he had received 
regarding his recent illness. 

Dr. J. H. Skeen and Dr. T. C. Mackenzie were unanimously elected Representative 
Members of Council for the ensuing year, and Dr. R. B. Campbell was elected 
Divisional Secretary. 

Dr. W. M. Buchanan was recommended to the Educational Committee of the 
Council as an Examiner for the Certificate in Psychological Medicine. 


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A general discussion took place on matters at present affecting asylum adminis¬ 
tration, and a scheme of reduced working hours for the nursing staff in asylums 
was recommended. 

The Secretary pointed out that a committee, drawn from recognised medical 
bodies in Scotland, had been appointed for the purpose of considering the pro¬ 
posals under discussion for the establishment of a Ministry of Health, and that 
he considered that the Scottish Division of the Association had strong claims to 
be represented on such a committee. After some discussion it was unanimously 
agreed that the Secretary should communicate with the Secretary of the com¬ 
mittee requesting that the Division should be represented, and Lieut.-Col. Keay 
was nominated as representative. 

It was also agreed that a small committee, composed of Lieut.-Col. Keay, Dr. 
G. M. Robertson and Dr. Campbell should be appointed to act as a Watching 
Committee re the Ministry of Health Bill. 

A vote of thanks to the President for presiding concluded the business of the 
meeting. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 

The following communication from Sir H. Bryan Donkin has been forwarded to 
the Editors for publication : 

It is greatly to be regretted that my article on the “ Factors of Criminal Actions " 
was published in the Journal of Mental Science only a few days after the lamented 
death of Dr. Charles Goring. This article consisted mainly in a reply to 
Dr. Goring's criticism* of a paper by me which he published in the Journal for 
April, 1918. My reply was written in the summer of 1918, and the proof was cor¬ 
rected by me many months before the article was printed off for the April number 
of this year, some time previously to Dr. Goring’s death on May 5th. 

But for this unavoidable concurrence of dates my article would have been pub¬ 
lished later, with an expression of my personal sorrow for the loss of Dr. Goring 
and my regret that no further elucidation of the controversy between us could now 
be made. 

H. Bryan Donkin. 

June 12 th, 1919. 


PRISON REFORM. 

The Policy of the Howard Association. 

In a statement of policy, just issued, the Howard Association, which recently 
celebrated its jubilee, says that the two main reasons for maintaining a penal system 
are the protection of the community and the reformation of the offender; and 
because society cannot obtain real protection unless the offender either be per¬ 
manently segregated or permanently reclaimed, it follows that the chief business of 
our penal methods is to secure the reformation of offenders. To this end the 
Association urges that prison governors and their subordinates shall be chosen as 
possessing special aptitude for reclaiming men and women, and that a certain 
amount of freedom to experiment shall be permitted. The Association instances 
the striking results recently obtained in American prisons, notably at Sing Sing, 
New York, and in British prisons advocates abolition of the “Silence Rule," which 
is seldom observed, and breeds deceit in prisoners and warders alike; the shorten¬ 
ing to a very brief term of the period of separate confinement; more free inter¬ 
course from judicious persons from outside; extension of the functions now 
exercised by the paid prison Chaplain to persons of all denominations, paid or un¬ 
paid, having the necessary gifts and calling; adoption of the Indeterminate 
Sentence, ensuring that offenders shall be released when they are fit to be released, 
and the adoption of the Parole System, that they may receive guidance during the 
early days of liberty. An extension of the Probation System is advocated, together 
with the appointment of more and better-trained and better-paid Probation Officers. 
The Association shows that the easy method of making prison the alternative to 
payment of a fine bears much more heavily on the poor than the rich, and urges 


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that j» " 1 ' tain well-defined cases it shall be compulsory on Justices to allow time 
m which to pay fines. In cases of fraud, theft, and embezzlement, magistrates 
should more often order compensation to be paid by the offender, by instalments 
as in the case of civil debt. This course would supply the element of deterrence’ 
nmv often felt to be lacking in the system of probation. Copies of the Statement 
of Policy of the Howard Association may be obtained on application to the Secre- 
ary at 43, Devonshire Chambers, Bishopsg'ate, H.C. 2. 


vyu* i u n i\ i . 


Joseph Wiglesworth, M.D., F.R.C.P., 

Former M^cal Superintendent, County Asylum, Rainhill, Liverpool. 

By Geo. H. Savage. 

One by one our senior fellows and former leaders are dropping off and it is our 
duty to note and record the work they have done. Time Jassfs so quickly tha 
the mi estones of progress are not noticed by the hurrying workers of lo-dav h 
I irst I will refer to the official position of Dr. Wiglesworth. 3 

After a distinguished studentship at Liverpool and St. Thomas’s Hosnit,t i 
was for a time House-Surgeon at the Royal Infirmary at Livernool He P ta A. he 
appointed Assistant Medical Officer, under Dr Rovers at the Co-^ A 
Rainhill, Lancashire. After some years he succeeded Dr. Rogers as head^f the 
asylum, and was appointed Lecturer on Insanity at the Liverpool School of 
edicine. He was I resident of the Association 1902-1903, and P Member of the 
Neurological Section of the Royal Society of Medici^ 3 He conTributed fo 
Tuke s Dictionary of Psychological Medicine and to our Journal. He also wrote 
an article in Pram and contributed to the Liverpool Medical Journal He I 
regtilar attendant at the meetings and spoke occasionally at them ' “ 

Next I must refer to his original work. This was both pathological and clinical 
He studied very carefully the histology of general naralvsis of tl • 

* descnbed very accurately the vascular !nd ofher changes present n th’aTdfsease 
The relationship of ,t to syphilis had not been established, but Wiglesworth with some 
diffidence traced a connection between the two. Probably he will rll t 
as the first to point out that pachymeningitis is notanllt= s ^ 
all authorities now recognise h.s work on subdural htemorrhages He contributed 
several articles on the subject which appeared in the Journal of MentT^ 
Another very important contribution by him was on Adolescent 7 wsZht a Ad the 

relationship of delusions and hallucinations to the mental disorders ^ • » 

co^olt 7t ° f HUgh i ingS J f aC ! tSOn Sh ° wi '^ 

control led to over-action of the ower rentrec • c ? \, cenlres °t 

conditions depended on disorder in the highest centres " OtT the of. ma, ? ,ac ^ 1 

depending on the sensory disorders. 3 part ‘ the delusi °ns 

Wiglesworth contributed to the Journal various clinical records of interest He 

As President °f the Association he took for the subject of his address " 
and Evolution ”-he was, at the time, a firm believer or follower ef w . Heredlt y 

confirmed the general belief that the mother r,a«ed on spring. He 

female children more than to the males, and though the fatheAdid tosJmeV° 
pass on a greater tendency to nervous disorders to sons than t n d mC ^ r ** ree 

daughters run a great risk even from fathers. tH * dau gh‘ers, yet the 


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I 9 1 9*] NOTES AND NEWS. 2\J 

He was not able to establish a special tendency to derelop similar symptoms— 
that is, similar forms of disorder in parent and offspring. 

He very distinctly believed in the transmission of certain acquired habits such as 
alcoholism, but I think he has,hardly established his point, though I agree with 
him in believing that a general poisoning by alcohol or syphilis must affect the 
germ-plasm and thus the next generation. 

Here, then, we have a brief outline of the work done for our branch of the 
profession, but for a complete knowledge I must refer to Tuke’s Dictionary, to the 
index of our Journal, and to the index of Brain. 

Wiglesworth proved himself to be a good administrator as well as a scientific 
worker. 

He wrote on homicidal impulse apart from active symptoms of insanity, and by 
fate he nearly provided an example in himself. He was attacked by a patient who 
had prepared a sharp puncturing weapon. A wound in the neck was made 
dividing the external carotid. With great calmness he recognised the injury and 
compressed the vessels, and with the help of his colleagues controlled the 
haemorrhage till a Liverpool surgeon came, who had to tie the common carotid. 
Wiglesworth recovered from the severe shock, but it seemed to leave him an 
older and altered man, and he retired on a pension. 

Having discussed him medically it remains to describe the man and his other 
aspects. He was a shy, retiring man, and apparently rather weak of physical power, 
but in reality he had a great reserve of force, and he could undertake long and 
arduous walks and excursions in pursuit of his natural history hobbies. 

He was not given either to sport or to general social pleasures. Married to a 
lady with similar tastes his home sufficed for him. 

When at Rainhill he developed a very complete garden of British plants which 
were arranged according to their natural orders, and he made ingenious plans to 
suit each to its natural habitat. After retiring from active medical work he devoted 
himself to bird study, and became an authority on the birds of Somersetshire. He 
made an adventurous expedition to St. Kilda and wrote a book on its birds. 

Thus life passed placidly till his only son was killed in the war. This was a 
crushing blow. 

His end was characteristic of the man, as I have heard he was in pursuit of a 
kestrel’s nest on the cliffs and fell, and his dead body was found at their base. 

So ended almost as he would have wished it the active life of a scientific recluse. 


APPOINTMENTS. 

Simpson, E. S., M.C., M.D.Edin., Medical Superintendent, East Riding 
Asylum, Beverley, Yorks, vice Dr. Archdale, resigned. 


NOTICE TO CONTRIBUTORS. 

N.B .—The Editors will be glad to receive contributions of interest, clinical 
records, etc., from any members who can find time to write (whether these have 
been read at meetings or not) for publication in the Journal. They will also feel 
obliged if contributors will send in their papers at as early a date in each quarter 
as possible. 

Writers are requested kindly to bear in mind that, according to lix(u) of the 
Articles of Association, " all papers read at the Annual, General, or Divisional 
Meetings of the Association shall be the property of the Association, unless the 
author shall have previously obtained the written consent of the Editors to the 
contrary.” 

Papers read at Association Meetings should, therefore, not be published in other 
Journals -without such sanction having been previously granted. 


LXV. 


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THE 


JOURNAL OF MENTAL SCIENCE 


[Published by Authority of the Medico-Psychological Association 
of Great Britain and Ireland.'] 


No. 271 ["‘nV"”*] OCTOBER, 1919. Vol. LXV. 


Part I.—Original Articles. 


Psychiatry a Hundred Years Ago : with Comments on the Problems 
of To-day. The Presidential Address at the Annual Meeting of 
the Medico-Psychological Association of Great Britain and Ireland, 
held at York, July 22nd, 1919. By Bedford Pierce, M.D., F.R.C.P. 
Lond., Medical Superintendent, The Retreat, York. 

The theme of the address I am about to give—if anything so 
discursive can be said to have a theme—is the medical treatment of 
the insane during the period of transition and reform at the end of the 
eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries. 

In the latter part of the reign of George III many treatises on insanity 
were published, most of them possessing a literary grace not common 
in medical works to-day. They abound in reports of clinical cases and 
details of the treatment, and the appearances on post-mortem examina¬ 
tion are frequently recorded. Probably the public interest taken in 
the king's illness helped to stimulate this remarkable output. The 
volumes are full of interest, and much that they contain seems wonder¬ 
fully modern : nevertheless, I have not found it easy to enter into the 
spirit of the age. Old doctrines still survived, and the new doctrines 
were as yet young and struggling for recognition. 

During the early part of this period medical treatment was based 
upon the hypothesis that acute insanity was due to inflammation of the 
brain and its membranes. It was therefore considered essential, by 
whatever method, to reduce the supply of blood to the head. This can 
be illustrated by the treatment of George III himself in 1789. His 
physicians had quarrelled in such an unseemly fashion that the House 
of Lords appointed a committee to examine them. We learn,however, 
from the report that they had at least been unanimous on one occasion, 
namely, when they decided to blister the King’s legs to relieve his 
acute excitement. The result is duly recorded : “ The pain undoubtedly 

LXV, 16 


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2 20 PSYCHIATRY A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, [Oct., 

made him more unquiet, and increased the necessity for coercion, but 
did not appear to increase or diminish the grand malady.” (i) 

Similarly, the practice of blood-letting was considered of extreme 
value in insanity. In reference to this, in 1789, Harper writes : “ I am 
fully satisfied of the expediency of this preliminary step, being confident 
that there never was nor ever will be a mania in which venesection, 
less or more, would be improper at the beginning.” (2) Pinel himself 
says : “ It is a well-established fact that paroxysms of madness thus 
anticipated are in many cases prevented by copious bleeding.” (3) In 
1811, Crowther, the surgeon to Bethlem, claimed to have bled 150 
patients at one time without untoward result. (4) He also recommended 
emetics, quoting a case of hypochondriacal melancholia relieved entirely 
by their use. The patient took sixty-one vomits in the course of six 
months, and for eighteen nights one every evening, and yet made a 
perfect recovery! (5) This view of the pathology of insanity was supported 
by the post mortem findings, which frequently described haemorrhagic 
points in the substance of the brain. 

We get some idea of the routine practised in Mr. Haslam’s evidence 
to the House of Commons Committee in 1815. “The period of 
physicking continues from the middle of May, regulated by the season, 
to the latter end of September, two bleedings according to discretion, 
half a dozen emetics if there should be no impediment to their exhibition, 
and for the remainder of the time to Michaelmas a cathartic once a 
week.” (6) 

The treatment of insanity was founded on the antiphlogistic theory 
which at that time was generally held, and we must not hastily pass 
judgment upon those who conscientiously accepted it, and did the best 
they could. We may be inclined to think certain practices barbarous, 
but they were not intentionally cruel, nor were those who prescribed 
them indifferent to the suffering they caused. In our own times, 
theoretical considerations have suggested methods of treatment that 
may be criticised adversely by our successors. For instance, seeing 
that convalescent patients frequently possess an increased number of 
white blood-cells, it was suggested that an artificial leucocytosis might 
produce recovery. Turpentine or other agents have, therefore, been 
injected in order to produce an abscess—a line of treatment founded 
upon the gratuitous assumption that the leucocytosis in the two cases 
was similar in nature. The underlying thought here is akin to that of 
Dr. Joseph Mason Cox, who recommended inoculation with smallpox 
or the itch, and the irritation of the skin by tartar emetic, blisters or 
setons, and who says : “ Certain it is that if any considerable commotion, 
any violent new action can be excited in maniacal complaints by whatever 
means, the mental derangement is often considerably relieved or per¬ 
manently improved.” (7) 


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IQI9-] 


BY BEDFORD PIERCE, M.D. 


22 1 


It would be difficult to find the teachings of the old school more 
concisely expressed than in Dr. Cox’s little volume, Practical Observa¬ 
tions on Insanity, published in 1804. The modern reader is offended 
from start to finish, and yet the book professes to state rules which will 
lead to “ a more humane and successful method of cure.” 

The importance of controlling the patient is first mentioned, and we 
are told that it is of the essence of management to make impressions 
on the senses, and that the grand object is to procure the confidence of 
the patient, or excite fear ! Note the alternatives ! “Pious frauds ” are 
recommended. (8) One instance may be recounted—that of a gentleman 
who thought his housekeeper had tried to kill him by means of poison 
in his shirt. It was arranged that she should be arrested in his presence, 
and she was dragged away, making loud protestations of innocence. 
A bogus analysis of the shirts confirmed his suspicions, and after a 
solemn consultation antidotes were prescribed, and we are told that he 
recovered in a few weeks. 

That is bad enough; but the next method which Cox strongly 
recommends is even more objectionable. It is the use of a circular 
swing, invented, we are told, by Dr. Erasmus Darwin, by means of 
which a patient firmly strapped in a chair or upon a bed could be made 
to rotate round a central beam at any desired pace. 

The treatment was designedly terrifying, but before passing judg¬ 
ment we should in fairness to Dr. Cox read some of his cases. I will 
quote two: 

“ Mr. —, set 40, of a florid complexion, very muscular, became 
gradually depressed, then unusually gay and flighty: previous to these 
symptoms he had been eccentric, ingenious, good-tempered, remarkable 
for an accurate, retentive memory, and for feats of the palestra. . . . 

“ For six weeks he had resisted all my attempts to introduce 
medicines, possessed a voracious appetite, while days and nights were 
passed in alternations of struggles from coercion and violent vociferation. 
Judging from all the attendant circumstances no hazard could attach to 
the employment of the swing, this was determined on, but a strong party 
was necessary to place him in it. The first five minutes produced no 
kind of change, and the novelty seemed to amuse, but on increasing the 
motion the features altered, and the contenance grew pallid, and he 
complained of sickness and prayed to be released: after a few rapid 
gyrations more vomiting succeeded, his head fell on his shoulder, and 
his whole system seemed deprived of vigour and strength: from the 
swing he was carried to bed by a single attendant, where he immediately 
fell asleep : slept nine hours without intermission, and awoke calm and 
refreshed. . . . He soon became convalescent, and advanced to the 

perfect enjoyment of health and reason.” (9) 

Another case. Mr. —, tet. 22, naturally grave, reserved, his life a 
model of probity and virtue, became depressed, seriously mutilated 
himself, and passed into a state we should call melancholic stupor; 
forcible feeding with spouting was tried under great resistance, and 


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PSYCHIATRY A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, 


[Oct., 


finally the rotating swing as a last resource. It caused alarm, then 
nausea and vomiting ; he begged to be liberated, but would not promise 
to take his food, so the swing was continued more rapidly. He then 
promised acquiescence, was put to bed and slept some hours. Two or 
three times the swing was repeated, till at length he became docile, and 
at last body and mind were perfectly recovered. Dr. Cox concludes: 
“ I am confident he owes his life and reason to the swing.” (io). 

The swing was recommended by many physicians of experience. 
Dr. Young, of optical fame, and a member of the Society of Friends, as 
Sir James Crichton-Browne recently pointed out, advocated its use in 
1809 (n); and in the report of the 1815 Committee of the House of 
Commons it is stated that Mr. Finch at Laverstock near Salisbury, 
“ finds the rotating chair, producing nausea, most useful, as the pain it 
excites takes the patients off to it rather than the disease.” In justice 
it must be added that the general condition of the patients in this 
establishment was said to be very good. Every possible amusement 
was provided: billiards and backgammon indoors, bowls, cricket, 
coursing and riding out of doors, and Mr. Finch appeared to be “a 
humane man and a man of sense.” (12) It is interesting to note that 
in Morrison’s Lectures , published in 1828, an illustration of a swing 
was given, that every private asylum might become properly equipped. 
(13) It is difficult to understand how such a cruel method of treatment 
became so popular, but in particular I should like to know how it 
happened that the swing was found to be such a powerful hypnotic. 
Something seems wrong somewhere ! 

The striking change in the treatment of the insane which began as 
the eighteenth century was closing can, I think, be traced to three causes. 

First there was the great humanitarian movement, which awakened 
sympathy with all human suffering, even in the despised and degraded 
—prisoners, slaves, and lunatics. Perhaps this movement reached its 
high-water mark in our own country, but it was felt throughout 
western Europe. Secondly, there was the social reform, initiated in 
France, the demand for liberty, equality, fraternity, which penetrated' 
even to the prison asylums of Paris. Thirdly, there was a gradual 
enlightenment of medical opinion, which led to the discontinuance of 
much that was grievous and painful in asylum practice. 

It is not my intention to re-tell at any length the story of the reform 
in the treatment of insanity. This was not the work of one man or of 
one nation. 

So far as I can ascertain, actual priority belongs to Italy. Between 
the years 1774 and 1788 Vincenzo Chiaruji, assisted by Daquin of 
Chamb^ry, introduced new methods at the Hospital Bonifacio in 
Florence, where chains and fetters were abandoned, and patients were 
encouraged to work. New regulations, embodying these reforms, were 
approved by the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo. 


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But the premier place undoubtedly belongs to Philippe Pinel. He 
not only transformed the conditions at the Bicetre and Saltpetrifere in 
Paris, but he convinced the world by his writings that the old methods 
were wrong and futile. Pinel’s treatise on Alienation Mentale , published 
in 1801, takes the highest place in the literature of his time dealing 
with insanity. It was translated into English by Dr. Davis of Sheffield 
in 1806. 

I should have liked to have referred to many incidents in the life of 
Pinel, but time forbids. He was first led to study insanity by the 
mental illness of a friend, for whom all methods of treatment failed, and 
who finally escaped into the forest and died of inanition. Clasped in 
his hands and untouched by wolves was found the one of Plato’s works 
discussing the immortality of the soul! 

Pinel was the hero of a wonderful chapter in the history of medicine, 
with which I fancy many of our younger members may be unfamiliar. 
This was the reform at the Bicetre, in 1793, during the darkest hours 
of the French revolution. Pinel was suspected of harbouring aristocrats, 
and had the utmost difficulty in obtaining permission to liberate his 
patients from their chains. It was to Couthon, even in the reign of 
terror a conspicuously repulsive character, that Pinel, during a personal 
investigation, uttered the words which stand true for all time: “Citizen, 
I have a conviction that the insane are only intractable because they are 
deprived of air and liberty.” (14) The same day he began the removal 
of chains from fifty patients, the first of them an English sea-captain, 
whose history was unknown, but who had been in chains for upwards of 
forty years. 

I need not give many details of the establishment of the Retreat, for 
the last meeting of the Medico-Psychological Association held at York 
was at the time of its centenary, and much was then said of its early 
days. 

The project was first raised in March, 1792, the land was purchased 
two years later, and the Retreat was opened in 1796, long before Pinel’s 
work in Paris was known in York. 

Two members of the Society of Friends were chiefly instrumental in 
its establishment—William Tuke and Lindley Murray. 

William Tuke was sixty years of age when he first proposed to build 
the “ retired habitation ” subsequently named the Retreat. He was an 
active, determined man, with liberal ideas on the subject of education, 
and his portrait, reproduced by his great-great grandson, H. S. Tuke, 
R.A., shows benevolent, yet strong features. 

Lindley Murray, the well-known author of Murray’s Grammar, was an 
American friend who had settled in York. He was an invalid, confined 
entirely to bed, but deeply interested in all philanthropic works. In a 
quiet way he contributed much to the foundation of the Retreat, but 


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[Oct., 

his energetic and strong-willed friend, William Tuke, actually carried 
the project through, in spite of much opposition and misunderstanding. 
Even William Tuke’s wife is reported to have said, “Thou hast had 
many children of thy brain, William, but this last one will be an 
idiot.” 

What he accomplished would not have been so widely known had 
not Samuel Tuke, his grandson, published in 1812 The Description of 
the Retreat. This was a scholarly work and is well worth careful 
perusal to-day. We possess at the Retreat a copy, formerly the property 
of the late Sir Arthur Mitchell, the Scotch Commissioner, who wrote at 
the time of the centenary: “The whole work of my life has been 
coloured by Samuel Tuke’s Description of the Retreat. . . . The 

title misleads. It is much more than a description. It is a presenta¬ 
tion of the principles which should guide us in treating and caring for 
the insane.” (15) 

The reader who acquaints himself with the writings of Philippe Pinel 
and Samuel Tuke will realise that a complete change in outlook had 
been inaugurated. It was not merely the introduction of humane 
methods, the cessation of cruelty, and abandonment of the brutal 
system of coercion, but the recognition and fearless application of a 
new principle. This they called “ moral treatment,” by which they 
claimed that more could be done for the insane than by drugs or 
discipline. They asserted that the psychical environment surrounding 
a patient was of no less importance than the physical conditions, and 
that the course of insanity was influenced by mental and moral con¬ 
siderations. I must not follow up the subject, but the assertion was 
profoundly significant. 

It is interesting to read in Tuke’s description the account of their 
attempts to cure insanity by the therapeutical methods of the day. 

The following passage seems wonderfully modern : “ The physician 
first appointed to attend the Retreat was a man equally distinguished 
by medical knowledge and indefatigable perseverance. He possessed 
too ... a highly benevolent and unprejudiced mind. . . . 

He determined to give a full trial of the means which his own judgment 
might suggest, or which the superior knowledge and experience of 
others had already recommended. But the sanguine expectations, 
which he successively formed, of benefit to be derived from various 
pharmaceutic remedies, were in great measure as successively disap¬ 
pointed ; and although the proportion of cures in the early part of the 
history of the institution was respectable, yet the medical means were 
so imperfectly connected with the progress of recovery that he could 
not avoid suspecting them to be rather concomitants than causes. 
Further experiments and observations confirmed his suspicions, and led 
him to the painful conclusion (painful alike to our pride and to our 


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humanity) that medicine as yet possesses very inadequate means to 
relieve the most grevious of human diseases.” I fear that the concluding 
sentence is still true, although a hundred years have passed since it was 
written.(16) 

This passage refers to Dr. Thomas Fowler, known to every medical 
man by the alkaline solution of arsenic which bears his name, and which, 
by the way, was probably discovered by one Mr. Hughes, in analysing 
a secret remedy known as Dutch drops (17). But Fowler introduced 
it to the world, in a striking volume, published in 1786, which dealt 
with the various uses of arsenic. He was a remarkable man, a keen 
observer, devoted to experimental research. A citizen of York, he 
practised there for many years as a chemist. At the age of forty-two he 
graduated in medicine at Edinburgh, and settled for some years in 
Stafford. But he returned to York, and in 1796, “without his solicita¬ 
tion and even without his knowledge,” was appointed physician to the 
Retreat. He died in 1801, and it is stated he left in manuscript notes 
of 6,000 cases. His published works breathe throughout the scientific 
spirit, and he recites his cases concisely and without bias, failures and 
successes alike. Any drug or therapeutic agent which he investigated 
was administered singly, under conditions as similar as possible, and he 
faithfully recorded the results for all to see and judge for themselves. 
The Retreat was fortunate in its first physician. 

Samuel Tuke explains that Dr. Fowler’s successors also tried 
“various means, suggested either by their own knowledge and ingenuity 
or recommended by later writers: but their success has not been such 
as to rescue this branch of medicine from the charge, unjustly exhibited 
by some against the art of medicine in general, of its being chiefly 
conjectural.” (18) 

In connection with this last sentence it may be interesting to note 
that when it was written the Rev. Sydney Smith was living at Heslington, 
less than a mile from the Retreat. His scathing remark that medicine 
is the “ art of putting what we know little into bodies of which we know 
less” may easily have been in Samuel Tuke’s thoughts. 

Sydney Smith took a great interest in the Retreat, and when the 
Description was published, he drew attention to it in the delightful 
essay, u Mad Quakers,” which appeared in the Edinburgh Review. 
This essay probably did more than anything else to acquaint the 
general public with the Retreat’s existence and the principles for which 
it stood. 

I should not like to convey the impression that the Retreat was 
the only institution in England conducted on humane and enlightened 
principles. Mention has already been made of Mr. Finch’s House at 
Laverstock, Salisbury, and, besides this, high praise was given to 
Bristlington House, Bristol, in the 1815 Report to the House of 


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Commons. This was opened in 1804 by Dr. Edward Long Fox, who 
had had long experience in the treatment of insanity. The centenary 
volume of Brislington House contains many interesting details of its 
early days, but I have not seen any published accounts of Dr. Fox’s 
medical practice. He was a man of high principle, and it is noteworthy 
that, although he was a member of the Society of Friends, he appointed 
a Church of England clergyman as chaplain, and was, I believe, the 
first to provide regular religious services for the insane. 

In estimating the results of treatment we are confronted with the 
difficulty as to being sure that all the essential facts are known to us. 
Rarely can we be certain what would have happened if this instead of 
that had been done. This is also the problem of history. 

Suppose, for instance, that Margaret Tudor, on her way to Scotland, 
instead of riding in state into St. Mary’s Abbey, had fallen from her horse 
as she passed through the gateway which still blocks the traffic outside 
Bootham Bar, and had never married James IV of Scotland ! What 
would have been the course of history with no Mary Queen of Scots, no 
Lord Darnley to be murdered, with no James the First of England, 
and no Stuart line of kings ? We can only say we do not know ! 

The same difficulty meets us in estimating the consequences of 
our own acts. We find it impossible to measure the issues of a 
chance meeting or a casual remark; we are bewildered with the com¬ 
plexity of life, and we are tempted to accept the philosophy of the 
old Persian singer: 

“ ’Tis all a chequer-board of nights and days 
Where Destiny with men for Pieces plays, 

Hither and thither moves, and mates and slays, 

And one by one back in the closet lays. 

"The moving Finger writes, and having writ 
Moves on : nor all thy Piety nor wit 
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, 

Nor all thy Tears wash out a word of it.” 

In medicine the problem is similar. There are so many incalculable 
elements that we can rarely foretell with precision the results of any line 
of treatment. This fact is very apparent when we consider the question 
of the use of sedative drugs. 

A hundred years ago only three of these were in use—opium, 
hemlock, and henbane; and opinion was greatly divided with regard 
to their value. Haslam strongly condemned opium, saying that 
“ many narcotic poisons have been recommended for the care of 
madness, but my own experience of these remedies is very limited, nor 
is it my intention to make any further trials.” (19) Pinel, referring to 
the contradictory opinions on this subject, suggested that the experi- 


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ments should be repeated with proper attention to the specific distinc¬ 
tions of insanity. (20) 

At present I suppose that more than a hundred sedatives are 
advocated for sleeplessness and mental excitement, and the problem of 
their use is more complex than ever before, and as yet no clear and 
well-established principles are available to guide us in their use. 

It is, of course, recognised that chemical restraint is generally 
harmful, that drug habits are easily acquired, and that sedatives dull 
the faculties and mask symptoms. Moreover, all physicians in hospitals 
for the insane know that many newly-admitted patients will not recover 
until the hypnotics given before admission are withheld. Sedatives, 
nevertheless, give temporary relief, and it would be cruel to forbid 
them, unless it can be shown that they are hurtful. 

Yet the extreme opinion of Haslam, already quoted, is shared by 
many present-day physicians. Prominent amongst these is Dr. 
Hitchcock, late Medical Superintendent of Bootham Park, York, who 
published in 1900 in the JourJialof Mental Science a striking article sum¬ 
marising the results of treating 206 cases of acute mania without any 
sedatives whatever. 

I have Dr. Hitchcock’s permission to give some interesting details, 
explaining how he found himself in opposition to the current practice 
of the day. When he began to practise chloral was much lauded, and 
at his first asylum appointment he found that this drug was given at the 
discretion of the nurses. Without telling them, he substituted for it 
camphor and chloroform water, which proved equally useful. Later, 
at Bethlem, he found chloral, hyoscyamine, and cannabis indica 
freely used. But there he obtained valuable help from Smeeth, the 
head attendant, who had carefully watched the results, and was satisfied 
that the patients were not benefited by drug sleep. Subsequently he 
was appointed to another institution, in which the use of chloral was 
rampant on both sides of the house, and 16-ounce Stock-bottles were 
filled as often as needed, and dispensed by the night staff at their 
discretion. Dr. Hitchcock first gradually reduced the dose, and then 
substituted camphor, and later salt solution. When he had fully con¬ 
vinced the staff that the new “sleeping draught ” was fully as successful 
as the old, both for recent and chronic patients, it was possible to 
“ own up,” and explain that for some time past no sedatives whatever 
had been used ! For the next twenty-five years he allowed no sleeping- 
draughts of any kind, yet the recovery-rate at Bootham Park during 
this period was a high one. 

At the Retreat we do not use narcotic drugs in newly admitted cases, 
and only rarely are they prescribed, when ordinary measures have been 
persevered with for a long period and failed. It is only fair to say that 
in some exceptional cases great benefit has seemed to follow. I cannot, 


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therefore, claim to be a total abstainer, like my friend Dr. Hitchcock; 
but I support his testimony, and believe that the stand he has taken 
will make his name memorable in time to come. 

Even, however, if it were demonstrated that drugs, in the main, were 
useless and probably hurtful, it would not follow that they had no place 
in psychological medicine. There are cases in which the intensity of 
mental suffering calls for immediate relief, even if only temporary. It is 
unlikely that all drugs are valueless: the problem is to find out their 
precise functions and limitations. 

I incline to think that members of our Association could investigate 
this question to good purpose. We have many facilities for such a 
research. Our patients live under very uniform conditions : in the 
nursing staff we have trained observers, able to collect and record facts, 
and the inquiries could be conducted on a sufficiently large scale to 
eliminate many disturbing factors. 

We have to admit at the outset that our present classification of 
mental disorders is not sufficiently accurate to enable us, in the signifi¬ 
cant words of Pinel, “ to be sure that similar things are being 
compared.” But practical therapeutics cannot wait until the setiology 
of disease is fully known, and its pathology is complete. Physicians 
should really be able to speak with no uncertain voice regarding the 
use of narcotic drugs. Will not some of our younger members take up 
this subject for systematic investigation? 

The striking success obtained at Guy’s Hospital in studying the effect 
of drugs in the treatment of acute rheumatism justifies the opinion that 
a somewhat similar inquiry into the value of sedatives might be of great 
service in psychiatry. 

How this should be conducted it would be presumptuous of me to 
say ; but I may perhaps suggest lines on which some inherent difficulties 
might be avoided. We recognise that though the external conditions 
of patients may be precisely similar in regard to surroundings, exercise, 
and daily routine, internal conditions may be utterly diverse. Now, it is 
useless to accumulate facts concerning too or even 1,000 individuals, if 
in essentials they have little in common. At the outset, therefore, it 
would seem advisable to limit the inquiry to groups of cases in which 
psychical factors are of secondary importance—such as acute delirium, 
the nocturnal excitement in senile insanity, the agitated melancholia of 
the climacteric, and possibly maniacal excitement in well-marked recur¬ 
rent cases. Two groups of similar cases might then be compared, one 
taking no drug, the other any drug that might be selected. I am aware 
that the risks of drawing wrong conclusions would by no means be 
eliminated, yet I am sure that results thus obtained would be of greater 
value than the individual opinions of even the most observant people. 

Another problem that confronted physicians at the commencement 


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of the nineteenth century was the alcohol question, which from the 
dawn of history has troubled mankind. 

Let me give the following extract from a letter written in Egypt 
nearly 3,500 years ago, now in the British Museum (21): “Whereas it 
has been told me that thou hast forsaken books and devoted thyself to 
pleasure : that thou goest from tavern to tavern smelling of beer at 
the time of the evening. If beer gets into a man it overcomes his 
mind. . . . 

“ Thou knowest that wine is an abomination, that thou hast taken 
an oath that thou wouldst not put liquor into thee. Hast thou for¬ 
gotten the resolution ? ” 

A twentieth century parent might make a similar appeal, so little 
have conditions changed. 

Within the last hundred years, however, some advance has been 
made. The habits of the people have improved, drunkenness is no 
longer respectable, gentlemen are not now carried helpless to bed after 
dinner, and teetotallers are not considered a menace to society. Never¬ 
theless, the problem is still unsolved, and all who are interested in the 
welfare of the British people—I fear I must on this occasion say British 
rather than English—deplore the drinking customs of our countrymen. 
Physicians, employers, social workers are at one in this respect. The 
wastage from intemperance is incalculable, and yet we see before us 
increasing industrial competition with nations such as the States and 
Japan which are relatively abstemious. I am no pessimist; yet I 
cannot do otherwise than view the coming industrial conflict with 
grave anxiety whilst we handicap ourselves so heavily. The social and 
economic aspects of this problem are not, however, within the scope of 
this address, and I turn to its medical aspect. 

It is impossible to estimate the number of persons who may justly 
be considered intemperate or addicted to drink. There are no trust¬ 
worthy data, but probably the number is vastly greater than we are apt 
to assume. The great majority do not consult any physician and 
relatively few come under the cognizance of the police. The statistics 
of police-court convictions, moreover, are apt to vary with the vigilance 
of the chief constable, or the sentiments of the members of the Watch 
Committee. 

In 1900 the average amount of alcohol consumed per head was 
calculated to amount to 2'o8 gallons yearly. This included everybody 
—men, women and children. But if children and adult abstainers are 
excluded, and if we make allowance for the fact that women as a rule 
drink much less than men, and remember that a large part of the 
community is strictly abstemious, we are left with a minority whose 
consumption of alcohol must clearly be excessive. 

The word “inebriate” is unfortunate as it suggests actual drunkenness. 


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whereas there may be dangerous alcoholic addiction without gross signs 
of intemperance. As Sir William Collins has recently pointed out, the 
term “ addiction ” is very appropriate, for the Addictus was a debtor who, 
in Roman law, was handed over to his creditor, and the word implies 
a limitation of freedom or some degree of slavery. 

This morbid condition, of course, is essentially the concern of 
psychiatry. It is virtually a disease, although, when the exciting cause 
is removed, no symptoms may be discovered, and although no patho¬ 
logical findings assist in its recognition. 

Experience tells us that the potential inebriate should be treated 
early or there will be little hope of preventing confirmed addiction. 
But, unfortunately, effective treatment can rarely be obtained, early or 
late, and the position is not substantially altered since Haslam in 1808 
dealt with this question in language which is appropriate to-day : 

“ Thus a man is permitted slowly to poison and destroy himself; to 
produce a state of irritation, which disqualifies him from any of the 
useful purposes of life ; to squander his property among the most 
worthless and abandoned ; to communicate a loathsome and disgraceful 
disease to a virtuous wife; to leave an innocent and helpless family to 
the meagre protection of the parish. If it be possible the law ought 
to define the circumstances under which it becomes justifiable to 
restrain a human being from effecting his own destruction, and involving 
his family in misery and ruin. When a man suddenly bursts through 
the barriers of established opinions; if he attempts to strangle himself 
with a cord, to divide his larger blood-vessels with a knife, or swallow 
a vial full of laudanum, no one entertains any doubt of his being a 
proper subject for the superintendence of keepers; but he is allowed, 
without control, by a gradual progress, to undermine the fabric of his 
health, and destroy the prosperity of his family.” (22) 

Unfortunately, to this day, no satisfactory means have been devised 
to prevent or arrest alcoholic addiction. The Inebriate Acts are 
practically useless, especially in the early stages of the disorder, and 
to wait until some offence has been committed before adopting remedial 
measures generally means disaster. The position, moreover, is one of 
extreme delicacy. The patient often refuses to admit the necessity for 
treatment; he or she may be in good health and possess an attractive 
personality. Hardly anyone knows that indulgence is becoming habitual, 
and probably those who do know are prejudiced observers. 

If early treatment is to be obtained it must clearly be on a voluntary 
basis and in strict privacy, for no one can afford to be branded as an 
alcoholic. 

Treatment, to be effective, means a long and patient investigation 
into underlying causes, and this alone makes serious demands upon 
the physician and his helpers. No one with experience in this depart- 


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mentof medicine will under rate the amount of time and trouble needed 
to help the patient along the difficult uphill road towards recovery. At 
present such treatment is altogether outside the reach of the majority 
of those who need it. 

If the suggestion in an article by my old friend, Mr. Theodore Neild, 
of Leominster, were adopted, and a consultation bureau were estab¬ 
lished in every large centre of population, much might be done to give 
the necessary help. (23) The staff of the bureau would consist of a 
secretary—preferably a trained lady social worker—with such clerical 
assistance as might be necessary, and visiting physicians possessing 
special experience in this subject. It would then become possible for 
anyone to obtain confidential advice either for himself or for a relative 
or friend, whilst the bureau would be able to secure the help of other 
medical services and lay organisations as occasion might demand. 

I am sanguine enough to believe that with assistance such as this 
not a few patients would completely recover. The return to useful 
work of many who otherwise would be a burden upon society would, 
even from a financial point of view, justify the expense incurred. 

It is, however, important to realise that this malady cannot be con¬ 
sidered apart from other forms of mental instability. This Association 
in 1914, and again this year, urged the establishment of clinics, or hospitals 
for nervous disorders, in order to provide early treatment of unconfirmed 
mental trouble; the Board of Control have reported to the same 
effect, and the Legislature is already taking up the subject. I would 
submit that the proposed consultation bureaux be affiliated with or 
become a special department of the new clinics. It is undesirable that 
alcoholic and drug addiction should be dealt with altogether apart from 
other neuroses. Moreover, out-patient treatment may often be insuffi¬ 
cient, and a residence in a special hospital will often be of the utmost 
value as a preliminary measure. 

So far it has been assumed that the patient has applied for treatment 
voluntarily or has been persuaded to do so by his friends. Unfortunately 
many will decline any treatment or refuse to be advised. Others will 
derive no benefit upon voluntary lines, and some form of compulsory 
treatment becomes necessary both for their own sakes and that of others. 

It will be impossible here to deal with this aspect of the subject in 
detail; I must only suggest that any new laws relating to inebriety 
might provide three separate procedures or successive steps in dealing 
with these patients : 

First, a judicial warning, which might be given privately when the 
justice has satisfied himself that the patient is in danger of alcoholic 
or drug addiction. This probably would be accompanied by a recom¬ 
mendation to consult a neighbouring clinic, but it would in no way 
interfere with personal freedom. 


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Secondly, the appointment of a guardian, who would be legally 
authorised to stop supplies, and forbid the sale of liquor to the patient, 
to restrict his liberty within prescribed limits, and to prevent the im¬ 
poverishment of himself or his family. 

Thirdly, internment in a farm colony or other approved home. 

It is obvious that such steps could only be taken after independent 
medical opinion has been obtained, and we cannot complain if the 
state demands safeguards to prevent any hasty or unjust limitation of 
freedom. Such safeguards we will welcome if only powers are given 
to protect the inebriate from himself, and arrest his degradation. 

Without fresh legislation, however, it is possible to do much more 
for persons charged with drunkenness or with offences committed under 
the influence of drink. Early in this year a report was presented to the 
Birmingham justices, signed by Mr. Gerald Beesly, the deputy chairman, 
from which I make a few extracts : 

“The minds of many of the Birmingham justices have for a long 
time been exercised as to the futility and inadequacy of the customary 
methods of dealing with persons charged with crimes, particularly as 
to the absence of any consideration of the mental condition of such 
persons. It has been felt that in many cases some mental instability 
is the fundamental cause of the commission of the crime, and that 
1 treatment,’ as distinct from ‘punishment’ (either by fine or imprison¬ 
ment), is the proper and sane method to adopt. . . .” 

“ A well-ordered State should clearly make provision for the efficient 
treatment, and, if possible, cure of those who by their acts or mental 
weakness are a menace to the community, and thus jeopardise their 
right to freedom. Hitherto much provision has been made, at enormous 
expense, for dealing with such persons in their later stages of disability. 
It is suggested that machinery should be set up which can be put into 
operation at the early stages.” 

Among others the following immediately practical methods were 
advocated : 

(1) An expert medical practitioner should be appointed, with whom 
the justices can confer and take counsel in any particular case. He 
should attend at the courts from time to time to give evidence when 
required, and he should interview and report upon cases on remand or 
adjournment. 

(2) The Probation of Offenders Act should be used more widely, 
and conditions imposed that will ensure the periodic examination of 
the offender on probation. 

It is interesting to note that this report was at once acted upon, and 
that a medical man with special experience was appointed to assist the 
justices in dealing with cases of this kind. 

Although there are at present no consultation clinics, or farm colonies, 


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or even proper places of detention for the weak-minded offender, pending 
a report as to his mental condition, it is gratifying to find that some 
justices are awake to their responsibilities, and that the scandal of the 
repeated imprisonment of mental defectives for offences directly due to 
their deficiency has ceased, at any rate in Birmingham. 

I had intended to compare the psychiatry of 120 years ago with 
that of to-day, but I shrink from the attempt. It would be an easy 
task to show that progress has been slow and disappointing. No 
specific treatment of mental disease has been discovered save in the 
case of that arising from thyroid insufficiency. It is doubtful whether 
the recovery-rate has improved. Now, as then, patients break down 
without any assignable cause ; now, as then, many recover without 
our knowing the reason. Making due allowance for altered social 
circumstances, it is probable that the condition of patients in the more 
enlightened institutions was not greatly different from that of to-day. 
In Tuke’s description the daily routine so carefully portrayed shows 
that in the early days of the Retreat the patients received care and 
attention worthy of our emulation. 

The medical literature of that period, moreover, contains much that 
anticipates modern teaching. In Haslam’s observations we find a vivid 
description of dementia praecox. (24) It certainly is not divided into 
eight elaborate and confusing subdivisions, but the clinical picture, 
drawn in fewer and stronger lines, is all the more convincing. Haslam 
also described general paralysis (25), and his discussion of the hereditary 
problem, and of the relation of mental and physical factors in aetiology, 
carries us nearly as far as we can travel to-day. The essential mystery 
of mental disease baffles us now as it did then. 

Still, it would be a mistake to measure the success of medical research 
by considerations such as these. There is a great deal of unseen 
work in a building before its walls appear above ground. It is quite 
unnecessary for me to mention the vast amount of progress made in the 
anatomy and physiology of the nervous system, in pathology and in 
biochemistry, and in many departments of science which intimately 
affect our subject, and which were unheard of a hundred or even twenty- 
five years ago. 

Any attempt to foretell the direction of further progress is quite 
beyond my powers. It is probable that new clinical methods of 
examination will be discovered. If, for instance, it became possible to 
measure degrees of pain, or ascertain with precision the extent to which 
palsy or some other disability depended upon structural defect, or if we 
could calculate in advance the breaking-point of mental strain, a new 
situation would be created. 

The war has thrown some light upon one aspect of our subject. We 
have learnt that symptoms formerly termed hysterical or functional are 


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not peculiar to the frail or sensitive, but occur in strong men. We find 
that they continue long after any recognised exciting cause has ceased 
to operate, and that they frequently disappear suddenly, as if charmed 
away. Unfortunately we cannot analyse the causes of this recovery, 
which is ascribed to multifarious agencies: suggestion, hypnotism, 
psycho-analysis, faith-healing, and sudden emotion, besides ordinary 
hygienic measures. There is obviously no organic lesion, and though 
the illness is usually characterised by some manifest physical disability, 
it is clearly a disorder of the mind rather than of the body. There is 
urgent need for careful research in order to establish a scientific 
therapy, so that appropriate treatment can be selected with con¬ 
fidence. Only too frequently such treatment is not forthcoming, and 
consequently our pension-board rooms are thronged with nervous 
invalids. 

In addition to this, the functional element in definite organic 
maladies must not be overlooked. Patients with diseases such as 
disseminated sclerosis and locomotor ataxy frequently present symptoms 
that bear little relation to the extent of the organic lesion. Even in 
these cases the disability may in large measure be functional. 

Do not these observations throw light on some of the problems of 
psychiatry, and may we not conclude that sometimes the symptoms of 
insanity bear little relation to the assigned cause ? It seems reasonable, 
moreover, to assume that such symptoms may continue for long periods 
of time independently of the original disturbance. 

Do not some of our sudden recoveries correspond to the recoveries 
in the psycho-neuroses ? On the other hand, are not some of our 
chronic cases akin to that of the confirmed neurotic, with this difference, 
that in the one the disordered function affects intelligence and emotion, 
and in the other some lower nervous mechanism such as vision or 
muscular co-ordination ? 

This thought, of course, does not carry us far; but it suggests that the 
study of hysterical phenomena may help us greatly. Further, it reminds 
us to lay due stress on the psychical as well as upon the physical 
factors in aetiology. The attempt to separate mental and bodily factors 
must inevitably lead to error, since they constantly react on each other. 
It is well known that emotional disturbance produces changes in the 
endocrine organs, and that degeneration of those organs leads to 
emotional dulness and apathy. 

Be this as it may, we have at any rate left behind the doctrine 
expressed in the dictum, “All insanity is either toxic or traumatic.” 
(26) Just as Tuke and Pinel considered moral treatment of paramount 
importance in promoting recovery, so we recognise the profound 
importance of mental strain in the causation and development of certain 
forms of mental disorder. 


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References. 

(1) Report of the Committee appointed to examine the Physicians who 
have attended His Majesty during his Illness, 1789, p. 135. 

(2) Harper. —A Treatise on the Real Cause and Cure of Insanity, 
1786, p. 48. 

(3) Philippe Pinel. —A Treatise on Insanity, Dr. Davis’s translation, 
1806, p. 252. 

(4) Crowther.— Practical Remarks on Insanity, 1811, p. 102. 

(5) Ibid, p. 112. 

(6) Report of Committee on Mad houses, 1815, p. 130. 

(7) J. Mason Cox.— Practical Observations on Insanity, 1804, p. 137. 

(8) Ibid., p. 34. 

(9) Ibid., p. 112. 

(10) Ibid., p. 118. 

(n) Thomas Young.—“ Oration,” Transactions Optical Society, 1915. 

(12) Report of the Committee on Mad-houses, 1815, p. 299. 

(13) Morrison’s Lectures, 1828, p. 163. 

(14) Les grandes Alienistes Fran(ais, Semelaigne, 1894, p. 42. 

(15) Hack Tuke. —Reform in the Treatment of the Insane, p. 74. 

(16) Samuel Tuke.— Description of the Retreat, p. no. 

(17) Medical Times and Gazette, 1864, p. 317, and Annals of Medi¬ 
cine, 1801. 

(18) Ibid., p. 115. 

(19) Haslam. —Observatiotis on Madness, 1808, p. 339. 

(20) Pinel. — Supra, p. 259. 

(21) “ Papyrus Sallier I : Eleventh Letter,” Tuke’s Dictionary, p. 1. 

(22) Haslam.— Supra, p. 78. 

(23) National Temperance Quarterly, No. 44, winter, 1918; No. 45, 
Spring, 1919. 

(24) Haslam.— Supra, p. 64. 

(25) Haslam.— Supra, p. 260. 

(26) Medical Annual, 1914, p. 366. 


Goitre and the Psychoses. By Norman Routh Phillips, M.D.Brux., 
M.R.C S., L.R.C.P.Lond., St. Andrew’s Hospital, Northampton. 
Awarded Second Prize in the Bronze Medal Competition. 

That there is some relationship between goitre and the psychoses 
is beyond all question. We have only to recall the mental syndromes 
of Graves’ disease and endemic cretinism—goitre occurs in all but a 
few exceptional cases of the former, and in about 50 per cent, of the 
latter. Moreover it is by no means uncommon to find goitre in adult 
myxcedema. 

In this article I propose to show that the role played by goitre in the 
psychoses is more extended than is indicated by the examples just 
mentioned. I shall also endeavour to explain the nature of this 
LXV. 1 7 


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association of goitre and insanity, and, finally, I shall indicate the lines 
upon which the treatment of these cases should be based. 

Systematic examination of the thyroid demonstrates the fact that 
enlargement of the gland is of fairly frequent occurrence in asylums, 
especially in female cases. 

It appears, however, that endemic goitre is more often associated 
with the psychoses than is the sporadic form. Moreover, the enlarge¬ 
ment of the thyroid in the former case is much more evident, frequently 
leading to great disfigurement. 

I once had the advantage of visiting the wards of the Bel Air Asylum 
near Geneva, and I was greatly impressed by the high percentage of 
patients suffering from goitre—36 per cent, for both sexes. The 
goitrous enlargement had in many of the cases attained to an 
enormous size. 

Various authors have drawn attention to the frequency with which 
the goitrous become insane; others have remarked on the eccentricities 
of character and enfeeblement of the intellectual faculties in districts 
where goitre and cretinism is endemic. In particular I might mention 
the work of Marzocchi and Antonini. As a result of much careful 
observation the last-named writers came to the following conclusions : 

(1) The goitrous, including congenital cases, are eight times more 
susceptible to insanity than those not afflicted with thyroid enlargement 
(i.e., as far as the Province of Bergamo is concerned). Moreover, if 
one deducts all the congenital cases (cretins, etc.) the goitrous more 
often become insane than other people. 

(2) The curable psychoses do not furnish any difference in the 
percentage of recoveries, whether the case be goitrous or not. 

(3) People not afflicted with goitre, belonging to a district where 
goitre is endemic, are no more subject to contract mental maladies 
than those coming from a country where the affection is not 
prevalent. 

Up to a few years ago no satisfactory explanation was forthcoming to 
account for this association of goitre with the psychoses. It was 
generally believed that goitre did not affect the thyroid secretion. 
Within recent years, however, as a result of much clinical, pathological, 
and experimental investigation, the whole subject of goitre has been 
revised, and a number of observers have produced evidence to show 
that the goitrous lesion affects the secreting epithelium in such a way 
as to cause signs of either hypo- or hyperthyroidism, or the two condi¬ 
tions may exist side by side in the same subject—thyroid instability. 

These conclusions are of the utmost importance, as the mere fact of 
goitre being associated with either thyroid insufficiency or excess places 
this affection on a footing with the well-known diseases of the thyroid 
mentioned at the commencement of this article, viz., Graves’ disease, 


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1919] BY NORMAN ROUTH PHILLIPS, M.D. 237 

cretinism, and myxcedema, whose relation to the psychoses is an 
incontestable fact. 

I is now possible to divide all the various forms of goitre into two 
main groups, viz., Group I, those forms which produce hypothyroidism; 
and Group II, those producing hyperthyroidism. 

Group I. Hypothyroidism occurs : 

(a) Sometimes as a later stage in parenchymatous goitre, the initial 
activity of the gland being followed by a phase of secretory exhaus¬ 
tion. 

(b) In chronic colloid goitre—as a result of the flattening and atrophy 
of the epithelial cells from distension of the vesicles with excess of 
colloid material. 

(c) In adenomatous, fibrous, and cystic goitres, probably as a result of 
mechanical interference with the proper functions of the gland. 

(d) Sometimes as a late stage in Graves’ disease from fibrous 
degeneration and atrophy of the epithelium. 

Group II. Hyperthyroidism occurs : 

(a) In the early stages of parenchymatous goitre as a result of the 
hypertrophy of the gland which arises in response to a call for increased 
thyroid secretion. 

(b) In Graves’ disease where there is active hypertrophy and 
proliferation of the epithelial cells, with the formation of new vesicles 
lined with cubical cells and containing colloid. 

(c) In a certain proportion of old colloid goitres the atrophied 
epithelium taking on renewed growth, with the same active cell- 
proliferation and formation of new vesicles mentioned in the last 
variety. 

Rogers holds the view that “ An increase in the size of the gland 
seems the regular or natural first stage in all acquired thyroid diseases.” 
This opinion is particularly interesting when one takes into consideration 
the frequency with which pathological changes have been found in the 
thyroid gland in the insane by many observers. 

The frequent association of hypothyroidism with goitre referred to 
above is worth noting, as the mistake is often made that enlargement of 
the thyroid gland necessarily points to hyperfunction. Even some of 
the most prominent observers continue to quote the weight of the gland, 
implying that if it be above normal hyperthyroidism is indicated and 
vice versa. 

Auto-intoxication. —Let us consider in more minute detail how the 
brain may be affected by the goitrous lesion. 

The various endocrinic glands, in addition to their specific functions, 
pour into the blood-plasma certain chemical substances called hormones, 
which are endowed with the important function of regulating meta¬ 
bolism—one group of hormones exercising an augmentor, the other a 


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retarding influence. Thus an equilibrium or balance is established, the 
maintenance of which is essential to health. 

We are justified in assuming that a lesion of an important organ, 
such as the thyroid gland, resulting in diminution or excess of thyroid 
secretion would produce disorganisation of the delicate hormonic balance 
and so induce a state of auto-intoxication. 

Now, as Lugaro emphasises, the brain is particularly susceptible to 
the action of poisons, and reacts to those which are produced in the 
organism itself not less intensely than it does to those derived from 
outside. 


Influence of the Nervous System on the Thyroid Secretion. 

Increasing interest in this important subject has been manifested of 
late in consequence of the close relationship which is known to exist 
between the thyroid gland and the nervous system. 

The nerve supply of the gland is derived from the sympathetic system 
and the vagus. The sympathetic nerves have been proved not only to 
influence the glandular secretion, but also to regulate and control the 
delicate inter-relationships existing between the various endocrinic 
glands. 

The influence of the higher nerve centres on the thyroid secretion 
is shown by the fact that emotional states— e.g., fear, anger, anxiety— 
are capable of producing states of hyperthyroidism. 

The following statistics are interesting as showing the frequent 
association of endemic goitre with the psychoses : 

Of 291 patients examined by Brissard at the Bel Air Asylum, Geneva, 
106 were found to be goitrous (44 males and 62 females, or 36 per cent. 
for both sexes). These figures are remarkable when compared with the 
statistics furnished by the Recruiting Office for the Canton, the pro¬ 
portion of goitrous as indicated by the latter being only 5 per cent. 
The 106 goitrous patients included 71 cases of dementia praecox, 18 
cases congenitally weak-minded, 8 cases of senile dementia, and 4 of 
manic-depressive insanity. The frequency of goitre in dementia prsecox 
and in congenital idiocy is significant. Out of a total number of 149 cases 
of dementia praecox 71 were goitrous, /.<?., 49 per cent., and out of a 
total of 37 cases of congenital idiocy 18 were goitrous, i.e., 48 per cent. 
Hardly less interesting are the statistics drawn up by Schranz at the 
Hall Asylum in the Tyrol, and quoted by Brissard. 

Of 277 patients under observation Schranz found 68 goitrous, i.e*, 
24-5 per cent., as compared with 15 per cent, for the rest of the popula¬ 
tion. These 68 goitrous patients included 45 cases of dementia 
priecox, 13 of mania, 7 of congenital idiocy, and 3 of epilepsy. The 
large proportion of cases of dementia pnecox is again worthy of note. 


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BY NORMAN ROUTH PHILLIPS, M.D. 

Clinical Cases. 

A word is necessary to explain why I have included cases presenting 
exophthalmos (t.e., cases of Graves’ disease) in the following table. 
Experience has shown me that all cases of goitre, both of the “simple” 
and of the “ exophthalmic ” type, are liable to undergo changes, not only 
in the size and shape of the thyroid gland, but also in the signs and 
symptoms by which they are accompanied (whether these latter be of a 
somatic or mental character). 

Thus a case of apparently simple goitre may sooner or later develop 
all or many of the signs indicative of Graves’ disease, e.g., exophthalmos, 
trerpors, palpitation, etc., as well as the mental instability so charac¬ 
teristic of that disease; a case of Graves’ disease, too, is liable to 
undergo changes, e.g., the exophthalmos, tremors, palpitation, etc., may 
disappear—so that if one were not acquainted with the history of the 
case one might be tempted to make a diagnosis of “ simple goitre.” 

The following table summarises the observations made by me on 
twenty-four insane patients who were affected with goitre. Two 
hundred patients were examined at St. Andrew’s Hospital, Northampton, 
so that the actual proportion of goitrous was 12 per cent. 


’ No. 
of 

case. 

Psychosis. 

Lobes 
affected. 

Pulse 

rate. 

Systolic 

blood- 

pressure. 

Exoph¬ 

thalmos. 

I 

Melancholia ..... 

M + R 

96 

148 

s 

2 

Paranoia ..... 

R + L 

72 

ns 

— 

3 

Dementia praecox .... 

L 

60 

120 

— 

! 4 

Senile melancholia 

R 

80 

176 

— 

5 

Mania ...... 

R + L 

70-120 

150 

— 

6 

Manic-depressive .... 

M 

72 

140 


7 

Melancholia ..... 

M 

84 

140 

— 

8 

Manic-depressive .... 

R 

O 

O 

— 

9 

Mania ...... 

G 

64 

192 

— 

10 

Manic-depressive .... 

R + L 

88 

130 

— 

11 

Paranoia. 

R + M 

0 

O 

— 

12 

Dementia praecox .... 

L + R 

80 

142 

— 

13 

Dementia praecox .... 

M 

88 

130 

— 

14 

Mania. 

R + M 

76 

120 

s 

IS 

Dementia praecox .... 

G 

84 

160 

— 

l6 

Manic-depressive .... 

R 

0 

O 

+ 

17 

Involutional melancholia 

R + L 

O 

0 

+ 

18 

Manic-depressive .... 

R + L 

120 

190 

+ 

19 

Melancholia. 

R + M 

72 

112 

— 

20 

Manic-depressive .... 

M + R 

74 

138 

— 

21 

Mania. 

M 

90 

160 

— 

22 

Paranoia ..... 

G 

88 

140 

— 

23 

Melancholia. 

R + L 

98 

166 

+ 

24 

Melancholia. 

L 

92 

142 

+ 


Explanation of abbreviations .—M = Middle lobe. R = Right lobe. L = Left 
lobe. G = General enlargement of the thyroid gland. S = Slight. + = Present 
— = Not present, o = Not obtained. 



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240 GOITRE AND THE PSYCHOSES, [Oct., 

It will be seen that out of 24 cases of goitre under observation no less 
than 17 suffered from manic-depressive insanity or from the melancholia 
of involution, e., 70 per cent, of the whole number. Of the remaining 
7, 4 were cases of dementia prascox, and 3 of paranoia. 

Case 5.— JE t. 47, was admitted October, 1912. 

Family history. —Father insane—chronic melancholia. 

Physical examination. —Slight enlargement of the thyroid; exoph¬ 
thalmos ; palpitation; pulse-rate 100; some emaciation; poor general 
health. 

Mental. —She was restless, talkative, memory defective, attention 
distractible, emotional, irritable, apprehensive. She was lacking in 
concentration; complained of headache and noises in the head; 
troubled with insomnia, frequently asking for drugs. 

January, 1913, she was discharged. 

September 22nd, she was again admitted, suffering from mania. She 
had been over-indulging in drugs and alcohol. The physical and 
mental symptoms were similar to those mentioned above. 

October 19th, 1914 : Transferred elsewhere. 

November 1st, 1915 : Readmitted into this Hospital suffering from 
chronic mania. 

Present state: Physical. —There is slight general enlargement of the 
thyroid, frequent attacks of tachycardia, pulse varies between 70-120, 
systolic blood-pressure 150, fine tremors of the hands, moisture of the 
skin, slight exophthalmos. 

Mental. —She is very emotional, with frequently changing moods ; 
she is irritable and at times noisy and abusive; occasionally she is 
violent to the nurses ; she is very verbose with flight of ideas ; attention 
is distractible ; she writes endless illegible nonsense on scraps of paper 
and leaves torn out of books ; she is very restless ; memory is impaired; 
she is untidy and fantastic in dress ; she is apprehensive with delusions 
of persecution. 

This case may be considered a typical one of hyperthyroidism with 
characteristic mental symptoms. It will be noticed that all the psychic 
processes are affected, but it is the emotional sphere which is most pro¬ 
foundly disturbed, and which seems to dominate the whole personality. 
It is interesting to note that the thyroid gland has been styled by 
Leopold L<*vi, “ La Glande d’emotion.” 

The frequent occurrence of mania, melancholia, and manic-depressive 
insanity in Graves’ disease led Parhon and others to think that 
exaggeration or perversion of the function of the thyroid gland plays an 
important role in the production of these psychoses as a rule, and 
pathological research has tended to confirm this view, but Parhon 
admits that hypothyroidism sometimes favours the development of 
melancholia. 

The mental state of Case 21 resembles in many ways the above. In 
addition, however, to the irritability, distractibility, restlessness, etc., 
she has auditory hallucinations and many changing delusions. 

This patient has a large goitre about the size of more than half a 


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241 


croquet-ball involving chiefly the middle lobe of the thyroid, the lateral 
lobes being also slightly involved. This goitre occasionally increases in 
size and is liable to cause some embarrassment to breathing, and some 
cyanosis due to pressure. There are periods when the cardio-vascular 
signs are accentuated—tachycardia, with a pulse-rate of 120 or more, and 
fine tremors of the fingers ; there is no exophthalmos. 

The family history is interesting, three sisters having goitre. 

Case 14 is chiefly interesting on account of the family history. She 
suffered from chronic mania with secondary dementia. There is a 
large goitre involving the isthmus and right lobe of the thyroid which 
has existed since childhood. (She is now 62.) 

Family history. —One sister had goitre, and was also mentally 
deficient and died of diabetes. Another sister had goitre. 

Case 19.—Ait. 33. Admitted November 7th, 1917. 

Family history. —One sister has a larger goitre. Maternal aunt 
(Case 17) goitrous. Mother died in an asylum. 

Patient has a goitre of the shape and size of half a hen’s egg, the 
long axis almost vertical, involving right lobe and isthmus. 

She is suffering from melancholic stupor. There is a history of coitus 
interruptus. 

Case i.— JE t. 43. Single. Admitted August nth, 1917. 

Family history. —Father, paternal grandfather, one brother and one 
sister goitrous. There is also a history of neuroses in family. 

Previous history. —Since the commencement of menstruation (ret. 17) 
she has made repeated attempts to earn a living by teaching, etc. • 
These endeavours invariably sooner or later led to a physical and 
nervous breakdown, with the following symptoms : “ Violent throbbings 
in the neck and stomach,” retching, vomiting, and dizziness, all accen¬ 
tuated by exertion. She was at the same time troubled with insomnia, 
was depressed and apprehensive. Six weeks previous to admission she 
developed delusions of hypnotic influence. An attempt to take her life 
by drowning resulted in certification. 

State on admission: Physical. —Above average height; fairly 
nourished ; fairly large goitre of the middle and right lobes. Heart, 
systolic murmur at apex; palpitation at times ; slight exophthalmos. 

Mental. —She was suffering from melancholia of the anxious type ; 
emotional and agitated; delusion that she was hypnotised by an 
atheist; that in consequence she was possessed of the devil, her soul 
lost, and she was unworthy to live; auditory hallucinations ; insomnia 
troublesome. 

Later she became stuporose. 

December 18th, 1917: Taken out by her father. 

January 1st, 1918 : Returned to tins hospital in much the same 
state, physically and mentally, as on previous admission. 

Progress of case. —The goitre remained prominent; she complained 
of throbbings in the neck and palpitation at times; easily tired. She 
was anxious and apprehensive, and dreaded the thought that the 
restlessness and insomnia might return ; fleeting delusions. 

A change to our sea-side home in the summer had a beneficial 
effect. She became more sociable and did some useful household 
work. 


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242 GOITRE AND THE PSYCHOSES, [Oct., 

December 3rd, 1918: She improved sufficiently to return home, 
and she has maintained her improvement for six months. 

Case 6 is a typical case of “ folie circulaire ” of many years standing. 
Periods of depression are followed by periods of exaltation and rest¬ 
lessness, which in turn give place to intervals of comparative lucidity. 

There is a goitre about the size of a walnut involving the thyroid 
isthmus. 

Heredity .—Two brothers insane. 

Case 20.— ALt. 59. Admitted December 17th, 1917. 

Family history. —Father, paternal aunt, and sister all had goitre. 
Husband developed goitre shortly after his wife’s admission to this 
hospital. 

Previous history —She had had frequent attacks of depression, 
alternating with periods of mania, when she quite lost control of 
herself. 

State on admission: Physical .—Goitre about the size of a small 
tangerine orange chiefly affecting the isthmus, but right lobe also 
involved. Pulse 98; heart irregular at times; systolic blood-pressure 
138. 

Mental .—Periods of excitement, when she was noisy, restless, impul¬ 
sive, and violent, alternating with periods of depression, apprehension, 
and delusions of unworthiness and of culpability—she believed she 
would have to suffer torment and be killed. Under the influence of 
these ideas she had an uncontrollable impulse to scream loudly. 

July nth, 1918: She was discharged recovered after a visit to 
the sea. 

It seems probable that the variety in the psychic syndromes which 
occurs in the recurrent, alternating, and circular types of insanity may 
be brought about by changes taking place in the enlarged thyroid gland, 
resulting in the association in the same subject of hyper- and hypo¬ 
thyroidism. 

It may be convenient at this stage to compare the psychic syndrome 
of typical hyperthyroidism as seen in Graves’ disease with the mental 
symptoms of typical hypothyroidism as seen in the myxcedema of 
adults. The acceleration of the mental processes in the former is in 
marked contrast with the retardation which obtains in the latter. 

Perception is impaired in Graves’ disease, and hallucinations are 
frequent. 

Memory is impaired both in myxcedema and in Graves’ disease. 

Attention is difficult to obtain in myxcedema, whereas it is easy to 
obtain but difficult to fix in Graves’ disease. 

Association of ideas is very slow in myxcedema, whilst it is rapid in 
Graves’ disease owing to the distractibility of attention. 

Emotions.— The myxcedematous is dull and indifferent. In Graves’ 
disease there is instability, irritability, and extreme irascibility. 

Capacity for mental work is much impaired in myxcedema as a result 
of apathy and indifference. In Graves’ disease the distractibility of 


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attention prevents concentration and perseverance—qualities which are 
essential to the performance of mental work. 

The reactions are rapid in Graves’ disease, whilst in myxoedema they 
are sluggish. 

Sleep. —In myxoedema there is somnolence. In Graves’ disease 
there is insomnia. 

Case 12.— ALt. 33. Dementia prsecox. Admitted January, 1904. 

Previous history. —She had been weak-minded for years. 

On admission she was dull and listless, unoccupied and untidy. 

Progress. —On one occasion she expressed her intention to commit 
suicide, but never attempted to do so. Occasionally she would mutter 
to herself. At times she was restless. The mental processes have 
gradually deteriorated. 

Physical state. —There is a goitre affecting both lateral lobes of the 
thyroid—more marked on the left side. She has many of the stigmata 
of hypothyroidism— e.g., stature small with poor development of the 
limbs, teeth deficient and defective, eyelashes scarce and blepharitis, 
disappearance of the outer third of eyebrows, shivering fits, tempera¬ 
ture subnormal, cold extremities with cyanosis and chilblains, pulse 
small, 76, oedema of feet, easily fatigued. There is marked icthyosis, 
the skin over the whole of the body being dry, with copious shedding 
of epidermic scales daily from the face and feet. 

Mental state. —Expression vacant, she is listless and apathetic, and 
will sit in one position for hours gazing vacantly on the floor; attention 
is difficult to obtain and to fix; she has no regard for herself, her 
personal appearance, or her future; she is unoccupied, occasionally 
mutters to herself, association is sluggish—she never speaks on her own 
initiative, showing some incoherence and defective memory; movements 
catatonic in type. 

This case is remarkable for the number of signs presented which 
indicate thyroid insufficiency. Several observers have drawn attention 
to the association of icthyosis with this condition. Hertoghe has 
mentioned the occurrence of blepharitis. 

The small stature and poor development of the limbs suggest that 
the trouble began in early adolescence, and this view is supported by 
the history of the case, which shows that the patient had been weak- 
minded for many years previous to admission. 

Confirmation of the subthyroidic origin of the syndrome is furnished 
by the decided amelioration which results from the exhibition of thyroid 
extract in her case. Thus within three weeks of starting the treatment 
the icthyosis and the general physical health had considerably improved, 
and there was also a remarkable change for the better in the mental 
state—the expression became more intelligent; attention was readily 
obtained and held ; association was improved. The patient thanked 
me very much for ordering the tabloids, and said she woke in the 
morning feeling much refreshed and clearer in the head since taking 
them; she implored me to let her go on with the treatment. Besides 


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GOITRE AND THE PSYCHOSES, 


[Oct., 


displaying more initiative in conversation her memory was improved, 
and she recalled without effort various events which had happened in 
the past. 

Case 13.—Dementia praecox, also shows some of the signs of 
subthyroidism, e.g., small stature and poor development, the eyebrows 
are sparse in the outer third (“eyebrow sign”)) eyes deep-set, small 
and lacking in expression, anorexia is a marked symptom. 

Case 15.—Dementia praecox, presents the eyebrow sign, coldness of 
the extremities, and a tendency to chilblains. 

Case 3.—Dementia praecox, shows the eyebrow sign, pulse 60 and 
small. 

It is thus seen that all the four cases of dementia praecox included in 
the above table present, in a greater or less degree, stigmata of thyroid 
insufficiency. 

In order to explain the association of goitre with dementia praecox as 
well as with congenital cases which was so striking in the statistics of 
Brissard and Schranz, it is necessary to consider the facts. 

The thyroid gland not only governs the building up of the cells of the 
organism, including those of the central nervous system, but it also 
regulates their development. 

In consequence of this there is an increased demand for thyroid 
secretion in infancy, early childhood, puberty, and adolescence. Owing, 
however, to the goitrous lesion the thyroid gland is naturally hampered 
in its endeavour to meet this demand. Should the weakened gland give 
way under the strain and its secretion become exhausted, disorganisation 
with auto-intoxication will result. 

Now if this disorganisation occurs in infancy or early childhood it 
may conceivably give rise to imbecility, or even idiocy. On the other 
hand, if it be delayed to adolescence dementia praecox may result. 

I have obtained a family history of goitre in three cases of dementia 
praecox, only one of whom presents some fulness of the neck, the other 
two show no thyroid enlargement at the present time: 

The first is a male whose mother has a large goitre, and a maternal 
cousin has exophthalmic goitre; in the second (male) the father and 
paternal uncle both suffer from goitre with exophthalmos. The third is a 
female whose paternal aunt has exophthalmic goitre. 

In Case 2 (paranoia) the goitre is probably secondary to tuberculous 
disease of the spine with psoas abscess. There are signs pointing to 
hypothyroidism—scarcity of eyebrows, with chilliness and subnormal 
temperature. 

The remaining two cases of paranoia are so suspicious and deluded 
that fuller examination is impracticable at present. 

A study of the foregoing cases emphasises the great importance of 
heredity as an aetiological factor in thyroid abnormalities. 

There are certain points of difference in the results of my observa- 


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1919-] BY NORMAN ROUTH PHILLIPS, M.D. 245 

tions as compared with those of Brissard and Schranz whicli need some 
explanation. 

I have pointed out that the majority (70 per cent.) of my cases were 
manic-depressive or involutional melancholiacs, and a minority (i6‘6 per 
cent.) were cases of dementia praecox. 

On the other hand, Brissard and Schranz both found that the majority 
of their cases belonged to dementia praecox and congenital idiocy 
groups, the number of cases of manic-depressive insanity being com¬ 
paratively small. 

In my opinion, this disparity can be accounted for by the fact that 
sporadic goitre is more often accompanied by hyperthyroidism, and 
that this latter condition plays an important role in the production of 
manic-depressive insanity. 

On the contrary, there is reason to believe that endemic goitre is 
associated with hypo thyroidism, which condition appears to favour the 
onset of congenital idiocy and dementia prrecox. 

The absence of cases of congenital idiocy from the above table is 
due to the fact that such cases are not received into St. Andrew’s 
Hospital. 

AEtiology of goitre .—Before discussing the question of treatment it is 
essential to give a brief description of the aetiology of goitre. 

Heredity is a most important factor, as will be seen by a reference to 
the cases I have described above. In many of these I have found a 
family history not only of goitre but of neuroses or psychoses. 

Persons of an emotional or neurotic temperament are particularly 
prone to develop goitre. 

Women are much more liable to thisjaffection than men. 

There are various circumstances and conditions winch impose an 
extra strain on the thyroid gland, and may determine its enlargement. 
Thus a goitre may develop as a result of emotional states, eg., fear, 
anger, anxiety, etc., prolonged mental or physical stress, hygienic errors, 
deficient or improper food, puberty, menstruation, pregnancy, or sexual 
excess. 

Enlargement of the thyroid gland in young girls has been particu¬ 
larly noticeable during the recent great European war—emotional and 
physical stress and the poorer standard of food probably acting as 
contributory factors. 

Since the beginning of the war attention has been repeatedly drawn 
to the occurrence of goitre accompanied by symptoms of hyper¬ 
thyroidism in men from 20 to 45 years of age. I have met cases of 
this kind who have been diagnosed “ D.A.H.” ! The cause is said to 
be chiefly emotional exhaustion, and in a lesser degree physical 
exhaustion. 

A number of diseases and toxaemias are capable of causing hyper- 


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246 GOITRE AND THE PSYCHOSES, [Oct. 

plasia of the thyroid gland, e.g., rheumatic fever, measles, scarlet fever, 
pyorrhoea, tuberculosis, etc. 

All these toxaemic conditions tend to weaken the secretory value of 
the thyroid gland, and may result in thyroid insufficiency. 

Endemic goitre is supposed to be produced by a chronic toxaemia. 

Pathological examination in the majority of cases of endemic goitre 
shows the thyroid gland to be in a state of colloid or fibrous degenera¬ 
tion which, we have seen, results in hypothyroidism. 

Treatment. 

In the aetiology of the psychoses associated with goitre it is 
important to realise that there are often two factors, a physical and a 
mental. 

In the treatment of these psychoses the physical element should be 
dealt with before any special mental therapy is undertaken. 

Physical treatment .—The importance of an early recognition of the 
somatic signs indicative of hypo- or hyperthyroidism cannot be too 
strongly emphasised. 

Hypothyroidism .—If the physical signs point to this condition 
thyroid therapy should be at once commenced, and the greater the 
number of stigmata present the better the chance of success from this 
remedy. Quite small doses as a rule produce the best therapeutic 
effect. The pulse and weight must be carefully watched, and if any 
sign of hyperthyroidism appear the treatment should be suspended for 
a while. In any case it is well to suspend the drug for a few days 
about every tenth day and always during menstruation. 

The treatment may have to be continued for years, and sometimes 
for a lifetime. 

It is essential in every case of goitre to look for any possible source 
of toxic absorption ; thus attention should be directed to the condition 
of the mouth, the state of the bowels; the diet should be regulated, 
any tubercular focus should be efficiently dealt with. 

Where insufficiency of the other endocrinic glands is suspected 
suitable glandular extracts may be added to the treatment, but not 
before a thorough trial has been made with thyroid therapy alone. 

The results of this treatment are often gratifying, not only from a 
physical point of view, but the mental symptoms may also be much 
ameliorated and cures may result. 

Hyperthyroidism .—Although an extraordinary number of drugs have 
been tried in this condition, not one can lay claim to having a specific 
action. It should be mentioned, however, that calcium lactate (gr. 10 
three times a day) has been used with some success, both in Graves’ 
disease as well as in states of excitement. 


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BY NORMAN ROUTII PHILLIPS, M.D. 


247 


Organotherapy has been employed, but hitherto without success ; 
it would seem that our knowledge of the complicated interactions 
between the varions endocrinic glands is as yet but imperfectly 
understood. 

X-rays, surgical operations, and various other physical agents have 
their advocates, but in many cases they are not only useless but 
positively harmful. 

Mental treatment .—Psychotherapy has recently been recommended 
in cases of Graves’ disease, and there are three reasons which would 
seem to justify its employment in all cases of hyperthyroidism, viz.: 

(1) The undoubted importance of the mental element (whether this 
be primary or secondary) in the aetiology of these cases. 

(2) The predominance of nervous and mental symptoms in exoph¬ 
thalmic goitre. 

(3) The failure of all other therapeutic measures (drugs and physical 
agents) to deal effectively with these cases. 

Moreover, psychotherapy might usefully be employed in those cases 
of hypothyroidism in which thyroid treatment has proved inadequate in 
the removal of the mental symptoms. 

There are two methods of applying psychotherapy, viz. (a) suggestion, 
and (b) the exploration of underlying mental conditions. 

Psychotherapy has already been used with some success in certain 
cases of dementia praecox, of paranoia, and- of manic-depressive 
insanity. 

In the other psychoses this method of treatment is still in the 
embryonic stage, but, if one may judge by the progress made in the past, 
there is every reason to look forward to still further extensions of its 
applicability. 

Summary. 

(1) We have seen the frequency with which goitre is associated 
with the psychoses—in a mental hospital receiving no cases of idiocy, 
one patient in every eight having some thyroid enlargement. 

(2) As to the mechanism of this association we have seen that (a), 
goitre is, at some time in the patient’s history, accompanied by a 
condition of hypo- or hyperthyroidism, and that (b) either of these 
conditions is capable of inducing a state of auto-intoxication with 
mental symptoms. 

(3) My series of cases show that the nature of the psychosis is, in 
some degree, determined by the form of the functional disturbance of 
the thyroid gland, e. g., hyperthyroidism is usually associated with states 
of excitement, agitation, etc. ( e.g ., manic-depressive insanity), whereas 
hypothyroidism is more often associated with states of apathy and 
indifference (e.g., dementia praecox). 


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248 GOITRE AND THE PSYCHOSES. [Oct., 

(4) The treatment of the psychoses associated with goitre depends 
to some extent on the nature of the functional disturbance of the 
thyroid gland. If the signs point to hypothyroidism treatment by 
thyroid extract should be instituted. If hyperthyroidism is present the 
treatment should be directed to the removal of the mental element, 
which is now admitted to be of great importance in the setiology of this 
condition. The only satisfactory method of accomplishing this is by 
the employment of psychotherapy. 

My thanks are due to Dr. D. F. Rambaut, Medical Superintendent 
of St. Andrew’s Hospital, for permission to publish the above cases, and 
for valuable suggestions; also to Professor Weber, Meddcin Directeur 
of the Bel Air Asylum, Geneva, for the kind interest he has taken in 
my essay. 


References. 

(1) Brissard.—-Zrt frequence de goitre chez les alients, 1907. 

(2) Farrant.— Brit. Med. Journ., February 28th, 1914; ibid., July 
18th, 1914. 

(3) Graves, T. C.— Jourti. Merit. Sci., April 19th, 1919. 

(4) Hernaman-Johnson.— Practitioner , July 1917. 

(5) Hertoghe.— Ibid., January, 1915. 

(6) Hyslop.— Ibid., February, 1915. 

(7) Johnson, W.— Brit. Med. Journ., March 12th, 1919. 

(8) Leopold-Levi.— Practitioner, February, 1915. 

(9) Lugaro, E.— Modern Problems in Psychiatry. 

(10) McCarrison.— Practitioner, January, 1915. 

(n) Marzocchi e Antonini.— Annali di Neurologica, fasc. 4-6, 1893, 
p. 546. 

(12) Medical Annual, 1918, pp. 144, 225. 

(13) Parhon.— L' Encephale, 1913, Nos. 8-1 r. 

(14) Rogers, J.— Ann. Surg., vol. ii, 1914, p. 281. 

(15) Williams, Leonard.— Practitioner, January, 1915. 

(16) Shaw, Batty.— Organotherapy , 1905. 

(17) Wilson, L. B.—Journ. Amer. Med. Assoc., vol. i, 1914, p. in. 


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19 1 9 -] CEREBRO-SPINAL FLUID IN MENTAL DISEASE. 249 


On the Cytology of the Cerebrospinal Fluid in Mental Disease. 
By G. L. Brunton, M.D.Edin., Senior Assistant Medical Officer, 
North Riding County Asylum, York ; late Neurologist to Third 
Army. 

Introduction. 

The fluid obtained by the easy and now frequent procedure of 
lumbar puncture affords, when subjected to simple tests, valuable aid 
in the diagnosis of mental disease. 

These simple tests served the purpose of the clinician whose main 
object was to make a rapid diagnosis, yet it was felt that improvements 
in method and technique were desirable so that advance could be made 
in the field of cell differentiation. 

Advance was rendered possible by the introduction by Alzheimer (1) 
of a method whereby the cerebro-spinal fluid could be treated along the 
lines employed in the histopathology of the central nervous system. 

This method has been adopted on the Continent and in America, 
but as far as I am aware there have been only two papers published in 
this country—one by the American authors, Cotton and Ayer (2), and 
one by Henderson and Muirhead (3). By means of it the various 
types of cells are fixed and stained in a manner essentially similar to 
those of the tissues. The types of cells present in the fluid and the 
brain can be compared in a way that has never hitherto been possible. 
In this method the cells are fixed by adding 96 per cent, alcohol to the 
cerebrospinal fluid, which precipitates the proteid, and by centri- 
fugalisation are drawn down with the proteid in the form of a coagulum 
to the bottom of the tube. 

Alzheimer’s technique has been followed in this research, and this 
paper incorporates the results from an examination of the cerebro-spinal 
fluid in 100 cases of mental disease. 

In detail the method of Alzheimer as used is as follows : 

(x) Lumbar puncture in the usual manner. 

(2) Ninety-six per cent, alcohol is added drop by drop and well 
mixed—10 c.c. alcohol to 5 c.c. cerebro-spinal fluid. 

(3) Centrifuge the mixture for half an hour at a high speed in a glass 
tube with a conical end. Tube well stoppered to avoid evaporation. 

(4) The supernatant fluid is poured off, leaving a small coagulum in 
the bottom of the tube. 

(5) Add absolute alcohol—alcohol and ether—each separately for 
one hour to dehydrate and harden coagulum. 

(6) The coagulum is removed from the bottom of the tube by 
tapping and allowed to drop into thin celloidin, where it remains for 
twelve hours. 


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2 50 CEREBRO-SPINAL FLUID IN MENTAL DISEASE, [Oct., 

(7) Coagulum placed in thick celloidin for twelve hours. 

(8) Mounted on blocks, hardened in chloroform for half an hour, 
and cut at 8 /1 on a Jung microtome. 

(9) Section stained. 

Procedure. 

(1) Sections placed in absolute alcohol for a minute and spread out 
on a cover-glass ; as many as eight sections can be accommodated on 
one cover-glass. 

(2) Ether vapour is poured over the cover-glass; by this means the 
celloidin is removed and the section is fixed to the cover-glass. 

(3) Section is hardened by placing in methylated spirit. 

(4) Place section in water. 

(5) Stain as follows : Pappenheim’s pyronin-methyl green (Griibler). 
The sections are placed in this stain for five to seven minutes in an 
incubator kept at 37 0 C. The sections are then washed in water, 
differentiated in absolute alcohol, cleared in Bergamot oil and mounted 
in balsam. 

Other stains used were Unna’s polychrome blue, Nissl’s methylene 
blue and toluidin blue. 

The pyronin-methyl green gives excellent nuclear pictures, a slight 
pink tint to the protoplasm in most cells, and is considered specific for 
plasma-cells. 

The fluid must be centrifugalised long enough to give a firm coagulum, 
yet not too long, otherwise the cells are driven to the apex of the 
coagulum. I found by experiment that to have the cells evenly dis¬ 
tributed throughout the coagulum centrifugalisation for half an hour at 
2,000 revolutions per minute proved satisfactory. 

The central portion of the coagulum was cut in vertical sections 

Differentiation of Cells. 

Hitherto the diagnosis of general paralysis by the examination of the 
cells of the cerebro-spinal fluid has depended entirely on the enumeration 
of those cells, and the determination of whether a lymphocytosis is 
present or not. Recently, however, it has come to be recognised that 
a study of the various types of cell is of equal importance. 

It was generally recognised that the presence of plasma-cells was as 
characteristic of general paralysis as a lymphocytosis, but this type of 
cell is common in many chronic inflammations. That plasma-cells 
occur in the cerebral cortex and pia mater in general paralysis is a well- 
known fact, but until Alzheimer’s method had been introduced they 
had never been found in the cerebro spinal fluid. Indeed, Nissl was 
led to doubt the pial origin of any of the cerebro-spinal cells because 


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BY G. L. BRUNTON, M.D. 


1919 .] 


251 


of the absence of these in the fluid in cases which showed abundance 
of them in the pia and cerebral cortex. 

The description of the cell-types closely follows that of Cotton and 
Ayer, as the appearances in my sections have been in agreement with 
their findings in fluid withdrawn during life. 

In the normal cerebro-spinal fluid one has practically only one type 
of cell to consider, namely, the lymphocyte. 

It is doubtful whether the polymorphonuclear leucocyte can enter 
the fluid during health, and its presence always indicates the existence 
of some irritative process. As a rule this is acute, and the condition 
in which the greatest polymorphonuclear leucocytosis occurs is acute 
suppurative meningitis. This cell is, however, also found in the chronic 
inflammatory conditions, of which the best example is general paralysis. 

In general paralysis and tabes dorsalis several other varieties of cells 
occur, and in these diseases the cells were sufficiently numerous for a 
fair differential count to be made. A differential count was made in 
cases in which at least 200 cells could be distinguished. In some 
cases this necessitated a search through six to eight sections. The 
percentage cell-counts will be found in Table I. In conditions in 
which the cells were too scarce for differential purposes the existence 
of each type of cell encountered has been denoted in Table II. 

The following is a brief description of the various types of cells : 

Lymphocytes. 

Lymphocytes are found in all fluids, but apart from fluids of 
parasyphilitic conditions they occur in very small numbers. 

The nucleus is small and round, sometimes oval and slightly indented, 
and contains as a rule a single, bright red nucleolus. The chromo- 
philic granules lie round the periphery, giving a clock-face appearance, 
and take on a deep, blue-green stain with Pappenheim’s stain. 

The protoplasm is found as a thin line round the nucleus, stains a 
faint pink, and it is usually a little wider on the indented side of the 
nucleus. 

Lymphocytes show altered and transitional forms. The nucleus is 
similar, but there is an increase in the protoplasm. Occasionally the 
nucleus takes on a deeper stain. Another type of lymphocyte, classed 
as the large, is one in which the nucleus, with its granules, is much 
increased in size, and has a thin ring of protoplasm around it. 

In general paralysis the differential count shows that the lymphocytes 
are the principal cells increased, varying from 39 to 78 per cent., the 
transitional forms ranging from 2 to 19 per cent. Including all types of 
lymphocytes together in one class the average in general paralysis is 
71 per cent. The total cell-count in general paralysis averages from 
458 to 100 fields. 

LXV. 1 8 


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252 CEREBRO-SPINAL FLUID IN MENTAL DISEASE, [Oct., 


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Polymorphonuclear Leucocytes. 

Polymorphonuclear leucocytes were present in 15 out of the 17 cases 
of general paralysis, and in only 6 of the remaining cases of insanity. 

Case 12 is worthy of note, as the leucocyte count reached the high 
figure of 29 per cent. Blood contamination could be fairly excluded in 
the cases both by the clearness of the centrifuge deposit, and the absence 
of red blood-corpuscles in the Widal film from the same fluid as the 
Alzheimer. Further, the withdrawal of the fluid had no relation in 
point of time with any seizure or expected seizure, or change in the 
patient’s physical or mental state. 

With the pyronin-methyl green stain the nuclei only are stained, no 
protoplasm is visible, and the cells are distinctive. 

Plasma-Cells. 

These cells are comparable to that of a lymphocyte with its proto¬ 
plasm greatly increased in amount. 

The nucleus is about the size of that of a lymphocyte, but the chromatin 
granules are more distinct, take on a deeper blue-green stain, and there 
is a bright red nucleolus. The protoplasm is two or three times the 
size of the nucleus, takes on a deep red pyronin stain, and occasionally 
has a lighter area round the nucleus. The nucleus is always placed 
eccentrically in this deep-red protoplasm. Double nuclei are not 
uncommon. The protoplasm is of oval outline, and in only a few cells 
could the protoplasm be described as polygonal. This description 
corresponds with the plasma-cells as originally described by Waldeyer 
and Unna (4). In well-stained sections the plasma-cells are distinctive 
and of easy differentiation. 

Plasma-cells were found in 16 out of 17 cases of general 
paralysis, the average being 2 per cent., in 2 cases of tabes dorsalis, the 
average being 2 per cent., and in 1 case of a congenital syphilitic 
idiot boy. 


Endothelial Cells. 

These cells were always present in my series of cases. They vary 
considerably in size and shape, and are the largest cells found in the 
fluid. 

The nucleus is, as a rule, kidney-shaped, sometimes oval, and is 
usually lying at the periphery of the cell. 

The nucleus stains a faint blue-green with pyronin-methyl green 
stain, contains few chromatin granules, and has from one to three bright 
red nucleoli. The protoplasm stains a faint pink, and shows marked 
variation in amount even in the same fluid. 


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BV G. L. BRUNTON, M.D. 


253 


There is a distinct form of endothelial cell, designated as “Gitter” 
cell by Rehm (7), in which the protoplasm presents a fenestrated or 
latticed appearance. These clear areas suggest that these cells are of a 
phagocytic character. These latticed cells were found in 15 out of 
22 cases of general paralysis, in 3 cases of epilepsy, in 2 cases of 
melancholia, and in one case each of the following : tabes dorsalis, 
imbecility and idiocy. 

The average endothelial cell-count in general paralysis was 22 per 
cent ., and showed little variation from the average, the highest counts 
being 43 and 39 per cent, in 2 gereral paralytics who were in a dying 
condition. 


Phagocytes. 

The most distinctive phagocytic cell encountered was an endothelial 
cell which had engulfed a lymphocyte. 

The endothelial nucleus was horse-shoe-shaped and devoid of 
chromatin and stained a pale blue. 

The lymphocyte nucleus was sharp and the chromatin elements 
deeply stained a dark blue-green. 

The endothelial nucleus occupied one segment at the border of the 
cell and the lymphocyte nucleus occupied a central position. 

The protoplasm of the cell was faintly stained pink except the area 
round the lymphocyte, which was quite colourless. 

This type of phagocyte was found in three of the seventeen cases of 
general paralysis, but as a rule only nuclear remnants were present in 
the protoplasm. 

A second type of phagocytic endothelial cell was found in compara¬ 
tively large numbers (9 per cent.) in the fluid of case No. 5. At the 
time of withdrawal the fluid was found tobe tinged yellowish-red, and 
the colour remained even after centrifuging, thus proving that the 
colour was due to blood originally present in the fluid, and not to con¬ 
tamination at the time of puncture. Further, no red blood-corpuscles 
.were found in the Widal film. 

The cells were endothelial in type, as they contained"eccentric oval 
nuclei, and a large amount of protoplasm. In the protoplasm could be 
seen fine yellowish granules occupying the greater part of the cell 
protoplasm, and ihese were considered to be composed of altered blood- 
pigment. 

The clinical history of the case is of interest. The man was an 
excited general paralytic, who had a slight seizure on February 26th, 
1913, followed by a severe seizure on March 2nd, which left him with a 
right-sided hemiplegia. Lumbar puncture was performed on March 
nth. The patient died on March 17th, and the post-mortem examination 
revealed an extensive meningeal haemorrhage over the left motor area. 


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254 CEREBRO-SPINAL FLUID IN MENTAL DISEASE, [Oct., 


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It can fairly be considered, therefore, that the endothelial cells of the 
cerebro-spinal fluid were acting as phagocytes for the blood-pigment 
derived from the haemorrhage. 

Mitotic Cells. 

Only two cells showing mitotic figures were encountered, and these 
were found in sections of two different general paralytic fluids. Both 
cells showed well-marked mitotic figures, and one appeared to be 
undergoing subdivision. 

Unclassified Cells. 

This class has been necessary, as there are a few cells that could not 
be included among the types above-mentioned. 

The Fibroblast. 

This cell is distinguished by its spindle-shaped nucleus, which contains 
faintly stained chromatin filaments, and has apparently only a small 
amount of protoplasm at the poles of the cell. 

The Polyblast. 

This cell has been described by Wickman (5) and by McIntosh and 
Turnbull (6) as occurring in the infiltration of the meninges in polio¬ 
myelitis, and has not been described, so far as I am aware, as occurring 
in the cerebro-spinal fluid. 

The cell occupies on an average an area equal to that of three red 
corpuscles, is round in shape, and the nucleus closely resembles that of 
a polymorphonuclear leucocyte. The nucleus is stained darkly with 
pyronin methyl-green, with a paler area in the centre which may show a 
red nucleolus. The protoplasm takes on a fairly red tint with a pinker 
stain round the nucleus—thus it is distinguished from the polymorpho¬ 
nuclear leucocyte. An occasional cell was found in general paralysis 
(9 out of 17 cases), in two cases of tabes dorsalis, in one case of 
dementia praecox, idiocy, and neurasthenia. 

Discussion of Cytology. 

The main features of interest have already been mentioned under the 
cell types. 

Plasma-cells, phagocytes, and lattice-cells call for a brief discussion. 

Plasma cells were present with one exception in all the general para¬ 
lytic fluids. The exception was that of a slightly demented patient in 
whom the disease was slowly progressing. 

My findings in tabes dorsalis agree with those of Henderson and 
Muirhead, who found plasma-cells present in two out of three cases of 
this disease. I also found these cells present in the fluid of a con¬ 
genital syphilitic idiot, but in no other form of insanity. 


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Table I .—Shosuing the Analysis of the Cells in thirty cases. 


1919.] 


255 


BV G. L. BRUNTON, M.D. 


*2 
• • 

D 

50 1 

1 1 

I^- 

-?l 

. JO JO vo JO JO VO , 

1 CO * « ** d ' CO 1 

IIM 

-III 

- 1 

Phago¬ 

cyte. 

1 1 

50 1 

o\~ 1 

1 1 1 

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 

Mil 

II ^l 

1 1 

* 4 . 

0 0 

B. g 


10 JO 

ci d 

1 5 ° 1 ° 

1 *■« 

JO 

~ ‘ vo 

1 10 | vo to | 

1 OS co *- vo 1 Cl 1 - 

w Cl 

IMI 

II II 

1 1 

Plasma. 

vo - 

i?l 

JO 

~ CI ~ 

vo 

Cl 

JO JO JO JO JO 1 

« ~ d co Vt- co ci ~ co 1 

II II 

■M 1 l 

1 1 

Endo¬ 

thelial. 

»o 

X 

Cl 

10 

On 

*- Cl 

Ov Ov •-« 
co -* ci 

10 vo vo vo 10 vo vo 

1/0 n in K a n n co K o « covo 

- MHHCO^TtMClCOCO^ 

~ O ►- X 
Cl ^-vo 

JO 

-NON 
vo rf »*VO 

Cx 

d « 

Large 

lympho¬ 

cyte. 

to 10 

S" 

JO 

CnX 

Cl 

yo JO 

« V* U 

jo JO 
d b ~ 

JO JO j 

*t x O vo CN. Cl I Cl vo O 

JO JO 

vo CO ^x K 0 o\ 

?l 

Transi¬ 

tional. 

JO 

co b 

OS ^ 

, VO VO 

1 b ci 

vb j~ 1 

JO JO JO _ | 

Cl X Vi- Cvoo vo Os -<* d 1 

1 y° ‘o 

1 co ci vo vo b Os 0 

Hi 

*4 

Small 

lympho¬ 

cyte. 

10 
vo b 
co VO 

>C 5 ? 

vo vo 

O Os Cl 
vo vo Cx 

iO vo uovovovoto vo 

COOO vo Tj- CO Cl b\ ~ CO b ■’T co Tf vo O d 

CxVO N ts M CO vo CO CxVO VO CO Cx vo vo d 

vo 

CO Tt b Os Os 

Cl co CO •- VOX 


O • 
X o * 
22 — "O 

w c-c 


rj- o VO VO rt o ~ 
*-0*1* t^vo Tf- PI 
Tf -*r « vo cs co ci 


o ^ o O X 
X Osvo CO ~ 


- __. 0 \V 5 V)H fl O 

, _ _ tr-'OOO (?> 10 vo CO vo — CO Cl CO CO Ov 

10 Os ttx -t ^ t\ ei n pi co - ^ ci ~ n 


c^ ci ^tvo 0 _c>og p eg o^x p 


n 

V 2 

u 


^ *- "S' rb' 

o « t'O rt 
2 ZZ wf.o « 

^ C/ 3 " 0 


o 

c 

-t. 


& 


o 

2 


»o w • 

V) ++ >< J 3 

'53 •“ - C 8 5 “ M <® 

•S' ..... _ ............. .*«3 _■- „ 5i W >.«’ c 

2.£ i»i^ h ->-3^S 

« O c D. “““ b* o g c J= •£ 

p, -rl f>U— M UC^ c D*:!i/) 

«.S S o 3 « c S 5 

1 | t 

<u H 1 ju o 

O qQ |S 

in' bi 2 2 2 bi bi 2 2 2 u: h 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 bi 2 2 2 t 


n n i- iovo c-~ » (to » s n + >0'0 r-.oo o\ o - ti n’t •ej'O t^oo <J\ o 


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256 CEREBROSPINAL FLUID IN MENTAL DISEASE, [Oct. 


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Table II .—Indicating that Cells were present in the following Thirty-five 
Conditions , but in such small number that Percentages were valueless. 


| No. 

Sex. 

Diagnosis. 

Fluid. 

Cells 
per 100 

fields. 

Lym¬ 

phocyte 

Endo¬ 

thelial. 

Plasma. 

1 

Poly- 

morph. 

3 * 

F. 

General paralysis 

Clear 

_ 

X 


X 


32 

M. 

>1 if 


— 

* 

X 

X 

X 

33 

M. 

11 11 

II 

— 

* 

X 

X 

— 

34 

F. 

11 11 

II 

— 

X 

X 

X 

X 

35 

F. 

1 

11 11 11 

— 

X 

X 

X 

— 

36 

M. 

Mania, mono- „ 

_ 

X 

X 


— 

37 

F. 

,, recurrent 


— 

X 

X 


— 

38 

M. 

II II 

„ 

10 

* 

X 

— 

— 

39 

M. 

„ chronic 


8l 

X 

X 

— 

— 

40 

F. 

»» >1 


64 

X 

X 

— 

— 

4 « 

F. 

„ puerperal 


13 

X 

_ 

— 

— 

42 

M. 

senile 

Melancholia 



X 

X 

— 

— 

43 

F. 


32 

X 

X 

— 

— 

44 

M. 

»» 


4 

X 

X 

— 

— 

45 

M. 

II 


30 

X 

X 

— 

— 

46 

F. 

II 


20 

X 

X 


— 

47 

F. 

II 



X 

X 


— 

48 

M. 

IP 

l» 

56 

X 

X 

— 

— 

49 

M. 

II 


3<5 

X 

X 

— 

— 

50 

M. 

Epilepsy 


120 

X 

X 


— 

5 i 

F. 

II 

Slightly 

bloody 

105 

X 

X 


X 

52 

F. 

II 

Clear 

— 

X 

X 



53 

M. 

li II 

25 

X 

X 

— 

— 

54 

F. 

II 

Delusional insanity 

II 

28 

x 

X 

— 

— 

55 

M. 

II 

26 

X 

X 

— 

— 

! 56 

F. 

11 n J 11 

21 

X 

X 

— 

— • 

57 

F. 

Dementia prrecox „ 

36 

v 

x 

X 


— 

58 

F. 

II II II 

74 

X 

X 


— 

59 

F. 

II II 1 II 

— 

X 

X 

— 

— 

60 

F. 

II II 

Imbecility 

.. 2 

X 

— 

— 

— 

6l 

F. 

«4 

X 

X 

— 


62 

M. 

Dementia 1 ,, 

6l 

X 

X 

— 

— 

63 

M. 

1 

II II 

29 

X 

X 

— 

— 

64 

M. 

II II 

72 

X 

X 

— 

— 

i 65 

F. 

II | II 

1 

10 

X 





Plasma-cells cannot, therefore, be considered pathognomonic of 
general paralysis, but it may be taken that their presence in a case of 
mental disease is strong evidence of a parasyphilitic lesion. 

Phagocytic cells were only found in four cases, namely, three of 
general paralysis, and one of paranoia (No 27). This latter case is a 
querulant, impulsive patient, who so far has exhibited no signs of general 
paralysis. The cerebro-spinal fluid showed no protein increase, but the 
glycyl-tryptophane test was positive. A moderate lymphocytosis, the 
indication of a ferment, and the presence of phagocytic cells in the fluid 
of this case are at least suggestive of some irritative cause. 


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19 19-] by g. l. brunton, m.d. 257 

Lattice cells: Cotton and Ayer describe, under the name of 
“ Komchen,” a type of phagocyte cell filled with numerous fat-droplets 
or fatty pigment, which they only found in ventricular fluids. Hender¬ 
son and Muirhead consider these cells to be an early stage of the lattice, 
and I am inclined to agree with their suggestion. 

All endothelial cells, which appear to have a granular or vacuolated 
protoplasm are included under the one class—lattice. 

As before mentioned, these cells were found in a number of con¬ 
ditions, and I cannot substantiate the view taken by Henderson and 
Muirhead, who considered that the absence of lattice cells in their cases 
of tabes dorsalis might be a point of value in the differential diagnosis 
between general paralysis and tabes. 


Conclusions. 

Examination of the cerebro-spinal fluid is of great importance and a 
valuable aid in the diagnosis of mental disease. 

Alzheimer’s method is the best for the cytological examination of 
the cerebro-spinal fluid : cells can be differentiated in a way never 
hitherto possible, and a fair quantitative count can be made. 

The cells of the greatest diagnostic importance are the plasma-cell, 
the phagocytic and endothelial cell, and the lymphocyte in excess. 

A high cell-count with an excess of lymphocytes together with the 
presence of plasma-cells is strong evidence of parasyphilitic lesion. 

Rest in bed after lumbar puncture is desirable to avert the after¬ 
effects. 


References. 

(1) Alzheimer.— Centrakblatt f. Nervenlieill. u. Psych ., June 15th, 
1907. 

(2) Cotton and Ayer.—“The Cytological Study of the Cerebro-spinal 
fluid by Alzheimer’s Method, and its Diagnostic Value in Psychiatry,” 
Rev. of Neur. and Psych., vol. vi, 1907. 

(3) Henderson and Muirhead.—“ The Differentiation of Cells in the 
Cerebro-spinal Fluid by Alzheimer’s Method,” Rev. of Neur. and 
Psych., vol. xi, April, 1913. 

(4) Walldeyer and Unna.—“ On the Plasma Cell.” See Councilman, 
Journ. of Exper. Med., vol. i, 1897. 

(5) VVickman.— Die Akute Poliomyelitis, Berlin, 1911, Springer. 

(6) McIntosh and Turnbull.—“ Transmission to Monkeys of a Virus 
obtained from English Cases of Poliomyelitis,” Lancet , February 22nd, 
*9i3- 

(7) Rehm.— Munch, med. IVoch., August 4th, 1908, p. 1636. 


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258 


CLINICAL NOTES AND CASES. 


[Oct., 


Clinical Notes and Cases. 


Notes on a Case Treated by Hypnotic Suggestion .( 1 ) By 
G. Rutherford Jeffrey, M.D., F.R.C.P.E., F.R.S.E. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen, —You will, I know, agree with me 
that there is no doctor who has not frequently been at a loss to know 
what treatment to adopt in a case which, although apparently simple 
and straightforward, continued to show no signs of improvement, and 
when we are dealing with mental cases this is, I think, especially notice¬ 
able. But, after all, we must admit that the means at our disposal for the 
treatment of mental diseases are very inadequate—differing widely from 
many medical and surgical conditions in which the only and proper 
treatment is invariably followed by recovery. In most mental diseases I 
am afraid we must acknowledge that there is still no specific treatment 
guaranteed to cure any given case : recoveries frequently occur when 
least we expect them, cases which we deem recoverable frequently 
disappoint us. 

I feel justified, therefore, in bringing the following case to your 
notice as illustrating a method of treatment which, at least, should not 
be lost sight of in dealing with cases which are presumably, shall I say, 
hopelessly mental, and in connection with this case I am raising the 
question of treatment by hypnosis and suggestion. 

This form of treatment is at present giving rise to much discussion. 
We all know, I think, how much suggestion, with or without hypnosis, 
has been used during the recent war, when dealing with cases of shell¬ 
shock, neurasthenia, hysteria, and cases showing a variety of symptoms 
common to each of these conditions. Hypnosis has been used in order 
to produce sleep; I have seen it used, and have used it myself with 
excellent results. Along with suggestion it has been used to cure 
many conditions, and by making the patient, as it were, live through 
his experience again, and thereby reinstating the emotion of fear, 
mutism, amnesias, stammering, tremors and hysterical contractures 
have been successfully cured. 

Quite recently, in the British Medical Journal (’), there appeared a 
short and interesting article on “Hypnosis, Suggestion, and Dissocia¬ 
tion,” by Dr. William Brown, and with that writer we will, I think, 
agree when he says that the one satisfactory method of treating the 
various forms of functional nervous disorders is that of mental analysis and 
re-education, and he suggests the term “autognosis” or self-knowledge, 
which embraces the two conceptions of analysis and re-education, and 
is better than the term “psycho-analysis.” Dr. Brown goes on to point 


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259 


I9I9O 

out that suggestion with hypnosis is undesirable for the reason that it 
treats the symptoms and not the cause, and that the patient is passive 
and abnormally suggestible. 

I think it is difficult, however, to draw a sharp distinguishing line 
between the cause and the symptoms. By mental analysis we may get at 
the root of the illness, and perhaps find out the cause of the symptoms, 
and then by re-education the symptoms may be, as it were, made to 
disappear. 

Whilst this is true, it is equally true that if persistent and distressing 
symptoms can be made to disappear the normal cerebral mechanism 
has a chance of re-establishing itself, and the person, cured from his 
illness, may then return to what was his normal. What I mean to 
suggest is that it is not always , in my opinion, necessary before a recovery 
can be obtained to probe into the hidden depths of a person’s life and 
try to find a “ flaw,” or attempt to correlate some circumstance in a 
person’s past life-history with present symptoms. There are some who 
are not contented until they find, or imagine they have found, some 
circumstance in connection with a person’s sexual life, but with these 
observers I cannot agree. I willingly admit that the sexual influence 
as part of one’s life—for, after all, it is an instinct, mysterious, of great 
importance, but often latent—is of considerable importance, but I fail 
to see why what is a perfectly normal part of one’s, so to speak, 
“ make up,” should be blamed, as it so often is, for producing all kinds 
of mental states and symptoms. 

When we have to deal with an apparently chronic mental case, or at 
least with one which has for many months shown marked mental 
symptoms, such a method as treatment by hypnosis with suggestion 
would, at first sight, appear to offer no hopeful chance of recovery. 
The following case, however, shows that even a long-standing case 
can be successfully dealt with, and the result obtained even from this 
one case certainly justifies the opinion that treatment by this method is 
always worth consideration. 

The case which I bring to your notice is that of a young lady, set. 20, 
who came as a voluntary boarder to Bootham Park Hospital. Her 
hereditary history is unimportant. Up to the commencement of her 
illness she was in every way normal mentally, although she was of a 
keen, sensitive, artistic, and highly-strung nature. 

About eighteen months before the onset of her illnesss she was treated 
for a severe attack of anaemia, and, although she made a good 
recovery, she was left in a rather reduced state of health. 

As in the case of most people, the war had made a marked impression 
upon her, not only on account of her fiance’s unknown fate—for he was 
a prisoner of war—but also on account of the terrible sufferings to 
which our men were exposed, and, as her mother said, the appalling 


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CLINICAL NOTES AND CASES. 


[Oct., 


bloodshed seemed to “get on her nerves.” In addition to this she 
seems to have thought a great deal about the war from a religious point 
of view, and, like many other people, tried to find out from Biblical 
comparisons and references if it in any way portrayed the approaching 
end of the world. 

These thoughts caused her to become dull and rather depressed— 
perhaps quite a natural depression for a person who was so much 
affected and so much impressed by all the truly terrible circumstances 
which the war entailed. Suddenly all her symptoms became more 
pronounced, and, from what I think was an almost natural depression, 
she passed into a state of profound apathy, with some confusion, intense 
miser)’, and at times marked emotionalism, a condition which remained 
more or less unchanged up to the time of her admission to Bootham 
Park on April 16th, 1919. Careful investigation of the history in 
connection with the onset of this marked change for the worse in her 
condition revealed the fact that it immediately followed on a dream, 
which was as follows : She dreamt that the sun and moon came into 
collision, and that, as a result, there was poured out over the whole 
world a deluge of blood, in which she, along with others, was to be 
submerged. She awakened in the morning in a state of fear, and felt 
convinced that she was on the brink of some great catastrophe. She 
became confused and dazed, depressed and emotional, and, after 
remaining more or less in this state for a few months, she, of her own 
accord, sought admission to Bootham Park. 

On admission her expression and general demeanour denoted great 
misery. She looked dazed and terrified, readily admitted that she felt 
very ill, but on many points her conversation was quite rational. She 
became very emotional and pleaded with me to make her better, 
saying that she felt as if she was living in a mist and that she fell 
detached from everything. Her misery found its outlet in copious 
weeping, and I was at once struck by the complete absence of any 
of the usual ideas which are so commonly associated with the true 
melancholic state—I mean the self-accusations and the melancholic 
delusions. I felt very strongly—and at that time I had not obtained 
the true history—that there was something to account for her condition, 
and, further, even then she appeared to me to be as if in a “ dream- 
state.” Her physical condition showed nothing abnormal, but she was 
much reduced in health and her cardiac action was somewhat feeble. 
On the evening of the day of her admission I visited her, and endeavoured 
to get into conversation with her and explain her symptoms. She did 
not readily converse with me and did not appear to understand all that 
I was trying to impress upon her. I decided, therefore, to use hypnosis 
as an aid to suggestion, and in the usual way I put her into a condition 
of very light sleep. At first, when I was impressing upon her to try 


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262 


CLINICAL NOTES AND CASES. 


[Oct., 


Notes on Two Cases of Epilepsy in Twins, with Photographs, 
By R. M. Toledo, M.D., Resident Physician Government Lunatic 
Asylum, Malta. 

Special features of interest in two cases of epilepsy in twin sisters 
under care in this asylum induced me to publish these short notes, 
although the cases do not exhibit anything particular from the clinical 
side. 

Salvina O— (left photo) and Lorenza O— (right photo) were born 
eighteen years ago. Their father’s grandmother and uncle both died 
in this asylum, the former from senile dementia, the latter from tumour 
of the brain. No history of alcohol or syphilis in the family. 

Both Salvina and Lorenza had their first attacks when eight years old, 
within a few weeks of each other. The fits were never accompanied by 
mental disturbance, and the children could be safely kept at home till 
their first attack of delirium, which occurred about a year ago. They 
both attended school with very little success. 

Salvina was admitted to this asylum on August 30th, 1918, in a very 
excited condition. She was completely disorientated, restless and 
exhibiting aggressiveness. The relatives reported that it was the first 
time that the girl could not be managed at home. 

Lorenza followed her sister to the asylum after a couple of months 
with the same symptomatology, and, as in the case of Salvina, it was the 
first epileptic delirium exhibited by the patient. Both sisters had their 
first menses at the age of thirteen, and these ceased on the supervening 
of the delirium. The amenorrhoea still persists in both cases. 

A point of interest is the fact that always, or nearly so, the appearance 
of the delirium in Salvina is followed by that of Lorenza, necessitating 
the warding of both sisters with the dangerous patients. The delirium 
is always of short duration, and marked more by restlessness than by 
aggressiveness. 

Quite lately while Salvina was under a very severe attack of delirium 
Lorenza was in the infirmary in a regular status epilepticus from which 
she slowly recovered. 

Both sisters are feeble-minded, and when free from delirium they are 
useful helpers in their ward. While Lorenza is always morose and 
gloomy, Salvina is cheerful, laughs, is coquettish in her manners, adorns 
herself with bright-coloured ribbons, and she is particularly fond of 
squeezing and kissing the assistant physician’s hand on his rounds. 
This mood of hers helps us to distinguish at once Salvina from her 
sister, as their features and their figures are almost identical, save 
perhaps that Lorenza’s nose is very slightly flatter than that of her 
sister. Both sisters weigh 8 st. and their height is 5 ft. 


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REVIEWS. 


263 


Occasional Notes. 


The Late Dr. Charles Arthur Mercier. 

A fine personality and untiring intellect has gone to rest in the death 
of Dr. Charles Arthur Mercier, who was gathered in on September 2nd, 
I 9 I 9* 

He occupied an unique position in medicine and philosophy. He had 
a mentality of absorbing interest, and one about which, no doubt, there 
will be many divers views, but all who knew him will agree that his 
demise has created a vacancy in the intellectual world which can never 
be filled. There can be no second Mercier, and his loss will be keenly 
felt in more directions than one. 

He was well known to us on the Editorial Staff of this Journal, to 
which he contributed freely, and it is fitting that our pages should 
contain an authoritative memoir of him. Sir Bryan Donkin has kindly 
undertaken this for our next number. 

We shall be glad also to publish any recollections of him which Dr. 
Mercier’s many friends and acquaintances may think fit to send us. 

In the meantime, we republish in “Notes and News” the Times 
summary of his life and works. 


Part II.—Reviews. 


Sixty-seventh Annual Report of the Inspectors of Lunatics {Ireland) for 
the year ending December 31 st, 1917. 

The statistics of lunacy for the year 1917 show a very material 
diminution in the number of insane under care in Ireland. This is the 
third year in succession in which a reduction has been recorded, and 
not only this, but a progressively advancing reduction, the decreases 
for the three years 1915, 1916 and 1917 having been respectively 77, 
337 and 874. Although caution in forming conclusions on merely 
statistical grounds has been frequently urged in these columns, it 
cannot be denied that the figures for the past several years have clearly 
shown, first, a tendency to fall, as indicated by a reduction in the rate 
of increase from what it was in previous years, and now for the past 
three years there has been an absolute and progressive decrease in 
numbers to the extent above stated, so that each successive year seems 
to bring us a more certain assurance that insanity in Ireland has passed 
its zenith and is on the downward grade. The proportion of insane 
under care per 100,000 of estimated population for the years 1915, 
1916 and 1917 has been 579, 571 and 551 respectively—a reduction 
during the two years 1915-1917 of all but 5 per cent. The admissions 
have also fallen from 3,538 to 3,444 in 1917,—a drop of 94—the number 


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264 REVIEWS. [Oct., 

admitted into District Asylums having decreased by 133, while they 
increased by 39 in the case of Private Asylums. First admissions into 
District Asylums decreased by 143, while re-admissions increased by 10. 
The proportion of total admissions per 100,000 estimated population 
decreased from 75 to 72 and in the case of first admissions from 60 
to 57. It is a matter for regret that tables which have hitherto appeared 
giving statistics for a series of years as regards admissions, discharges, 
and deaths are omitted from the Inspectors’ report—let us hope only 
temporarily—and now that war conditions no longer exist that publica¬ 
tion of these tables will be resumed in future reports. 

The Inspectors attribute the reduction in the number of insane 
mainly to the unusually high death-rate—io'5 per cent, on the average 
number resident, as compared with 81 in 1916, which was also the 
rate for the whole quinquennium 1913-1917. This rise in the death- 
rate is regarded as due principally to two causes—(1) long-continued 
cold and inclement weather at the end of 1916 and during the spring 
of 1917, accompanied by an outbreak of influenza; and (2) the adverse 
effect of the war on food, chiefly bread, the unpalatability of which, 
combined with the total or partial deprivation at times of tea, sugar, 
milk, eggs, butter, etc., gave rise to digestive ailments, and thereby 
reduced the vitality of already enfeebled patients. These conclusions 
are based upon the opinions of the medical superintendents, and are, 
no doubt, true to some extent, but patients in Irish asylums suffered 
but little in comparison with those in the sister countries. The death- 
rate has been increasing in recent years, and it is probable that this 
is due in great measure to the fact that each year the proportion of 
patients who have reached the average duration of life is increasing— 
and will, no doubt, continue to increase—so that a higher death-rate 
is to be regarded not so much as a matter of surprise as a not un¬ 
expected contingency. The ratio of deaths from phthisis continues to 
decline, the proportion having fallen from a maximum (1895-1899) of 
29 2 per cent, of the total mortality to 20*3, the ratio for 1917. The 
relative mortality from general paralysis has also fallen, its maximum 
having been 44. per cent, during the quinquennium 1910-1914, while 
it was only 27 in 1917. The ratio of deaths from epilepsy, on the 
other hand, appears to be on the increase. The average mortality due 
to this disease for twenty-five years ending 1914 was 4'8 per cent, of the 
total; in 1917 it was 6 per cent. As usual the death-rate in individual 
asylums shows great differences, ranging from a minimum of 6'i in 
Ennis asylum to a maximum of i5‘4 in Belfast. Only 156 post-mortem 
examinations were made—a fraction over 7 per cent, of the number of 
deaths. 

The recovery-rate shows similar variations, the highest record being 
56 3 in Clonmel and the lowest, 23’i, in Waterford. This is omitting 
Sligo, with respect to which we are convinced there must be some 
error in the figures, the percentage of recoveries on admissions being 
given (Table VI) as 6'4 and that of recoveries on daily average as 88 
—an obvious impossibility, as the former ratio should be from at least 
three to seven times as large as the latter. The general recovery-rate 
for all District Asylums was 377, or 4 per cent, lower than that of the 
previous quinquennium. 


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265 


As to causation heredity was an element, either principal or accessory, 
in i 6‘87 of the admissions, and alcohol was a factor in 9*41 per cent., 
but in only 6’38 per cent, was it a principal cause—a ratio which was 
well under the pre-war rate. The restrictions on the use of stimulants 
which were found necessary under war conditions seem undoubtedly 
to have had a beneficial effect as regards at least one of the results of 
over-indulgence. Mental stress operated as a cause in 20 per cent. 
of the admissions, which was somewhat over the proportion in the 
previous year. But in only i'i6 per cent, was the war assigned as a 
cause, and a principal cause in only 0 64 per cent .—an amount so small 
as to be practically negligible, although the ratio is somewhat higher 
than in either of the two preceding years, when it was 0 32 and 048 
respectively. The number of soldiers and sailors admitted in whose 
cases the war was assigned as a factor in causation was 150, only 68 
of whom had seen active service. So far, therefore, the war cannot be 
said to have had more than a very trifling effect in causing insanity, 
having regard to the comparatively few cases of military or naval men 
who were sent to asylums. But it must not be forgotten that mental 
cases occurring in members of both services were treated in other 
institutions, where probably most of them were of temporary duration 
and ultimately recovered. Of such cases we have no available statistics. 

As regards expenditure, in the case of District Asylums this has 
increased considerably. The total cost was in round numbers ,£780,736, 
or well over three-quarters of a million. In 1900-1901 it was ^460,282, 
or less than half a million, the actual increase during the inter¬ 
vening period having been 59 per cent., while the increase in the daily 
average has been only 31 per cent. It is to be feared that this 
expenditure has by no means reached its limit, as during the last two 
years in practically every department of asylum service the cost of 
everything, and notably as regards the wages of attendants, has gone 
up by leaps and bounds, and there is, we fear, but little likelihood of 
any reduction in cost for some considerable time to come, if, indeed, 
it will ever come. The unrest which has been for a long time seething 
amongst the staff's of asylums, as in the case of other branches of 
labour, owing to dissatisfaction with the existing regulations in respect 
of wages and hours of work, has during the past year culminated in 
general strikes in not a few of these institutions, and committees have 
had to make liberal concessions in both directions. It was quite right 
that the pay of attendants should be largely increased under present 
conditions, but, as a matter of fact, even in pre-war times adequate 
remuneration was never given to asylum attendants, having regard to 
their important and responsible duties. But there is nothing to justify 
their making exorbitant demands such as have been made at the 
instigation of outside “ organisers,” and which there is good reason to 
believe have not received the approval of a large number of the more 
moderate and sober-minded members of the staff's, who realise that 
they occupy a position wholly different from, and superior to, that of 
the ordinary trade-union factory hand, and feel that extreme measures, 
while possibly securing to them advantages at the expense of a long- 
suffering public, are lowering to their self-respect and the dignity of 
their calling, and by simply appealing to purely selfish instincts can 


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266 REVIEWS. [Oct., 

only have a deteriorating effect on their character. It is to be hoped 
that with time saner counsels will prevail, and that a mutual feeling of 
conciliation, leavened with an unselfish desire to give of their best for 
the good of the community and the welfare of their patients, will be 
the animating principle of their lives and work. 

The Inspectors report favourably on the condition of private asylums 
generally. That of patients in workhouses does not seem to be 
altogether satisfactory, especially as regards facilities for bathing and 
sanitary accommodation, which in many instances are far below the 
standard which we have reason to expect in these enlightened days. 
The query suggests itself: Is there proper and adequate supervision in 
these institutions by the management, both lay and medical? And if 
not, why not ? 


Mental Diseases. By R. H. Cole, M.D., F.R.C.P. Second edition - 
London : University of London Press, Ltd. 

The publication of the second edition of A Text-book of Psychiatry 
for Medical Students and Practitioners is an indication of the deserved 
popularity of this work. This edition, which is well illustrated, has been 
carefully revised and brought thoroughly up-to-date. 

Four chapters are devoted to psychology and neurology, a knowledge 
of which, as the author contends, is essential to the understanding and 
treatment of psychiatry. These subjects are dealt with in such a manner 
that the student should have little difficulty in understanding them. 

Dr. Cole’s classification of mental diseases is a useful one, and is to 
be commended. 

Special reference is made to the psychoneuroses arising from the 
war, to treatment by psycho-analysis and other methods, and to the 
necessity for amendment of the existing legislation to meet the present 
defects. 

This book, in short, will be found most useful to those for whom it is 
intended. 


Studies in Forensic Psychiatry. By Bernard Glueck, M.D. London : 

William Heinemann, fol. 266. 

This volume is one of a series of monograph supplements to the 
Journal of Criminal Law and Critninology. It is of interest to the 
lawyer as well as to the psychiatrist, and it should do much to make 
clear to the layman the modern view-point of the psycho-pathologist in 
regard to one aspect of criminology. The whole subject of crime and 
punishment is extremely complex and difficult, but the sentence which 
the author quotes from Franz Joseph Gall as long ago as 1810 aptly 
sums up the attitude of the criminologist of to-day : “The measure of 
culpability and the measure of punishment cannot be determined by a 
study of the illegal act, but only by a study of the individual committing 
it.” Perhaps the truth of this is only now beginning to be realised, and, 
as Dr. Glueck says, “The suppression of crime is not primarily a legal 
question, but is rather a problem for the physician, sociologist, and 
economist. . . . The slogan of the modern criminologist is “ intensive 


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study of the individual delinquent from all angles and points of view ” 
rather than mere insistence upon the precise application of a definite 
kind of punishment to a definite crime as outlined by statute. Indeed 
the whole idea of punishment is giving way to the idea of correction 
and reformation. . . . For criminology is an integral part of psycho¬ 

pathology, crime is a type of abnormal conduct which expresses a failure 
of proper adjustment at the psychological level." 

The first chapters are devoted to the consideration of what are 
commonly known as the “ prison psychoses.” These cases belong, of 
course, to the wider group of what are known as the “ psychogenetic ” 
or “situation psychoses,” so-called since they are immediately caused by 
a painful situation in the environment. The study of these cases has 
been curiousiy neglected in this country, though much attention has been 
given to them in Germany, and in America the name of Dr. Glueck is 
especially associated with careful studies of cases belonging to this 
category. Perhaps if it had been more generally recognised that many 
cases presenting a dementia praecox-like clinical picture are liable to 
occur with severe environmental stress, and to rapidly clear up when the 
stress is removed, less mistakes in diagnosis would have been made in 
connection with the war psychoses. Many civil psychoses, which clear 
up rapidly when removed trom their usual environment to a mental 
hospital, probably belong to the group of the psychogenetic psychoses, 
and the interest of the subject is by no means limited to those cases 
which occur in prisoners awaiting trial or undergoing punishment. The 
discussion of this subject in this volume, together with an excellent 
description of a number of cases, will be found well worth the attention 
of all those interested in the study of mental disorder, both from the 
purely clinical standpoint as well as that of criminology. 

A chapter is devoted to the study of “litigious paranoia,” and a full 
and complete consideration is given to the question of the malingerer, 
both these subjects being illustrated by descriptions of concrete cases. 
These subjects contain material of much interest to the psychiatrist, and 
the psychological problems which they involve are discussed from a 
modern view-point which will be found helpful and illuminating. The 
last chapter contains a psycho-analytic study of a case of kleptomania 
which serves to suggest the value of an intensive individual approach in 
attempting to understand morbid mental phenomena. 

This book may be thoroughly recommended and will well repay 
careful study, not only from the point of view of criminology, but from 
its wider implications. It serves to illustrate that insanity is not only a 
matter of classification, but it is a type of abnormal reaction to life, the 
significance of which can only be understood by a study of the psycho¬ 
genetic factors which play a part in its production. H. Devine. 


Rational Sex Ethics. By W. F. Robie, M.D. Boston : Badger. London: 

Stanley Phillips, 45, Brondesbury Road. Pp. 356. Price 15J. 
Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living. By H. W. Long, M.D. Same 
publishers. Pp. 157. Price 2 55. 

These two volumes are examples—more favourable examples, it 
may be added, than might easily be chosen—of the most modern 
LXV. 19 


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medical attitude in America towards those sex problems which now 
seem to be attracting so much attention, medical and lay. They are 
written from a fairly concordant standpoint, and the author of the first 
has furnished an introduction for the second volume, but the scope of 
the two works is entirely different, although both are sold only to 
professional readers. 

Dr. Robie, who is superintendent of a sanatorium for functional 
nervous disorders, begins with a little autobiography, not, as he 
remarks, for “ the purpose of emphasising my own modest ego,” but in 
order that the reader may be enabled to appreciate that bias and 
“personal equation” which, in approaching questions of sex, must 
always be important. The practice, though unusual, seems commend¬ 
able, and in any case it is characteristic of the author’s American 
directness and simplicity. The book is not a systematic treatise of 
sexual morality. It is much better described in the subtitle as “A 
physiological and psychological study of the sex-lives of normal men 
and women, with suggestions for a rational sex hygiene with reference to 
actual case-histories.” The chief value of the book lies in these 
histories—many of them quoted or reproduced—of 95 more or 
less normal persons (61 men and 34 women), while the author 
also possesses the sexual histories of some 150 additional persons, 
the majority females. Special attention seems to have been given 
to masturbation. All but a very small percentage admitted practising 
or having practised masturbation, or some form of conscious auto¬ 
erotism, the women nearly as often as the men, although they indulged 
in it much less frequently—usually from two to five times a month, about 
the period of menstruation. This was regarded by many of the women 
as perfectly normal; they usually abandoned the practice at marriage 
but seldom before. In accordance with the results found by other 
recent investigators, Robie finds also that of 500 young people known 
to him to have masturbated for longer or shorter periods (and many 
excessively), “ none were ever known to have suffered in any way from 
the results of this habit.” To this question the author refers again 
and again throughout the book. He does not, he tells us, advocate 
masturbation, and he is aware of its harmfulness in morbidly 
predisposed subjects, but “ I am prepared,” he tells us, “ to maintain 
that while, act for act, auto-erotism is as harmless as-ordinary promiscuous 
intercourse—more harmless if account is taken of the venereal danger— 
there is far greater relief of sexual tension, a more complete orgasm, 
and infinitely less shame, disgust, and self-condemnation in this practice, 
provided one knows the actual facts about it.” 

Taken altogether, however, the author’s ethical attitude is unquestion¬ 
ably orthodox and conventional. He has much sensible advice to give 
on the hygiene of marriage; he rightly insists, as it is now becoming 
usual to do, on the importance of a knowledge of the art of love to 
ensure conjugal felicity. He discusses intercourse during pregnancy 
and approves of it. Although he regards the exercise of birth control 
as necessary at some time or other for all, he approves of every healthy 
married couple having from two to twelve children. 

While the book is helpfully instructive and written in an engagingly 
ingenuous manner, its method is not altogether scientifically satisfactory. 


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The style is careless; the names, even of well-known fellow-countrymen 
of the author himself, are frequently misspelt ; the arrangement of 
chapters is unsystematic and casual. A considerable amount of space 
is occupied in summarising the opinions of other authors whose books 
are fairly well known and accessible. Freud is in this way responsible 
for a considerable amount of space, but the author shows his usual 
moderation and practical common-sense in his judgments of psycho¬ 
analytic doctrines. He himself has adopted something of the methods 
of mental analysis, but he is convinced, from his own extensive obser¬ 
vations, that while there is much more sexuality in the child than the 
older writers admitted, the early years of life are not so universally 
sexual as Freud believes, and thumb-sucking or similar manifestations, 
while almost general, cannot be regarded as always a sexual manifesta¬ 
tion. Nor, though the love of the child for the parent has at times an 
undoubtedly sexual character, can the “ CEdipus complex ” be regarded 
as universal, for he has witnessed the recovery of neurotics in whom it 
was never revealed, and on Freudian principles such recovery would be 
impossible. He also disagrees absolutely with Freud that the fruitful 
investigation of sex matters in women by ordinary methods is impos¬ 
sible on account of their reticence and dishonesty, and finds on the 
contrary that when a woman is convinced of its desirability it proves 
more fruitful than in men. The author’s temperate conclusions on 
these points will be approved by all but the more extreme of Freud’s 
disciples. 

Ur. Long’s book is misleadingly described by the publisher on the 
wrapper as “a thoroughly scientific treatment of a subject which has 
heretofore been treated in a merely empirical manner.” The author 
himself in his first paragraph more truly describes it as “more a heart- 
to-heart talk between those who have mutual confidences in each other 
than a technical or strictly scientific treatise.” Although only sold to the 
professional reader it is for the lay reader that it is intended, and it is 
written throughout in simple language. Like many other doctors 
nowadays, Dr. Long is frequently consulted by young husbands or 
wives who are suffering from ignorance or misapprehension concerning 
the conjugal relation, their difficulties often being complicated and 
obscured by reticence and timidity. As he was unable to find any 
manual which dealt simply, and in all the detail necessary for those 
who are ignorant, with the necessary facts of the art of love and the 
science of procreation, he wrote a manuscript covering the chief 
ground, and has been in the habit of handing it over in these cases to 
be read privately. Being impressed by the advantage of this method 
for the patient, as well as the saving of time for the physician, he has 
le-written and enlarged this manuscript. The result is the present 
volume, “prepared for the sole and express purpose of helping 
husbands and wives to live sane and wholesome sex-lives—to give them 
the requisite knowledge for so doing ; knowledge of themselves and of 
each other as sexual beings ; the correct ideas regarding such manner 
of living ; to disabuse their minds of wrong sex-teaching, or no teaching at 
all, of ignorance, or prudery, or carelessness, or lust.” Nothing is said 
of perversions or anomalies, or even of venereal disease, but everything 
bearing on the ordinary love-life in marriage is clearly set forth and 


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fully discussed. The advice given is not at every point in accordance 
with traditional maxims, but it is in accordance with modern scientific 
knowledge, and usually shows practical sagacity as well. Dr. Long is 
to be commended for the courage,skill,and sympathy which he has shown 
in writing a hook, almost unique in character, which will certainly prove 
of immense help to many readers. 

Havelock Ellis. 

Experiments in Psychical Research. By John Edgar Coover, Assis¬ 
tant Professor of Psychology, Leland Stanford Junior University. 
Stanford University California, 1917. Pp. 641. Price 4 dollars. 

This substantial and important series of studies requires some time 
to master—all the more since it is furnished with no summary of con¬ 
clusions—and review notice has thus been unduly delayed. It is supplied 
with a foreword by Chancellor David Starr Jordan, an introduction by 
Prof. Frank Angell, and the author is a highly trained and experi¬ 
enced psychologist of judicial temperament. So impressive a piece of 
work, proceeding from the “Division of Psychical Research ” of a noted 
University, deserves serious consideration. Respectability, though by 
no means universal belief, has been conferred upon the conclusions put 
forward by the Society for Psychical Research by the distinguished 
reputations of some of those who have endorsed those conclusions. 
But, as Prof. Angell here remarks, “ it must be said with the utmost 
frankness that the mantle of Sir Oliver Lodge’s great reputation as a 
physicist cannot be stretched to cover his work in psychical research, 
and it is doubtful if Sir William Crooke’s authority as a chemist has per¬ 
ceptibly swayed the minds of his colleagues in chemistry towards 
spiritualistic belief.” It is special training in psychology which is 
necessary for such investigations, a wide acquaintance with motor 
automatisms and subliminal impressions, a training in the ideational 
and affective processes underlying belief and conviction, in illusions of 
perception, and in the value of evidence. The value of the present 
series of investigations lies largely in the fact that it has been conducted 
by trained psychologists. 

The work falls into five parts (amply illustrated by diagrams, charts, 
and plates), dealing successively with thought-transference, subliminal 
impression, mental habit and inductive probability, sound-assimilation, 
and miscellaneous contributions (pseudo-prophecy, local ghosts, auto¬ 
matic writing, etc.) by Prof. Lillian Martin. There are numerous 
appendices, and a list of books dealing with the subject in the University 
library which constitutes a formidable bibliography of over sixty 
pages. 

„ The problem of thought transference, a mental power by many 
regarded as proved, is approached by a variety of methods. There is, 
for instance, the guessing of lotto-block numbers, which in the 
experiments conducted by Mrs. Henry Sidgwick furnished support for 
thought-transference. The conditions of the experimentation at Stanford 
University and the attitude and training of the reagent seemed to 
promise a like favourable result, but this result was far from ensuing : 
a thousand experiments indicated that the number of successful guesses 


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is not beyond either experimental or theoretical probability. The 
investigators agree with Prof. James that Richet’s belief that 
thought-transference is a common capacity to be found in any long 
series of guesses “is probably wrong.” It was incidentally established 
that normal persons refer subjective experiences with a varying degree 
of certainty to an objective source. This tendency, as is here pointed 
out, indicates that the psychical processes of illusion and hallucination 
are, in an incipient form, both common and normal. Investigations 
with playing cards, carried out with both normal and “ sensitive ” 
reagents, and elaborately described in nearly one hundred pages, led 
to similar conclusions ; although some of the deviations, by consistency 
and size, seemed to be beyond chance, they were yet matched by chance 
deviations, and the psychics showed no advantage over normal reagents. 
The “ feeling of being stared at ” was also investigated. It involves a 
telepathic process—that is, the becoming aware in a super-normal way of 
a specific voluntary action of another person. It is widely accepted ; at 
Stanford University 77 per cent, among nearly 1,300 young men and 
women from all corners of the earth affirmed that they had experienced 
it. Experiment showed, however, no results that could not be perfectly 
well explained by chance ; an objective validity is attributed to sub¬ 
jective impressions in the form of imagery, sensations, and impulses. This 
seems a common trait in normal adults, but in its final manifestations it 
becomes hallucinations and motor automatisms. 

The most frequent explanation brought forward of the alleged 
phenomena of thought transference is that of subliminal perception of 
signs and signals involuntarily given. It is supposed that the reagent 
unconsciously receives impressions of the signs involuntarily given by 
the agent. This explanation is, for instance, invoked to explain the 
marvellous accomplishments of the horse “ Clever Hans,” though, it 
must be remarked, it can only explain correct answers that are known 
to the agent, and the Mannheim dog, for example, could, it was alleged, 
give correct answers (as of the number of violets in a bunch) that the 
agent was unable to count. 

Part II, which deals with investigations into this “subliminal 
impression ”—by means of the tachistoscope and other methods— 
is too varied and elaborate to be summarised, but the general 
conclusion may be stated : there is some experimental evidence 
of the existence of that “ fringe of perceptions, most often unconscious, 
but all ready to enter into consciousness, and in fact entering in 
certain exceptional cases or certain predisposed subjects ” with which 
Bergson has insisted that “psychical research” should concern itself; 
it is, moreover, more than probable that this sort of perception has 
played a part in the evidence for telepathy gained from experiments and 
the s/ance-room, and further investigation may determine the extent of 
the influence of subliminal impression upon judgment in (a) normal 
subjects when the stimuli are not removed so far from the lines of 
normal perception, and when the stimuli are varied over the sense 
modes, and ( b) in “sensitive” or “psychic” subjects. 

In Part III inductive probability and the influence of mental habit 
upon judgment are most instructively studied by statistical methods. 
The influence of mental peculiarities in the general population is shown 


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[Oct., 


by the age-returns in the census, in the terms of criminal sentences 
imposed by judges, in the registration of temperature, rainfall, star- 
transits, and in various other ways, and the bearing of these inquiries on 
the attempts to prove thought-transference is duly set forth. The infini¬ 
tesimal probability is also set forth, the fallibility of human testimony 
and the operation of normal extra-chance causes. 

In Part IV it is shown that sound-assimilation is very potently 
influenced by suggestion. The perception of a word is not, as is 
commonly supposed, a purely auditory affair. The auditory impression 
may be slight and inadequate, but become assimilated by more powerful 
psychic factors (images, motor dispositions, etc.), which assume primary 
responsibility for the cognition of the word. This assimilating process 
leads to illusions. All the other senses are similarly capable of reporting 
facts that are not there. 

There is to-day a wide-spread revival of interest in phenomena of 
thesupra-normal (as we have usually understood “normal”) order. Hence 
the value of a series of studies so expert, so many-sided, and so impartial 
as we find in this volume. It furnishes a valuable armoury for those 
who have committed themselves in opposition to such tendencies, and 
it demands the most strenuous attention of those who accept them. 

Havelock Ellis. 


Spirit Experiences. By Charles A. Mercier, M.D. London: Watts 
& Co. 

“ A little nonsense now and then 
Is relished by the wisest men.” 


This booklet has been sent to us for review. To review it seriously 
would be difficult, if not impossible. Professedly, if we may judge by 
the rather sensational amplification of the title as “ The Conversion of 
a Sceptic! Startling and Astonishing Experiences of a Seeker after 
Truth—Unprecedented Marvels—Telepathy—Levitation—Communi¬ 
cations with the Dead—Telergy—A Completely Novel Experience— 
Substitution,” the writer offers it to the public as a sort of recantation 
of his published views on the subject of spiritualism. Whether it is, or 
is not, must be left to the individual reader to decide for himself. In 
reality it is a humorous skit on spiritualistic phenomena, its style and 
motif akin to that of a previous paper on “ Dreams,” which was read by 
Dr. Mercier at a meeting of the Association some years ago. The 
astounding occurrences which have made a convert of Dr. Mercier— 
and from what we know of that eminent psychologist, it is safe to 
assert that any agency capable of converting him from any view he may 
have adopted regarding any question whatever must be nothing less 
than astounding—are detailed in a manner, if droll, at any rate circum¬ 
stantial, and can hardly fail to convince even the most hardened and 
uncompromising opponent of spiritualism of the error of his ways, 
and bring about his “conversion ” to the true faith. The interviews 
with Hodgkins, who when in the flesh had been “a bit of a rip,” and 
who spoke from a region where asbestos clothes were worn—“nothing 
else would stand the heat ”—and where the daily fare was “ roast 


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273 


salamander, always cooked to death,” and with Mrs. Shegessdit—a 
name full of significance—are diverting reading. And the real meaning 
of such performances as the three-card trick (no longer a mere “ trick ”) 
and thimble-rigging (nothing to do with sleight-of hand), as explained 
on occult and spiritualistic principles, form a suitable climax in this 
amusing—and amazing—brochure. 


Part III.—Epitome of Current Literature. 


War Neuroses and Military Training. (Afental Hygiene , October , 
1918). Rivers , IV. H R. 

In this report to the Medical Research Committee Dr. Rivers con¬ 
cisely sets forth some of the results of his experience. War neuroses, 
he finds, fall into three main groups: (1) Hysteria, though the term is 
admitted to be unsatisfactory; there is some definite physical symptom 
(paralysis, deafness, mutism, etc.), such as can be readily produced 
by suggestion in hypnosis. (2) Anxiety neurosis, but usually termed 
neurasthenia; there is physical fatigue and organic slackness with, on the 
mental side, irritability or depression. (3) Definite psychic manifestations; 
there are many varieties—including a manic-depressive tendency, 
morbid impulses such as to murder or suicide, obsessions, phobias— 
but the special feature is always a resemblance to the definite psychoses, 
but yet without the severity or fixity which renders any legal restriction 
on the patient necessary. 

There seems nothing specially original in the grouping. Dr. 
Rivers proceeds, however, to bring forward some interesting considera¬ 
tions with regard to the varying incidence of these groups of disorders 
respectively on officers and on men. There is no reason to suppose that the 
third group are specially liable to affect either offi cers or men. But of the 
other two groups hysteria is almost exclusively confined to the men, 
while anxiety neurosis, though not similarly limited to officers, affects 
them much more frequently and much more profoundly. This difference, 
Dr. Rivers seeks to show, is largely explainable by the varying con¬ 
ditions of training and duties in the two classes. “ The neuroses of 
war depend upon a conflict between the instinct of self preservation and 
certain social standards of thought and conduct, according to which fear 
and its expression are regarded as reprehensible.” In cases of the first 
group the conflict is solved by some disability which incapacitates the 
patient from further participation in warfare. In the second group the 
conflict is not solved, but rendered more acute by weakening of the social 
factor through strain, etc. One cause of the difference is the superior 
education of the officers, which renders them subconsciously dissatisfied 
with the easy hysterical solution of the conflict. Another possible cause 
is the greater repression of fear in the officers’ early education. The first 
aim of military training is to enable the soldier to act in harmony with the 
aggregate, and the agencies are habituation and suggestion. The next 
great aim is to enable him to withstand the strain of warfare, and the 


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chief agencies are repression and sublimation (of which esprit de corps 
is an important development), together with side-tracking (of which 
swearing, conviviality, and athletics are all manifestations). Of these 
main agencies upon which the success of military training depends, 
suggestion acts most potently on the private, sublimation and repression 
on the officer. It is thus that military training tends to determine the 
character of the neurosis from which each will suffer. 

The present unsatisfactory character of the nomenclature is dealt 
with. For “hysteria” Dr. Rivers rejects Babinski’s proposed term 
“ pithiatism,” as well as Freud’s 1 ' conversion neurosis,” and considers that 
“suggestion neurosis” would be the appropriate term. He defends the 
use of Freud’s term “anxiety neurosis” for the “ neurasthenia” group, 
but uses it in a wider sense than Freud. The appropriate treatment is to 
lessen suggestibility by re-education, and in regard to anxiety neurosis 
to concentrate on prevention. Most success, as Dr. Rivers has else¬ 
where stated, has been attained by a mental analysis resembling Freud’s 
pyscho-analysis, but not attempting to go deeply into the unconscious. 

Havelock Ellis. 


The Rule of Focal Infections in the Psychoses. (The Journal of Nervous 
and Mental Diseases , March , 1919.) Cotton , H. A. 

In this paper the writer urges the important part played by chronic, 
masked, or focal infections in the production of the psychoses. His 
cases are submitted to a most thorough bacteriological examination on 
modern lines, and special attention is paid to the teeth, which are 
examined by the dentist and if necessary radiographed. Most of the focal 
infections due to streptococci have their origin in the teeth, and in the 
course of time these organisms reach remote organs and other structures. 
In support of his views case histories are given and included under 
three headings: (1) Severe cases of mania all of whom died, and the 
autopsy revealed the cause of death as bacterial infection. (2) Hypo- 
manic cases, which cleared up rapidly under treatment. (3) Profound 
depressions, clearing up when the infection was recognised and treated. 

As a result of these researches the following points are emphasised : 

That the organisms concerned in focal infections in these cases 
belong to the slow-growing, non-pus-producing type which are extremely 
toxic, their origin is usually the teeth, and they may so spread as to 
persist after the teeth are extracted. 

That a thorough search for chronic infection is imperative, and that 
bacteriological examination should be an essential part of the work in 
every hospital for the insane. 

That prophylaxis in mental disease should include the education of 
physiciansand the public in regard to the fact of dental infections, and 
dentists should realise the damage resulting from faulty dental work. 

That many psychoses could be prevented, and chronic psychoses 
cured, if these principles were followed in treatment. 

H. Devine. 


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NOTES AND NEWS. 


275 


Part IV—Notes and News. 


THE MEDICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF GREAT 
BRITIAN AND IRELAND. 

The Seventy-Eighth Annual Meeting was held at York on Tuesday and 
Wednesday, July 22nd and 23rd, under the presidency, in the early part of the 
proceedings, of Lieut.-Col. Keay, and later that of Dr. Bedford Pierce. 

There •were present: Drs. T. Stewart Adair, Dora E. Allmann, David Blair 
J. Shaw Bolton, C. Hubert Bond, David Bower, Geo. L. Brunton, Wm. M. 
Buchanan, Robert B. Campbell, James Chambers, W. R. Dawson, Thos. Drapes, 

C. C. Easterbrook, S. Edgerley, Francis H. Edwards, Henry M. Eustace, J. Tylor 
Fox, Claud F. Fothergill, J. W. Geddes, J. R. Gilmour, Percy T. Hughes, 
P. Rutherford Jeffrey, john Keay, Walter S. Kay, R. Macd. Ladell, S. Langton, 
Oliver Latham, H. J. Mackenzie, W. F. Menzies, J. E. Middlemiss, George E. 
Miles, Alfred Miller, Gilbert E. Mould, Alex. W. Neill, Wm. F. Nelis, Norman 
Oliver, L. R. Oswald, B. Pierce, Daniel F. Rambaut, George M. Robertson, 

D. Maxwell Ross, E. S Simpson, R. Percy Smith, J. G. Soutar, Charles T. Street, 
R. C. Stewart, W. G. Thomson, A. H. Trevor, Marguerite Wilson, J. C. Wootton, 
and R. Worth (General Secretary). Visitors: Dr. H. Colin, Marjorie Pierce. 

MORNING SESSION.— Tuesday, July 22nd. 

Held at the Retreat, Lieut.-Col. Keay in the chair. 

Minutes. 

The minutes of the last Annual Meeting, having appeared in the Journal, were 
taken as read and approved. 

The President put from the chair the following series of resolutions, all of 
which were approved : 

(a) That the officers of the Association for the year 1919-20 be : 

President. — Dr. Bedford Pierce. 

President-elect. —Dr. W. F. Menzies. 

Ex-President. —Lieut.-Col. John Keay. 

Treasurer. — Dr. James Chambers. 

Editors of Journal. —Lieut.-Col. J. R. Lord and Dr. Thomas Drapes. 

General Secretary. — Major R. Worth. 

Registrar. —Dr. A. A. Miller. 

(A) That the nominated Members of Council be : 

A. Helen Boyle, G. E. Shuttleworth, David Orr, Lieut.-Col. D. G. Thomson, 
R. D. Hotchkis, J. G. Smith. 

(c) That F. H. Edwards and G. F. Barham be appointed Auditors. 

(d) That the Parliamentary Committee be re-appointed and that Nathan 
Raw, M.P., J. Shaw Bolton, A. A. Miller, J. N. Sergeant be added thereto. 

(e) That the Educational Committee be re-appointed, and that T. P. Cowen be 
added thereto. 

(/) That the Library Committee be re-appointed. 

(g) That the Research Committee be re-appointed. 

The Report of the Council. 

The Secretary read the report of the Council. 

The number of members—ordinary, honorary, and corresponding—as shown in 
the list of names published in the Journal of Mental Science for January, 1919, 


was 626, as compared with 627 in 1918. 

Number of new members elected in 1918 . . . .16 
Number of members restored in 1918 ..... 1 

Removed according to Bye-law 17 . . . . . o 
Number of members resigned in 1918 ..... 5 

Number of deaths in 1918.11 

Transferred to Hon. Members ...... 2 


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276 NOTES AND NEWS. [Oct., 

Endeavours have been made to revise the list of Honorary and Corresponding 
Members. So far we have only been able to ascertain that Dr. H. Schule died in 
December, 1916. 

The following table shows the membership for the past decade : 626 + 32 + 18. 
Total, 676. 


Members. 

1909. 

I9IO. 

191 I. 

1912. 

1913- 

1914. 

191S. 

1916. 

1917. 

j 

1918. 

Ordinary 

Honorary 

Corresponding 

673 

32 

'7 

680 

33 

17 

690 

34 

i 9 

696 

35 

19 

695 

34 

18 

679 

34 

18 

644 

34 

18 

632 

32 

,8 

627 

33 

18 

1 

626 
32 
18 ' 

Total 

722 

730 

743 

750 

747 

73 ' 

_ 

696 

682 

678 

. 

676 


We have to record the retirement of Dr. R. H. Steen from the post of General 
Secretary of the Association. Dr. Steen’s work as Secretary during the trying 
years of the war was invaluable, and the very able manner in which he carried out 
his duties is beyond praise. 

Major R. Worth, Superintendent of the Springfield Mental Hospital, has been 
appointed in his place. 

The Special Committee appointed to draw up the English Legislation Report, 
after a great deal of time and thought, placed their recommendation before the 
General Meeting held in November, 1918. The report was unanimously approved 
and adopted, and 1,500 copies circulated. Special Committees have been appointed 
to deal with the following matters: 

The Formation of Divisions Overseas. 

The College of Nursing and Nurses’ Registration Bill. 

The Ministry of Health. 

The recommendation of the Special Committee appointed to draw up a report 
on the Maudsley Bequest was approved and suggestions carried as to how and 
where lectures were to be given. 

Dr. Soutar was appointed to represent the Association on the recently constituted 
Parliamentary Medical Committee. 

It was decided that standing sub-committees should be limited in size. 

Special meetings of the Association were held in March to go into the question 
of Asylum Administration. 

A new bye-law affecting the seal of the Association was passed at the May 
meeting. 

Sub-committees were formed to attend Guildhall Conference of Visiting 
Committees to assist them in their deliberations. 

We have to record with the deepest regret the death of Dr. Wiglesworth, 
President of the Association in 1902. 

The President announced that in connection with the Maudsley Lectureship the 
Council had proposed to invite Sir James Crichton Browne to deliver this lecture 
at the quarterly meeting to be held in London in May. 

This was agreed to. 

Treasurer’s Report. 

The Treasurer submitted the Revenue Account and Balance-sheet for the 
year 1918. 

He stated that in accordance with the instructions given by the Council the 
Maudsley Bequest had been invested in 5 per cent. War Loan, and acting on 
the advice of the Association’s solicitor the Council had decided to make the 
investment in the name of the Medico-Psychological Association. Similarly, 
instead of appointing new trustees for the other funds of the Association, it had 
been decided to make future investments in the name of the Association, and to 
have existing investments transferred from the surviving trustee to the Association. 


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Original from 

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 











Digitized by 


278 NOTES AND NEWS. [Oct. r 

This had necessitated the passing of a new bye-law with reference to the use of 
the seal of the Association, which was done at the General Meeting in May last. 

At the present rate of income-tax the net yearly revenue from the Maudsley 
Bequest is ^73 18s. By adding to this the interest which accrued from placing 
the bequest on deposit prior to its investment there will be a sum of .£90 to the 
credit of this account at the end of the present year. Of the general funds of the 
Association a further sum of ^250 was invested in 5 per cent. War Loan. Including 
the Gaskell and Maudsley Funds the amount invested in 5 per cent. War Loan is 
over £4,000. 

The Revenue Account showed a serious increase in expenditure, due mainly to 
the increased cost of the work done by the printers. There is at the same time a 
large amount of unpaid subscriptions, with the result that the excess of income 
over expenditure is a narrow one. This state of matters has been considered by 
the Council, and a special Committee has been appointed to make a report on the 
financial position of the Association. 

The Treasurer proposed the adoption of this report. Agreed. 

The Editors' Report. 

Dr. T. Drapes presented the report of the Editors: 

Editors’ reports during recent years have been mostly of an apologetic character. 
The world-wide convulsion, which has by no means completely subsided, has 
adversely affected certain kinds of journalistic literature, notably the scientific 
class. The same disabilities which were alluded to in last year’s report continue 
still. Research work in these countries is at a minimum, although a few of our 
members have found it possible to make valuable contributions in this department 
of medical science to the Journal from time to time, amongst whom Dr. Orr and 
Lieut.-Col. Rows, in the sphere of purely experimental investigations, and Dr. 
Ford Robertson, in clinical and pathological observations leading to the adoption 
of effective therapeutic measures, are deserving of special mention, and merit our 
warm acknowledgments. But there has been a paucity of material generally 
which under normal conditions would have been disastrous to the Journal, although 
not so under existing circumstances, owing to which its size has had to be largely 
reduced, recent numbers, in fact, containing only about one-third the normal 
number of pages which they did in pre-war times. Of these circumstances two 
are outstanding as necessitating this great curtailment of size—the enormously 
increased cost of publication and, as the Treasurer has informed us, a material 
falling off in the funds at his disposal. In this respect we are, of course, not 
alone, as other medical journals have had to largely reduce their dimensions 
owing to similar conditions. 

The Journal expenses for the year 1918 totalled £652. This is over £iooabove 
the cost before the war. And as the dimensions of the Journal are only about one- 
third of what they were in the former period, it follows that the cost of production is 
over three times as much as it normally ought to be. However, necessity knows no 
law, and over this condition of things the Editors have absolutely no control. It 
is possible that a larger supply of paper may be now or may shortly be available, 
and, we must only hope, at a diminished cost. The item of labour expense is, we 
fear, not likely to get less, if it does not go on increasing. Whether it may be 
necessary or politic to raise the subscription to the Association is, of course, a 
question which must be decided by the members themselves. 

We wish to renew our acknowledgments to the Assistant Editors for their 
valuable help, to Dr. McRae in particular for his very accurate and painstaking 
correction of proofs, and to Dr. Devine for his many interesting contributions to 
the Epitome section of the Journal—an important part of its content, and one 
which has suffered most from our restricted limits of space. And we are also 
grateful to those writers who have favoured us with contributions at a time when 
most members of our specialty were working at high pressure, and could command 
but little leisure from practical duties of management and the discharge of admini¬ 
strative responsibilities. John R. Lord. 

Thomas Drapes. 

The President said they sympathised with the Editors of the Journal in the 
period of difficulty through which they had been passing, and the Association 
should congratulate itself that it had men as Editors who had the pluck to carry 
on as they had done. 


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PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 



IQ19-] 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


279 


The Auditors’ Report. 

We beg to report that we have examined the Treasurer’s accounts and checked 
the vouchers and receipts, and that the Balance-sheet represents a true and accurate 
statement of the financial position of the Medico-Psychological Association. 

Francis H. Edwards. 

C. F. Barham. 

Dr. Edwards, in presenting the report, said it was obvious to them as Auditors, 
in going through the accounts, that the difference between income and expenditure 
had reached a serious stage, coming down to practically a few pounds. Although 
the financial position of the Association was a strong one, they must recognise 
they had been w’orking with a Journal much reduced in size. It was obvious there 
could not be any very material reduction in the cost of printing or paper, and 
it was therefore necessary to draw very forcible attention to this state of affairs. 
They had heard that a Committee was about to be appointed to consider the 
whole financial situation, and he need not therefore comment further on it. 

The report was agreed to. 

Report of the Educational Committee. 

The Secretary read the report of the Educational Committee. 

The following is a brief account of the work which has been carried out by this 
Committee: 

As in former years four meetings have been held, and the attendances, con¬ 
sidering the abnormal conditions, have been quite up to the average of recent 
years. 

The Registrar reported that at the November and May Examinations 674 
candidates presented themselves for the Preliminary Examination and 537 for the 
Final, the total being 1211. On comparing the total entries for the Nursing 
Certificate Examination, 1918-1919, a still further decrease is shown, those for 
1917-1918 being 1,382. 

At the November examination 105 candidates passed the Preliminary and 89 the 
Final. The results of the May examination are not yet to hand. 

Up to the present one candidate has entered for the Preliminary Examination 
and the Mental Deficiency Nursing Certificate. 

The professional Certificate and the Gaskell Prize Examinations were not held 
in 1918. A divisional Prize of ten guineas has been awarded to Dr. Hubert J. 
Norman for his paper entitled, “ A Plea for Optimism in Psychiatry.” 

Owing to the ravages of influenza in the majority of institutions it was found 
necessary to postpone the Nursing Examination from November to December. 

. The Special Committee dealing with the question of the Nurses’ Registration 
Bill have watched the interests of the Association. 

During the year the name of one nurse was removed from the Register of 
Nurses owing to the fact that she had been guilty of cruelty to a patient. 

Amongst others, the following important resolutions have been recommended 
to the Council: 

“ That in view of the fact that the printed form announcing that a candidate 
has passed the Preliminary Examination is still regarded by some nurses in 
the light of a certificate, and that its possession enables them to pose as being 
partly trained, the practice of issuing these notices should cease, and that the 
fact of their having passed the examination should simply be notified to the 
Superintendent of the Asylum, and that a register be kept by the Registrar.” 

“ That V.A.D. nurses who have had three years’ nursing experience be 
permitted to complete their mental training in two years on the understanding 
that they pass both the Preliminary and the Final Examinations for the Nursing 
Certificate of the Medico-Psychological Association, allowing an interval of 
twelve months to elapse between the two examinations.” 

Maurice Craig, Chairman. 

J. G. Porter Phillips, Secretary. 

Dr. Percy Smith inquired what had become of the certificate of the nurse who 
had been removed from the Register. 

Dr. Miller: It had not been actually issued. 

The report was approved. 


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28 o 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


[Oct., 


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Report of the Registrar. 


I have to report the following particulars concerning the recent Nursing 
Examinations : 

Entries : 495 preliminary ; 402 Final. Passed : 338 Preliminary (68 per cent.)-, 
270 Final (67 per cent.-, this includes 16, or nearly 8 per cent., who passed with 
distinction. 

Two Essays were received for Bronze Medal. These are now in the hands of 
the Examiners. 

Six candidates entered for the Certificate in Psychological Medicine, and all 
passed the examination. 

The Gaskell Prize has been awarded to Dr. James Walker ; second, Dr. Monrad 
Krohn. 

Dr. Eager wins the Bronze Medal, Dr. Norman Phillips being second. 

I have an application from Stoneyettes for recognition. Dr. Oswald testifies as 
to its suitability. 

It will be necessary to make some arrangements to get a special plate for the 
Certificate in Nursing of Defectives. 

Alfred Miller, 

Registrar. 


The Parliamentary Committee. 


The Secretary read the report, which was approved : 

Your Committee has met four times during the year. The chief subject that 
has engaged its attention has been the report of the English Lunacy Legislation 
Sub-committee. This report has since been adopted by the Association, and has 
been widely circulated, and your Committee has been informed by the Board of 
Control that a Bill has recently been drafted and is now before the Secretary of 
State providing for the treatment of incipient insanity. The newly-amended Rules 
in Lunacy in consonance with the views of your Committee are already in force. 
Sub-committees have been appointed in Scotland and Ireland to consider amend¬ 
ment of the Lunacy Acts in these countries. The Ministry of Health Bill has been 
under discussion, and a special committee has been appointed. It has been urged 
that the Association be represented on the Advisory Medical Committee to be 
formed under the Bill, also that due representation be similarly granted on the 
proposed Public Health Councils to be appointed in Ireland. 

The Nurses’ Registration Bills have been considered with a view of safeguarding 
the interests of mental nurses, and of obtaining adequate representation on the 
governing Council. A special committee has been appointed for this measure 
also. The Asylums Officers’ Superannuation Act of 1909 has been discussed in its 
application of Sect. 4 (a), and an endeavour is being made to secure an amendment 
in regard to gratuities for dependents of contributors who are under pensionable age. 

Application has been made to the Home Secretary for amendment of the 
Asylums and Certified Institutions (Officers’ Pensions) Act of 1918, to place 
officers and servants of institutions for mental deficients in the first class for 
pensions. 

The desire for simplification of the forms for certificates of disability of soldiers 
and sailors required from asylum superintendents has been impressed upon the 
Minister of Pensions. 

The scope of the Medical Parliamentary Committee has been approved, and a 
member of the Association has been appointed on that Committee. 

H. Wolseley Lewis, Chairman, 

R. H. Cole, Secretary. 

The Board of Control and the Ministry of Health. 

Dr. J. G. Soutar said that certain matters had been dealt with by the Council 
at their meeting that morning, and he desired to move the following resolution: 

"That a deputation be appointed to place before the Minister of Health 
the opinion of the Medico-Psychological Association that all matters con¬ 
cerning the care of the insane in England and Wales should as soon as 
possible be brought within the authority of the Ministry of Health ; and that 
the Board of Control, whose sympathetic experience and encouragement in 
all matters concerning the welfare of the insane has been so valuable, be 
maintained for the department. 


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Original from 

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 



1919 ] 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


28l 

He said it was felt that their branch of medical practice, which was so 
important in its relationship to the health of the community, should not be left 
outside the Ministry of Health. Unfortunately, in the past, it had been the lot of 
their special work to be left lagging behind that of general medicine. Their work 
had a most important bearing on the health of the general community, and they 
desired it should be as early as possible recognised as a matter which should come 
within the Ministry of Health, which was intended to co-ordinate all matters con¬ 
cerning the health of the community. There was another reason. They all 
recognised that co-ordination ought to exist in what they might call the asylum 
services generally. They felt it was preferable that the co-ordinating body should 
be within a government department specially constituted to deal with the health of 
the whole community, rather than left to some self-appointed and self-created body 
which was inclined to consider asylum administration altogether from a lay point 
of view, and to eliminate the medical element from what are really medical insti¬ 
tutions. They desired, instead of any such body claiming to be the co-ordinating 
body, that they should come under the Ministry of Health, which would be 
necessarily more sympathetic to the view that medical knowledge must pervade all 
matters of asylum management. In regard to the part of the resolution which had 
reference to the Board of Control, all of them who had had experience had seen 
for a long time past that they had maintained a most sympathetic attitude towards 
ideas of progress and advancement in dealing with matters concerning the insane. 
Deputations from the Association had been sent to them again and again, and they 
had met with most sympathetic encouragement in the evolutionary proposals made 
for the treatment and the care of the insane; that was becoming more and more 
a medical and less and less a legal matter (applause). The experience of the 
members of the Board of Control was vast; no other body that they could conceive 
of had such experience of the needs of the insane, or of the medical officers and 
staffs who had to look after the patients. It would be a disaster if that experienced 
and sympathetic body should be scrapped and some new body established when the 
administration of lunacy passed into the hands of the Ministry of Health. They 
tht-refore proposed to bring to the notice of the Ministry their appreciation of that 
body, and their desire that it should continue to be an important element in the 
Ministry of Health. (Applause.) 

Dr. Miller seconded. 

Dr. Edwards was in favour of the resolution but thought the two matters should 
be dealt with separately. 

Dr. Soutar thought the clause dealing tvith the Board of Control was most 
important, and he saw nothing invidious in mentioning their desire to retain that 
particular body in a department of the Ministry of Health. It was an important 
point with a larger bearing than appeared on the surface. There was undoubtedly 
a feeling in certain places that the Board of Control should be scrapped and some 
new body instituted. “ We have had experience of the Board and know its value 
and I think we ought to say so.” (Applause.) 

Dr. Bower thought if they did not say so it might be inferred they did not want 
to retain it. 

Dr. Shaw Bolton said it was not fully realised how much it was desired by 
some members of asylum committees to scrap the Board of Control. The chief 
object in the formation of the National Federation was to form mental hospitals 
which were free from the Board of Control. That would be most disastrous, and 
he was consequently strongly in favour of Dr. Soutar's resolution. 

Dr. Fothergill asked if the inclusion in the Ministry of Health would include 
borderland conditions ? 

Dr. Soutar said they would rather not make special reference to borderland 
conditions; the whole question of what constituted mental disease would be 
considered by the Ministry, and their Council thought it best to deal with general 
principles only in the resolution. 

The resolution was carried unanimously. 

Dr. Soutar proposed that a copy of the resolution should be forwarded to Dr. 
Addison, with a request that he would receive a deputation, and that it should be 
left to the President, Treasurer and Secretary to appoint the members of the 
deputation. 

This was agreed to. 


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Original from 

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 



282 


NOTES AND NEWS. 


[Oct., 


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The Training of Mental Nurses. 

Dr. Robertson said he had been asked by the Council to bring forward a 
resolution dealing with the training of mental nurses, and the number of asylums in 
which they required to serve before being eligible to go up for examination. At 
present, according to the laws of the Association, this training might be taken in 
not more than two separate asylums. The Council proposed that in future the 
whole of the three years’ course of training should be taken in one asylum. It was 
appropriate to bring it up at that meeting for two reasons. Twenty-six years 
ago it was possible for candidates to take their training at as many asylums as 
they cared to go to. Twenty-six years ago at the last meeting at York it was 
proposed and carried that they should only be allowed to take this training at two 
asylums. He thought they should now endeavour to insist on having the training 
entirely in one institution, and thus come into line with the trained hospital nurses. 
For mental nursing two different qualifications were required. In the first 
place the candidate must be a skilled nurse who knew how to care for sick people 
and to look after mentally deranged people. It was exceedingly important he or 
she should have this technical knowledge. But, in the second place, it was 
exceedingly important that those who looked after the mentally sick should also 
be people of good character—persons upon whom they could rely. He ventured 
to say the character of a mental nurse was often more important than the technical 
training. He would much rather have a person as a mental nurse on whom he 
could thoroughly depend that she would do all she could for the welfare of the 
patient under her charge. Of what use was technical knowledge if they could not 
rely on it being put into operation ? A person without character, although she 
had technical knowledge of nursing, was most unreliable. The only way in which 
they could satisfy themselves as to the character of nurses or as to attainments 
was by keeping them under observation. A period of training which enabled them 
to take it in two institutions did not enable them to test character so well as under 
the scheme he proposed. It very often happened if a nurse had been in an institu¬ 
tion and got into trouble by making mistakes she left it and went on to another, 
where she was able to hold on for some months and in due time she got her cer¬ 
tificate. On the other hand, if she could only get her certificate by remaining in 
one institution three years, under the eyes of the matron or the superintendent, if 
she did that and passed the test that was all they could ask. He moved—“ That 
in future the three years’ course of training for nurses applying for a certificate of 
proficiency shall be taken in one mental hospital in place of ‘ not more than two 
mental hospitals.’ ’’ 

Dr. Oswald seconded. He asked that when the final results were published 
there should be indicated the percentage who obtained their certificates in English 
institutions and in Scottish and Irish. He had taken the trouble to analyse the 
list of those who passed the November examination, and he thought that over 
60 per cent, were from Scottish asylums. He took the resolution to mean that the 
nurse must have been three years in the hospital from which she went up for 
examination. 

Dr. Robertson : She may be in any hospital she likes, but she must be three 
years in the one from which she gets her certificate. 

Dr. Edwards said it must be recognised in fairness to those already under 
training that this would refer to the future and not to those now training. 

Dr. Soutar: Certainly. 

Dr. Menzies opposed the proposal, which he regarded as retrograde. He 
hoped the next improvement would be to allow services in as many asylums as a 
candidate desired. To suggest one asylum for training was to throw an unmerited 
stigma on the superintendent of the former asylum by saying that the superinten¬ 
dent of the second asylum was a better judge and had more discriminating power. 
He thought if the superintendent could not judge in six or nine months or a year 
the character of a nurse, especially one supposed to be a senior nurse who had had 
some training in another asylum, then he was not able to give any certificate of 
character at all. He was one of those who agreed that general hospital trianing 
was desirable in asylum nurses, but he thought the one-hospital rule was due to 
jealousies between the various matrons. If hospitals were as far advanced as the 
Medico-Psychological Association, and had only a national certificate, there would 


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Original from 

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 



I 9 I 9 -] 


NOTES AND NEWS. 283 

be no difficulty in a nurse going from one hospital to another. The idea of the 
Conciliation Report was that the Medico-Psychological Certificate should ultimately 
be scrapped, and that Management Boards of Asylums, together with the National 
Asylum Workers’ Union, should gradually institute a nursing certificate in each 
asylum and slowly squeeze out a national certificate, while compelling the medical 
officers to teach what subjects the staff might select. That this would be a 
retrograde step the staff did not at present recognise, but that made it all the more 
incumbent upon the Medico-Psychological Association to oppose any such 
tendency. Compelling a nurse to serve all her training in one asylum would 
intensify this tendency, and therefore he opposed the motion. 

Dr. Shaw Bolton said that ever since he had been a superintendent he had 
systematically refused to take nurses from other institutions because they had so 
much to unlearn. He had had a couple of dozen who had come from other 
institutions who had certainly not been satisfactory nurses. Training was 
necessarily so different, method was necessarily so different, that for nurses 
to become really satisfactory it was much better to go through the full course 
of training in one institution. A nurse so trained was of much more use in an 
institution than if trained half and half. He did not know what alteration in the 
law was likely to take place, but if it was in the direction they were desiring 
the whole of the mental hospitals would approximate to the general hospitals. 
If so, he hoped no asylum would keep a nurse who had not been trained. It was 
perfectly true the Asylum Workers’ Union wanted to oust their certificate, but at 
the same time it was true that not 20 per cent, of the mental asylum nurses were 
trained and got the certificate. In the West Riding something like 10 per cent. 
had got them; they should like 90 or even 100. If Dr. Menzies’ idea were 
enforced they might be in a worse state. He would like to see training pressed 
to the fore, and the question of examination kept more in the background. 

Dr. Robertson denied that the proposal was a retrograde step. Dr. Menzies' 
hope that nurses might be able to take their training in more than two hospitals 
was a reversion to the state of affairs of twenty-six years ago. In reply to 
Dr. Menzies’ other point, he denied that the proposal cast any slur or stigma 
on the superintendent at all. Every superintendent was capable more or less of 
judging character, but a certain amount of time was necessary for them to see 
the candidate at work, and nurses might be able to hold out for eighteen months 
and then give themselves away, but no certificate could be given until a certain 
practical test had been made. He re-read the resolution and explained that it was 
not retrospective. 

The President put the motion and declared it carried by a majority. 

Special Committee. 

The Secretary read the report of the Special Committee. 

Resolution tassed by the Special Sub-Committee ok the Medico- 
Psychological Association, July 4T11, 1919. 

" It was decided that the constitution of the Medico-Psychological Associa¬ 
tion was such that it could not help the Asylum Workers’ Association. The 
members of the Sub-committee were very sympathetic and were willing to 
help the Asylum Workers’ Association in the way of affiliation or absorption 
by the Medico Psychological Association, but could not see their way to do 
anything in the matter. The Sub-committee recommended the Council 
to accept and administrate the Convalescent Fund of the Asylum Workers’ 
Association if this fund can be handed over to the Medico-Psychological 
Association.” 

There were present at the above meeting Lieut.-Col. Keay, Lieut.-Col. Thomson, 
Major Worth, Dr. Shuttleworth, Dr. Powell, Secretary of the Asylum Workers’ 
Association. 

The President said the Sub-committee were very sympathetic and most 
anxious to help the Asylum Workers' Association, but to do so would involve 
an alteration in the constitution of the Association. The Secretary of the Asylum 
Workers’ Association had undertaken to ascertain what could be done towards 
taking over the Convalescent Fund by the Medico-Psychological Association and 
administering it for them. 

LXV. 2 0 


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Col. Thomson corroborated the President's remarks. They were very sorry 
the Asylum Workers’ Association had come to an end, but certainly absorption 
or affiliation between them was impossible. 

The Secretary reported that Mr. Bethell, who did some work for the Association 
at n, Chandos Street, and who received ^13 8 s. a year, had asked that it be re¬ 
considered. The Council suggest that the sum be increased to 25 guineas. 

After discussion an amendment by Dr. Shaw Bolton, seconded by Col. 
Thomson, that the sum be £26 , was carried. 

The next business was fixing the dates of Annual, Quarterly, and Divisional 
Meetings of the Association and Quarterly Meetings of the Council. The 
following dates were suggested by the President: Tuesday, November 25th, 
1919; Tuesday, February 24th, 1920; Tuesday, May 25th, 1920. 

The Divisional Meetings are proposed as follows : 

South-Eastern Division. —October 1st, 1919, at Elm Lodge, Clay Hill Lane, 
Enfield. 

Northern and Midland Division. —October, 1919, North Riding Asylum, 
Clifton, York; April, 1920, Mental Hospital, Middlesbrough. 

South-Western Division. —October 24th, 1919; April 24th, 1920. 

Scottish Division. —November 21st, 1919; March 19th, 1920. 

Irish Division. —November 6th, 1919, at Royal College of Physicians; 
April 1st, 1920; July 1st, 1920. 

This was agreed to. 

The following were submitted for election as members of the Association: 

Peregrine Stephen Brackenbury Langton, M.R.C.S.Eng., L.R.C.P.Lond., 
M.B., B.S.Lond., Assistant Medical Officer, York City Asylum, Fulford, York. 
(Proposed by Drs. C. L. Hopkins, Bedford Pierce, and Stewart Adair.) 

Henry Eggleston, M.B., B.S.Durh. Univ, Assistant Medical Officer, Brooke 
House, Clapton, E. 5. (Proposed by Drs. Gerald H. Johnston, R. H. Cole, and 
R. Worth.) 

The President announced that Dr. Barkas had already been elected, and the 
other two candidates were unanimously elected. 

“ Notes on a Case Treated by Hypnotic Suggestion.” 

Dr. Jeffrey read a paper bearing this title. 

Dr. Robertson congratulated Dr. Jeffrey on his excellent summary of an 
extremely interesting case. There was a time, a good many years ago, when he (Dr. 
Robertson) made use of hypnotism to a very large extent in the treatment of 
mental cases. He found that in all cases in which he attempted hypnosis those 
suffering from melancholia were the most difficult to hypnotise. Those suffering 
from acute mania were extremely suggestible, and so were very easily hynotised. 
It was most difficult to get the attention of melancholic patients, and this being 
necessary to induce hypnosis, nothing was done. In this case, as Dr. Jeffrey had 
pointed out, the symptoms did not resemble those of ordinary melancholia. It 
was probably a case of what was known as anxiety neurosis ; certainly the patient 
had the anxious feeling, dulness, introspection, self-depreciation, self-accusatory 
ideas, and defect of will-power they got in ordinary cases. But in this case he 
thought there was—he said it with all deference—very probably a very strong 
sexual element. The dream which was reported was one which, according to the 
Freudians, might be analysed symbolically sexual. Seeing that the patient was 
very anxious about her flan''*? at that time he thought there could be very little 
doubt there was some sexual explanation. He did not think the dream was 
the cause of the illness; probably underlying it was the anxiety, which was 
merely brought to a head by the dream. It was a symptom of the patient’s 
anxious condition. It was true the hypnotic condition dispelled the dream, but 
he wished Dr. Jeffrey had entered a little more fully into detail as to what he told 
the patient to explain the dream and to allay her anxiety. It was clear that what 
partly happened was this : the subconscious was deeply stirred up by the dream, 
and this produced an intense feeling of anxiety in the patient. One often found 
that melancholic patients were worse in the morning, and as the day wore on they 


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grew better. One wondered what was the explanation, and so did Dr. Clouston, 
but he found it was due to the fact that during sleep the subconscious was most 
active, so one was worse in the morning and by evening the subconscious became 
less active, and was repressed. 

Dr. Ladell agreed that melancholic patients were practically impossible to 
hypnotise. He sometimes wondered if it would be wise to drug patients sufficiently 
to get them quieter, and then to superimpose hypnosis on the top of that. As 
regards Dr. Robertson’s interpretation of the dream he thought his remarks 
showed how far Freud was astray. It was of course quite possible to put a sexual 
interpretation on the dream, but if Dr. Jeffrey had explained the sexual interpreta¬ 
tion to the patient would the cure have been any more effective ? The followers 
of Freud went wrong here ; it was impossible to give a sexual interpretation to 
every dream ; in fact, he seldom found that the sexual interpretation was the 
correct one. He had occasionally found jealousy came in, but the actual crude 
sexual interpretation seemed entirely unnecessary in every case. 

Dr. Eustace congratulated Dr. Jeffrey on being able to induce hypnosis. 
They realised personal magnetism was needed to induce it, but all had not the 
power. He knew he could never induce it; he had tried and failed and would be 
very glad of details as to how it was induced. 

Dr. Jeffrey said it was a case of anxiety neurosis. He entirely disagreed with 
the sexual explanation. Why should they try to correlate every circumstance of a 
case like this with a sexual meaning? He took particular care to try to find out 
if there was any sexual point which might have been raised in connection with this 
young lady. There was none, and the dream that he related had no sex connection 
at all. He induced hypnosis in the usual way. The first thing to do was to get 
the patient to detach her mind, and put it in a condition of absolute blank. To 
do that he sat quietly beside the patient and told her he was going to put her mind 
into a condition of blank, explaining that if the mind got into a condition of rest 
then they would have the condition of thinking normally again. He asked 
patients to give him their attention and think of nothing at all, and then suddenly 
he said the word “ sleep,” repeating it, and asking them to fix their eye on a 
shaded torch. When they found that they were becoming calm they would 
experience a feeling of detachment, and would then be able to listen quietly, and 
appreciate what was being said to them. 

Welcome to French Visitor. 

Referring to the presence of M. !e Docteur Henri Colin, the President said: 

At this our Annual Meeting, occurring very appropriately at the time of the 
celebration of peace, we are honoured by the presence of a representative of the 
Medico-Psychological Society of Paris, Dr. Henri Colin, its Honorary Secretary. 
To our distinguished guest we extend a warm greeting and a hearty welcome, not 
only on account of his eminence as an alienist and of the fact that he represents at 
our Meeting the sister Society to which we are united by bonds of ever-growing 
esteem and affection, but if possible even more so because he stands for closer 
union and fellowship in all things with our brave and glorious ally the heroic and 
immortal France. (Loud applause.) 

Dr. Robertson endorsed the welcome, and added that he would like Dr. Colin 
to carry away the feeling that the Association were looking forward to the celebra¬ 
tion in a few years of the centenary of the discovery of general paralysis of thi 
insane by Dr. Boyle. He hoped that when their sister Association in Paris 
celebrated that event Dr. Colin would assure them that this Association would 
sympathetically consider any steps taken with that object—perhaps the greatest 
neurological discovery that had ever taken place. (Applause.) 

Dr. Colin’s Reply. 

I most gratefully thank Col. Keay for his hearty welcome. It is for me a great 
pleasure to find myself here in this world-famous Retreat of the City of York. 

Everybody knows the Retreat, at least by name, and for us Frenchmen, par¬ 
ticularly, this name recalls the descriptions of our masters, Ferrus, Morel, 
Parchappe. It evokes also the souvenir of this admirable family of Tuke, who, 
without any other preparation than the goodness of their heart and their keen 
sense of justice, devoted themselves to the relieving of the invalids of the brain. 


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Our Pinel had begun in France in the year 1792; then in England William Tuke 
opened this house in 1796, and was followed by Samuel Tuke and Hack Tuke, who 
was the friend of many of my countrymen, and to whose dictionary I myself brought 
my modest contribution. 

After William Tuke came Conolly and the no-restraint method now universally 
adopted, and the creation of these marvellous English asylums which have their 
equal in no other country. 

We can boldly say that the treatment of the insane, and the medical and 
scientific study of mental diseases, was born and developed in France and in 
England, and this is the reason why some years ago 1 was amazed to hear the 
immoderate laudation given^to the Germans in this special part of [our medical 
art. We were only a few In France to protest against the hasty generalisation of 
German theorists relative to dementia praecox or manic-depressive insanity, and 
this, not in a spirit of low jealousy, but simply from a critical point of view, and 
because we knew that they were bringing us back from Germany under affected 
names, morbid states that had been recognised and well described in other countries. 

In this branch, as they used to do in many other scientific branches, the Germans 
contented themselves to apply and to spread, without quoting the authors, the 
discoveries of others. 

Let us hope that here also the war will have been a lesson for us—a hard 
lesson—and that before blindly admiring the theories of the other side of the 
Rhine we will simply read over again our own authors. 

1 bring here the respectful salute of my countrymen to the memory of the 
Tukes, whose work is so well continued by their most distinguished successor, 
the present superintendent of the Retreat, Dr. Bedford Pierce. 

THE LUNCHEON. 

Members were entertained to luncheon at The Retreat, Mr. Yeomans, of 
Sheffield, Chairman of the Committee of Management, presiding. 

The President (Col. Keay) thanked the Committee for their hospitality. In a 
humorous speech he explained that the Association was practically an Irish 
Association, and between Irishmen and Yorkshiremen there were many points of 
similarity. There was their love for constituted authority; their love of law and 
order; their antipathy to any violent methods of any kind, and their tolerance of 
those who differed from them in discussion. (Laughter.) This being so, it was 
natural that the Committee of the Retreat should welcome them there that 
day, as they were, in point of fact, the Medico-Psychological Irish Association. 
(Laughter.) They therefore expected to receive the kind of hospitality they had, 
and they showed it by coming to the Retreat for their new President, a gentleman 
who, if not an Irishman, could not help it. They had admired the Committee's 
splendid hospital, with its historic associations and its world-wide reputation for 
all that was good in the treatment of the insane. (Applause.) 

The Chairman said the Committee appreciated the kind words which had been 
said about their institution. It was a pleasure to entertain the Association. It 
was not the first time they had visited York; he remembered the last occasion, 
when their Medical Superintendent, Dr. Baker, was President for the year. He 
remembered that his predecessor in the chairmanship of the Retreat took the 
opportunity of urging improvements in the status and the raising of the standard 
of education, and encouraging a higher type of woman to engage in the nursing 
of the insane. He believed that idea had permeated the asylum world, and to-day, 
though they still had a nursing question, it was of a very different character. It 
was a special pleasure to the Committee to welcome them, because, in honouring 
Dr. Bedford Pierce, they were in some sense honouring the Retreat. Perhaps he 
might remind them that the Retreat was opened in 1796, and they must not, 
therefore, expect to find it in some respects as a building altogether up-to-date. 
But they had 'endeavoured to preserve the homely character and domesticity of 
the institution, which had always been a feature of The Retreat. It was founded 
by William Tuke, and was the first asylum in England which was established on 
humane lines; at the same time M. Pinel, of Paris, independently carried out 
similar reforms at the Bicdtre. (Applause.) 

Members subsequently inspected portions of the building, and viewed with great 
interest the archives ancFother historic’psychiatric treasures of the Committee. 


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AFTERNOON SESSION.— July 22nd. 

Thanks to Retiring Officers. 

Dr. Percy Smith proposed a vote of thanks to the retiring President and the 
officers of the Association. As regards Col. Keay, it was a pleasure to see the 
chair again filled by a new president. Col. Thomson loyally stepped into 
the breach and filled the chair for four years in succession, and now Col. Keay had 
occupied it for a normal year, and they offered their hearty thanks to him. The 
war had terminated, but Col. Keay was still in charge of a military hospital, and he 
had no doubt his military duties had been as efficiently carried out as his duties as 
President of the Association (Applause.) In leaving the chair they wished him 
every success and happiness in the future. (Applause.) “ It is a pleasure,” continued 
Dr. Smith, " that he is being succeeded by what I may call one of my old pupils. 
I mean that it was in 1891 that Dr. Bedford Pierce came’as clinical assistant at 
Bethlem Hospital when I was in charge there. As to the other officers of the 
Association, I remember that when I was President I ventured to say that 1 Presi¬ 
dents come and Presidents go, but the officers go on forever,’ and that but for the 
work of what may be called the permanent officers the work of the Association 
could not go on every year.” Dr. Steen filled the gap as Secretary during the time 
Col. Collins was on military duty, and it was only during the last 4 few weeks that 
Major Worth had succeeded Dr. Steen. He thought special thanks were due to 
Dr. Steen for the care he had taken of the affairs of the Association during the 
time he was Secretary. He was glad to say their friend the Treasurer, Dr. Cham¬ 
bers, was not retiring. It would be vividly in the memory of them all how long 
their Treasurer, Dr. Newington, held the post, and what an admirable example he 
set in the way of keeping the accounts, and they were all confident that in Dr. 
Chambers’ hands the Association accounts would go on in the same admirable 
system.I »The Editors of the Journal during thejwar had had almost arduous 
task, partly due to the lack of material, and partly owing to the expense of paper and 
printing when they got the material, and the thanks of the Association were due 
to them for maintaining the Journal at such a level during the war. They had 
hinted that in consequence of the expense they might not get the Journal back to 
the size it used to be, but he hoped they would be able to restore it. Then there 
was their old friend the Registrar, who did an enormous amount of work. It was 
difficult to estimate how much work he did in connection with the registration of 
nurses. No one could grasp it who had not seen it; but no one could doubt their 
thanks were due) to Dr. Miller. The* Auditors were still going on ; their posts 
involved a good deal of work before the annual meeting came on. Dr. Smith 
also expressed the thanks of the Association to the secretaries of the various 
Divisions, who had each accomplished most useful work. 

Dr. Eastf.rbrook seconded, remarking that, as the President had pointed out, 
their Treasurer, acting Editor, and the General Secretary and Registrar were all 
Irishmen—it was, in other words, an Irish Association (Laughter). He thought 
they would agree that as Dr. Smith represented the Association south of the 
Border, someone from the north of the Border should have the pleasure and 
honour of seconding this vote to their Irish confreres, and they would agree they 
had had a very peaceful year of Home Rule. (Laughter and applause.) 

The resolution was unanimously agreed to. 

The President returned thanks on behalf of ..his colleagues and himself for 
the kind words which had been spoken. He had now had a year as President, and 
he was more convinced than ever that it really did not matter what kind of a 
President they had. He could only reproach himself with being most inefficient, 
nothing else; it didn’t matter in the very least whether he did any work or not,the 
work was carried on by their splendid permanent officers. It went like clockwork 
whatever the President might do or whatever might be his endeavours to upset it. 
He did not think it would be the desire of the officers that he should refer to them 
individually, but he was convinced they could not have a better set of officers than 
they had. The mantle of their old friend, Dr. Newington, as Treasurer, had fallen 
on shoulders more able to bear the strain, and their treasury was safe. In the 
Secretary they had one who was young and ambitious and with tremendous ideals, 
with push and energy, and there were great things before them. He would like 
to say one word about the Editors of the Journal. They had conducted it during 


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288 NOTES AND NEWS. [Oct., 

the war with credit to themselves and the Association. They had surmounted 
great difficulties and they would go on surmounting them because the acting 
Editor was an Irishman. He would say nothing about the Registrar, because he 
was another Irishman. “ We are a modest people, and, like Yorkshiremen, the less 
said about it the better.” It now only remained for him to die as gracefully as he 
could, but before doing so he had the satisfaction of handing over the affairs of the 
Association to one better able to look after them than he had been—he referred to 
Dr. Bedford Pierce. (Applause.) The Association was handing over the direction of 
its affairs—as far as he would be allowed to direct them—to a strong, resolute man 
who would perhaps hold his own among those officers of whom he had just been 
speaking. He had great pleasure in ornamenting Dr. Pierce with the badge of 
office in the certain knowledge that a year after this he would be as glad to retire 
as he (Col. Keay) was. 

Having been invested with the Presidential insignia 

Dr. Pierce said he was very proud to wear the “ blue riband ” of the Associa¬ 
tion. He did not know that there was anything more pleasing in this world than 
to win the goodwill and appreciation of one's friends and colleagues. He had 
made no adventurous journeys in the realms of research ; he had not even written 
a book, and he could not claim therefore any right to hold that position, except 
perhaps this, that he had always been, since he knew the Association, an ardent 
believer in it. He had always received the utmost kindness from the members; he 
had always had the greatest pleasure in attending the meetings and in doing what 
he could to help. It would therefore be a pleasure to pilot the Association this 
next year. He did it with the more confidence because they had heard of the effi¬ 
ciency of their permanent officials ; but he also thought he could rely upon the 
support of all the members. “ I hope they will check me when 1 may wander, 
uphold me where I may fail, and give me sympathy at all times.” (Applause.) 

Presentation of Prizes. 

The President announced that the Gaskell Prize and Gold Medal had been 
awarded to Dr. James Walker and the Bronze Medal to Dr. Eager. There had 
been no Divisional prizes. He believed the papers sent in were of exceptional 
excellence, and it was intended to give a second prize to two members of the 
Association whose papers approached close to those of the successful prize-winners. 

The President mentioned that they had received a large number of letters 
expressing regret at inability to attend. Among them was a charming letter from 
Sir George Savage, a letter from Dr. Yellowlees, from Dr. Bevan Lewis, and from 
Dr. Ritti, of the corresponding association of Paris; also from Dr. Ren£ 
Senielaigne. 

The late Dr. Joseph Wiglesworth. 

Before beginning his address the President said his first duty was to refer to the 
death of one of the late Presidents, Dr. Joseph Wiglesworth. He did so with 
mingled feelings—a feeling of deep regret at the loss we had sustained, a feeling of 
pride that they had had among their members such a distinguished and able man, 
and of so high character. It was as long ago as 1883 that he won the prize for an 
essay the motto of which was unusual, though it seemed characteristic of his 
future work—“ He shall be as a God to me who shall rightly divide and define.” In 
it he dealt with certain states of melancholia attonita or acute dementia showing 
the inflammatory changes in motor cells. He was superintendent at Rainhill, 
where he spent nearly all his professional life. He was President in 1902 and his 
addresswas a distinguished and strikingly profound one on heredity. One fact of his 
life was known to many here, and to some intimately, because they were actually 
in the asylum when he was stabbed by a patient, the internal carotid artery being 
severed, and yet he walked a hundred yards afterwards holding the artery himself 
till he obtained assistance. He contributed numberless articles to our Journal, and 
did much to maintain the best traditions of our Association. He was an ornament 
to our profession, but he was by no means a one-sided man. Devoted to natural 
history lie was especially interested in ornithology. After his resignation he lived in 
retirement at Winscombe and saw but few visitors. He travelled widely in pursuit of 
ornithology, and though persons around saw little of him he happened to hear from 


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a schoolboy from an adjoining school that he was frequently at Dr. Wiglesworth’s 
house. The reason was the boy was devoted to ornithology, and this formed a 
common bond between them. His life was not without trouble. He had serious 
and painful administrative difficulties at his asylum, and grave disappointment at 
the end of his life by the loss of his only son in the war. They might consider him 
fortunate in that he did not suffer a long illness and the slow decline of faculties 
which is often such a sad feature of our common humanity. He was killed while 
exploring cliffs in North Devon in search of birds. They mourned his loss, 
and he was sure it would be the desire of all of them at that meeting to send a 
message of deep sympathy to Mrs. Wiglesworth at this time of great sorrow and 
loneliness. 


Presidential Address. 

The President then delivered his address on “Psychiatry a Hundred Years 
Ago: with Comments on the Problems of To-day'' (see p. 219). 

Dr. Thomson moved a vote of thanks to the President for his address. He 
might be permitted to say they had had the kind of address they expected from 
him. It had been thoroughly sound, nothing adventurous or speculative, but with 
a sound outlook and consideration of the problems of psychiatry, both yesterday 
and to-day. Specially interested, of course, in the Retreat, Dr. Pierce had 
naturally looked back historically to the problems of years ago. He had brought out 
the striking fact that they were asked 3,000 years ago and 200years ago very much 
the same problems as we were asked to-day. We seemed to grope about for a 
solution. Like Dr. Pierce, he was hopeful of an ultimate solution to many of 
them, and not to sink into the slough of feeling that the problems of insanity were 
unknown and unknowable. That was not the occasion to argue about the points 
which the President had raised ; they had to thank him most sincerely for the 
wise and sound thought that he had placed before them in that address. 

Dr. Soutar, seconding, said that what struck him most in the address was that 
the President had brought out in a very clear way how closely in touch their work 
was with every interest of the human race. Not only had they to treat illness, but 
they should recognise that the illnesses with which they had to deal were very much 
due to social conditions, over which they must first exercise control if they were 
going to stem the tide of mental disease. The President was not pessimistic, but he 
did not give full credit to the very definite advance made in the period under 
review. There was now established, largely under the influence of that Institution 
(The Retreat) among others—firmly established—the idea that the old methods of 
treatment were done with for ever. That was a definite step in advance at all 
events. As Dr. Bedford Pierce hinted, the next step they had to take was to deal 
with the earlier incipient cases. There was no reason for pessimism or questioning. 
We were further on than we were in the early years, and the President had taken 
a very material part in the progress that had been maintained, and the efforts of 
that Institution (the Retreat) were being continued under the present medical 
directorate. The paper was full of interest, and the way in which the President 
emphasized the necessity for research was of the greatest possible value. They 
were deeply indebted for the address, not only for its historical interest and for its 
philosophical tone, but also for its practical direction. (Applause.) 

The vote was very heartily accorded, and was suitably acknowledged by the 
President. 

GARDEN PARTY. 

The Committee of “ The Retreat ” gave a garden party in the afternoon to the 
members and their friends, a large number of guests being invited to meet them. 

THE DINNER. 

The Annual Dinner was held at the Royal Station Hotel, York, on Tuesday- 
evening, July 22nd, 1919. The President, Dr. Bedford Pierce, was in the chair, 
and among the guests were the Lord Mayor of York (Alderman Sir W. A. Forster 
Todd), the Sheriff (Alderman C. W. Shipley), the Dean of York (the Very Rev. 
Dr. W. Foxley Norris), Sir George Newman, K.C.B., Maj.-Gen. J. Thomson 


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29O NOTES AND NEWS. [Oct., 

C.B., Deputy Director of Medical Services, Northern Command, Col. Roche, 
R.A.F., Dr. C. H. Bond and Mr. A. H. Trevor, Lunacy Commissioners, M. le 
Docteur Henri Colin, Paris, Prof. T. Wardrop Griffiths, Leeds School of Medicine, 
Mr. G. W. Gostling, President, York Medical Society, Mr. Chas. Fernam, Chair¬ 
man of the Retreat Committee, Mr. J. J. Hunt, Chairman of the Governors, 
Bootham Park Asylum, Mr. Arthur Rowntree, and others. 

The Toasts. 

"The Royal Medical Services." 

Dr. Soutar proposed " The Royal Medical Services." He said that while they 
might have chosen some one more fitted to propose this toast, it was hardly 
possible to ask one who had helped to make the wonderful record of those 
services, and therefore they had to fall back on one who had been an envious but 
admiring spectator. An onlooker like himself was quite incapable of making a 
speech worthy of the toast. But he had seen something of their ultimate 
achievements, and they were looking forward to the time when they would get 
a full record of the men and the measures whereby not only had the piteous cry 
for help from suffering, pain, and disablement been met beyond all previous 
experience, but whereby, in a way hitherto unthinkable, preventable disease had 
been prevented, and thereby man-power had been maintained and victory won. 
It was that which made possible the genius of our generals, the leadership of our 
officers, and the valour of our men. Because men did not die as in previous 
campaigns the shores of Great Britain were inviolate. That was due to the 
medical services. That was a great achievement, which even they as onlookers 
could perceive and admire. They were burning with desire, both as members of 
the medical profession and as citizens of the Empire, to express their profound 
and undying gratitude to those services—the men from the rural districts, the 
cities, our own countrymen ; the men of the services from India, Canada, Australia, 
New Zealand—from everywhere where the British flag flies. They did not forget 
the United States, or anywhere where the sturdy strain of the British breed had 
gone. These all, by unity of purpose, solidarity of action, interchange of experience 
and knowledge, had not only effected this great achievement during the war, but had 
placed the human race under a deep obligation by pointing the way through 
which similar victories might be won over disease in civil life. (Applause.) 

" By their works ye shall know them,” and in expressing their gratitude to those 
who, having faced difficulties in our country's cause, had come back to them, they 
sped a reverent thought to those who, having played their part, returned no more. 
(Applause.) 

Maj.-Gen. Thomson, C.B., responding, said the work of the R.A.M.C. in 
certain theatres of the war had been carried out in circumstances of extreme diffi¬ 
culty, but they could congratulate themselves in having overcome the difficulties. 
In France they held in check two diseases which had been the scourge of armies in 
the field in previous campaigns—enteric and dysentery. Enteric had been so 
curtailed by inoculation and improved sanitary arrangements that the admissions 
had been less than 100,000. With regard to dysentery the incidence had been 
greater, but even in that disease, by the strictest isolation and segregation of 
carriers with sanitary precautions they had managed so that the disease had never 
become epidemic, even during the latter part of the campaign when they were 
occupying ground which had been fouled by the enemy, because, judging by the 
prisoners of war, the disease must have been most prevalent. In addition they 
had new forms of disease to contend with, such as trench nephritis, trench fever, 
and trench foot, and last, but not least, so-called shell-shock. He thought it was a 
great mistake such a name was ever applied to this disablement, because it had 
given men all the glamour of being battle casualties, and furnished them with a 
pretext of getting admission to hospital whenever they felt disposed. Had the 
meeting been in Newcastle they would have been delighted to invite them to see 
their cases in the Northumberland Hospital. Many were cases of young soldiers 
who had improved considerably in hospital, though probably they would never be 
fit to serve in the ranks again. The worst cases were those of old soldiers who 
were drifting into the hospital. These men were highly excitable, intolerant of 
any form of discipline, and it was difficult to know how to deal with them. They 


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would be grateful for any advice in these cases. Maj.-Gen. Thomson 
acknowledged the deep debt the Army Medical Service were under to the Board of 
Control in placing at their disposal so many large asylums, fully equipped in every 
detail, which had proved invaluable to them as general hospitals. Many of the 
staffs, too, had joined the R.A.M.C., and had rendered yeoman service at home and 
abroad. In concluding, he welcomed the introduction of the scheme whereby men 
who were discharged from the army were treated in mental institutions instead of 
being treated as paupers. This had been a great boon, and had been highly 
appreciated by the relatives of these unfortunate men. (Applause.) 

Col. Roche, R.A.F. also responded. He spoke of the great difficulty in 
organising the naval medical service, which was hopelessly understaffed at the 
beginning of the war, and said that although the position of naval surgeon and the 
conditions of life with the men on a ship presented enormous difficulties to the 
ordinary practitioners, yet they had been of immense help and assisted them to 
win through in the most extraordinary way. They of the permanent service had 
been most grateful for their help. As regards the flying service, the personnel at 
the start was very small. They were constantly confronted with many complicated 
conditions due to the extraordinary sacrifices and arduous tasks their fliers were 
called upon to deal with. Naturally new diseases under new conditions sprang up 
and they succeeded in dealing with them more or less—rather less than more—but 
there was undoubtedly a great deal of work still to be done. But it has got to be 
done in the future by a certain number of experts, because the work is too intricate 
and too big to tackle by the ordinary service of the military officer, who has many 
other things to think about besides research. They were looking forward to many 
experts, especially in their department of medical science, lending their aid in 
trying to classify the many diseases fliers were called upon to encounter. As to 
the future, nobody had anything to go upon as to what they would be required to 
do, but from what the general practitioner had done in the past they were confident 
they would not be lacking in granting any aid they needed. (Applause.) 

“The Medico-Psychological Association of Great Britain and 

Ireland.” 

Sir George Newman, K.C.B., in submitting this toast, said the Association 
was established about the middle of last century. Its purpose had been two-fold: 
first, the amelioration of the condition of the insane, and secondly, the advance¬ 
ment of medical knowledge with regard to the letiology of mental diseases. It 
was clear there were two groups of persons who were entitled to propose their 
health. One was the group of persons who were pundits on their particular 
malady ; the other were the persons who could properly claim to be entirely 
ignorant of their particular malady. He was fortunate in not being acquainted 
with their particular malady, and he was fortunate in proposing the toast of the 
health of their Association in that place—the city of York—where in 1792 a 
great and courageous humanist, William Tuke, founded the York Retreat, and 
with others stamped out for ever and finished for ever as an ideal practice, the 
shackling of the insane. They were happy that evening in having a direct 
descendant of William Tuke dining at that table. He was fortunate in having 
to propose the toast and to couple with it the name of the distinguished man 
who was their President. He was also fortunate in the circumstances of the 
time in which their meeting was gathered at York. They were at the end of the war; 
they were hoping they were at the beginning of a period of reconstruction. There 
was no subject where reconstruction should bring better fruit to this country than 
in the cause for which that Association stood. They were met at a time when 
their own Association’s Committee had produced a report which he and many 
others had read with great interest, edification and sympathy—a report which 
marked a great step onward in the progress of their practice and administration 
in regard to the treatment of those suffering from mental diseases; a report 
which he hoped at an early date would form the basis of a Bill in Parliament—a 
Bill which, he believed, would receive a large measure of support,'and which would 
receive support, at all events, from the Minister whom he had the)honour to 
represent that evening. There was another factor in the time in which they 
were met. That was the wide movement which was going on in the medical 


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profession in regard to the medical attitude to preventive medicine in relation to 
almost every branch of their profession, its science and its art. As they knew, 
it fell to his lot to be assessor of medical schools, and all over the country there 
was a movement in medical education which, he hoped, would lend its support 
to the cause for which that Association stood—for the reform of the treatment of 
mental disease. Lastly, there was incidentally the beginning of a Ministry of 
Health which, he hoped, would take its right share in this business. Might 
he tell them how he viewed the position which he thought preventive medicine 
should take in relation to mental disease ? He thought it was the business of the 
Ministry of Health to endeavour to create and maintain the mental health and 
capacity of the nation just as much as to maintain their physical health. (Applause.) 
He drew no distinction whatever between their attitude towards the three diseases 
which were the scourge of our time—tuberculosis, venereal disease and influenza ; 
the attitude which an enlightened Ministry of Health ought to have to those 
and their attitude to mental diseases. (Applause.) Secondly, they should 
view mental disease from the preventive standpoint. He thought the Ministry 
should say it was as much their business to prevent mental disease as to 
prevent any other. Thirdly, he thought their method of preventing it should 
be along lines which he should call physiological and psychological rather than 
any other. He should like to see this applied to all forms of mental disease and 
to all degrees, from the conditions of mental dulness and mental retardation to 
advanced insanity; from nervous diseases which are mental to mental diseases 
which are nervous. The whole group should come within the compass 
of the State, in the sense of the State taking an enlightened view of their 
preventability, and doing all they can to encourage newer, larger and more 
emancipated ideas with regard to mental diseases as a whole. At the Board 
of Education he had endeavoured to view the mental diseases of children more 
or less from that standpoint. He recognised that we had—though perhaps not 
very numerous, still, there were left in the population—persons of normal mentality. 
(Laughter.) What that fraction of the people is he did not venture to suggest. 
He was sure there was a large number—possibly 10, or 15, or even 20 percent, in 
some districts—of children who were dull and retarded ; suffering from psycho- 
neurosis ; a fourth group were aments, a fifth dements, and it seemed to him they 
ought to grapple with all groups nationally, and from the point of view of preven¬ 
tion. That meant they had got to tackie the cause. He remembered very well 
when he was bacteriologist at King's College for five or six years how impressed 
he was by the fact that around almost every organism there was a group of similar 
but atypical organisms. He noticed, too, in almost every epidemic they had not only 
the notified cases, the true type, but a zone of atypical disease kindred to it lying 
outside it. When he went to the Board of Education he had the same experience. 
We had in the schools a zone of children round the true mental defectives who 
were so dull and retarded that they could not be educated as normal children. It 
was the same with the deaf. They had a group who, though not totally deaf, were 
deaf enough not to get advantage from their education. It was the same with 
the blind. They had to start schools, not for the totally blind but for the partially 
blind, who lay immediately outside the zone of the totally blind. Was it not likely 
to be the same in some measure with the mental diseases? They had got to 
think not only of the true type certified for the asylum, but of the great mass of mental 
incapacity lying all around outside the typical cases of mental disease, and it was 
that great zone, as in other groups, that formed the problem of mental disease. 
The problem of typhoid was the problem of its first-cousins ; it was the para¬ 
typhoids which gave them the trouble. It had not been the true, fixed, settled 
type, but the type kindred to it, similar, but not the true form. Personally he was 
satisfied that the State had got to consider not so much the acute fixed type, as to 
view the whole problem of mental disease a!> initio, taking a possible standard of 
soundness as an ideal to seek after, so that they might become not only persons 
engaged in the treatment of advanced types, but that their labours might result 
in an increase in the total mental capacity of the State. That surely was the true 
view-point of the State with regard to mental disease. If that were so they had 
got to set to work in a larger way to consider the problem. They had got to 
think of causes—primary causes, predisposition and hereditary conditions, and 
also exciting causes, alcohol, venereal, and mental stress. This had got to be 


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considered positively rather than negatively by the State. All of them around 
that table could see what that meant. It meant that preventive medicine 
had got to begin with the difficult subject of eugenics. They had got to lay the 
foundation of good breeding if they were going to turn off the tap of mental 
disease. They had got to think in terms of childhood, not only in terms of acute 
and fixed types of the insanity of the asylums ; they had got to preach the gospel 
of good breeding as the basis of national health. (Applause.) Secondly, they 
had got to work much more carefully on early diagnosis of incipient mental disease. 
There was a great region of unknown territory not yet mapped out. Thirdly, they 
must go a step further in regard to it and make some provision foritsearly and prompt 
treatment, sympathetic, physiological and psychological—something which should 
• be early preventive medicine. They had a chance in England to-day, which their 
forefathers never had, of seeing with wider and larger vision the application of 
this method to mental disease in its early treatment and diagnosis. He was quite 
sure from what he saw in the medical schools it meant a new appreciation in every 
one of them of what mental disease meant. There must be a mental clinic in 
every medical school, so that no student should go out into medicine and medical 
practice until he possessed—he would not say profound learning on mental disease 
—but until he understood the profound importance of the relationship of psycho¬ 
logy to all disease, and not only to fixed or final forms of insanity. They took the 
student now into an asylum and said he must be proficient in psychiatry in three 
months, but what understanding did he get from seeing a number of advanced 
cases ? They were out on a big business when they grappled with mental disease 
from the preventive standpoint. He would not say it would mean the reconstruc¬ 
tion of the medical curriculum, but it would mean that an understanding of medical 
psychology had got to form an integral part of the equipment of every medical 
man in future. Fourthly, they would require some new institutions—some 
outdoor clinics and indoor hospitals, for these early and at present perhaps un¬ 
recognised forms of mental disease. He did not want to see these places called 
by any name which would keep away patients from the door. But he was looking 
forward to the time when they would have—he hoped at no distant future—an 
“ early-treatment clinic” for all conditions, for all grades of patients who wished to 
be treated, available for all classes of the population ; open, sometimes for venereal 
diseases, sometimes for tuberculosis, sometimes for children’s maladies, sometimes 
for mental conditions, an early-treatment centre, in practice attached wherever 
possible, anchored wherever possible, to any well-equipped hospital. If they 
could get in every general hospital a larger and more liberal understanding of 
mental disease as such in relation to other forms of disease they would have 
started on the high road to reform. It was early treatment of disease; prompt, 
effective, competent, and adequate treatment they required. He knew this was 
not going to come to-morrow; but they had got to set their faces to the light 
with regard to mental disease and then he had no doubt of the future. He believed 
they had got to educate public opinion with regard to the grounds of mental 
capacity. For instance, it did not require much foresight to see that there was a 
psychology of the crowd, which was going to become very perilous in this country 
unless it was properly and psychologically handled. Again, during the war he 
had to go round the munition works as Chairman of the Health of the Munition 
Workers’ Committee, and he learned the lesson that there was a psychology of 
industry, and that you could get a higher output up to a certain period by studying 
it than you could without it. He was sure there was a psychology of mental disease, 
and if there was a psychology of the crowd, a psychology of the strike, of industry, 
and of disease, surely the time had more than come that they should say that there 
shall be increased attention given to some psychology in the medical curriculum. 
"These are the reasons,” added Sir George, “why I have come from London 
to accept the honourable task which your President has placed upon me of 
proposing your health. I do so with the greatest possible pleasure in my own 
name and in the name of the Minister of Health, who wished me to bring a message 
of goodwill. I hope he will be able, as I am sure he is willing, to do the utmost 
in his power in co-operation with the Board of Control to support your Bill which 
you now have in hand. The fact that he has nominated to-day one of your 
members to be a medical officer on his staff, representing for the first time in 
English Government mental disease, is, 1 think, some guarantee that he means 


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business. (Applause.) All the great conquests of the future in this country, of 
all modern advanced countries, lie in the realm of the human mind. ‘ Soundness 
of mind,’ said Dr. Clouston, ‘ is the master key of all human endeavour and 
progress.’ I humbly subscribe to those words, for they are my creed in pre¬ 
ventive medicine in its relation to medical progress. (Applause.) 

The President, in his reply, said they were glad to feel that the chief Medical 
Officer of the Ministry of Health would support them. Two committees of this 
Association had prepared reports which were unanimously adopted, and which 
emphasised the need for the establishment of hospitals for nervous disorders in 
which cases could be treated in their early undeveloped stages, and it was a great 
satisfaction to know that the Ministry of Health was with them. His thoughts 
during the previous speech had carried him back twenty-seven years to the first, 
meeting of the Association he attended—to the annual dinner held in that room. 
Through all those long years he had had from the Association the utmost help 
and assistance. He would earnestly entreat all their young members to go to the 
meetings; they would learn something every time they went; they would pick up 
much from intercourse with their colleagues, and they would find their outlook 
would be widened, and the benefit they would obtain would be vastly more than 
they might think. At that time he was amazingly inexperienced : he had never 
been an assistant; he expected he was the last superintendent that would ever be 
appointed without having been an assistant medical officer. He was amazed to 
think the Committee ever had the courage to appoint him ; in fact, there was an 
official protest against his appointment, and it was justified, for he had had no 
adequate experience. But there was one good point about it which was not 
generally adopted. He was appointed twelve months before it was necessary to 
take up the work. It gave him an opportunity to learn something. Through 
Dr. Hack Tuke’s assistance he was appointed to Bethlem Hospital, and there, 
under Dr. Percy Smith, he got a sound insight into psychological practice at its 
best. He began his practical work in lunacy at a good school. After that he 
went to Edinburgh, where he was under Dr. Clouston, and where he was touched 
with the fire of that great man’s enthusiasm, his extraordinary devotion and 
learning, and he saw a wonderful view of psychological medicine there. A 
corrective was present all the while he was there, for Dr. Robertson and Dr. 
Middlemass assisted to keep him in his place. (Laughter.) He learned from 
these gentlemen very much more than ever they knew, and he was glad to have 
an opportunity of thanking them. After that he went to Wakefield, where he saw 
scientific medicine under Dr. Bevan Lewis. Then he began his work. Twenty- 
seven happy years of life had gone, and, thinking over them, the first thing he 
would like to mention was the cordial relations which he had always had with 
those with whom he worked, more particularly the staff and the nurses, male and 
female. They who lived in institutions of that kind knew far more than the 
public the devoted services of the men and women who were engaged in nursing 
their patients. They were not properly appreciated by the public, and the friends 
of the patients did not know the services they rendered ; the committees did not 
know; only the medical officers knew, and it had been an inspiration to see their 
work. It was difficult—it was appallingly difficult sometimes—and it was painful. 
He thought the words of the poet, speaking of humanity in general, certainly 
applied to something they all knew about, where he said : 

" Here where men sit and hear each other groan ; 

Where palsy shakes a few sad, last grey hairs, 

Where youth grows pale, spectre thin, and dies, 

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow, 

And leaden-eyed despairs. 

Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, 

Or new love pine at them beyond to-morrow.’’ 

So that we were tempted in the earlier words to wish we could— 

“ Fade, far away, dissolve and quite forget 
The weariness, the fever and the fret.” 

It was sad, but there were compensations. There was the saving sense of humour. 
Some of the patients, as they knew, were most delightful. Dr. Pierce recounted 
several amusing stories, and concluded by saying he had found the Association 


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of the utmost benefit to him in the course of his life. He was proud to hold the 
position of President, and he cordially thanked Sir George Newman for the kind 
words he had used of him, and was delighted to think the Ministry of Health 
held such enlightened views. (Applause.) 

"The City of York.” 

Mr. A. H. Trevor, proposing “ The City of York,” said he was always pleased to 
come to York and to visit the Retreat, which had carried on its work uninterruptedly 
for a century, and Bootham Park, which was connected with his old and valued 
friend, just retired from the Commission, Sir Frederick Needham. No legal 
Commissioner could ever be treated with greater kindness and consideration than 
the speaker had been by Sir Frederick Needham. There was no one who took a 
more active interest in promoting the welfare of the insane. Mr. Trevor acknow¬ 
ledged the remarks of General Thomson with reference to the Board of Control 
and the arrangements they had assisted in making with regard to the utilisation of 
asylum accommodation to provide war hospitals. Whatever efforts the Board of 
Control made would have been futile, he said, had it not been for the extreme 
cordiality with which the scheme was taken up by every local authority, advised, as 
he knew they were advised, by their medical superintendents. He had been very 
pleased to hear the most interesting speech of Sir George Newman. They were 
now at what he hoped would be the beginning of certain improvements under the 
Lunacy Acts, and it was a matter for great hope when they knew the first medical 
officer appointed to the new Ministry of Health had so thorough a grasp of the 
problems with which he had to deal. It would be presumptuous for the speaker 
as a mere lawyer to say more, but it was a matter in which he as a lawyer on the 
Board of Control had taken great interest, and it was a satisfaction to know that 
some of the problems which they were particularly keen to get dealt with should be 
appreciated by the officers of the new Ministry. (Applause.) 

The Lord Mayor of York (Sir W. A. Forster Todd) thanked Mr. Trevor for 
his references to the amenities of York and its asylum work. The irreverent had 
said that York was famed for its “ lunatics and lollipops.” (Laughter.) Certainly 
much of the prosperity was due to the sweetness of its manufactures, and which 
had delighted the palates of many children, and, he had no doubt, afforded scope 
for the professional attention of many doctors. With regard to the lunatics, it 
was true that they had in or near York the City Lunatic Asylum at Naburn (which 
he hoped some of the members would be able to visit—temporarily), the North 
Riding Asylum at Clifton, Bootham Park, the Pleasaunce, and last, but by no 
means least, the Retreat, which it was unnecessary for him to tell them was a 
landmark in the history of the treatment of the insane. For some years it had 
been under the most able and dignified care of their President, whom they in York 
are proud to count as a citizen. The York Corporation, like other corporations 
in the country, was concerned mainly now with solving the housing question, and 
dealing with the arrears of work in public health and other matters which the war 
has brought about. This meant that the rates had taken a leap up, but they had all 
become so accustomed to the expenditure of huge sums of money that the " dose,” 
which would have been most unpleasantly received before the war, had been 
swallowed with scarcely a wry face in the city. (Applause.) 

The Dean of York (Dr. Foxlf.y Norris) also responded, and said that if that 
great concourse of experts could see as far as they ought to be able to see 
—(Laughter)—they would recognise in him something closely akin to themselves. 
For this reason : there hung in the Hall of the Royal College of Physicians five 
portraits of men who bore an honoured name, and who were all, he thought he was 
right in saying, either Treasurers or Presidents of the Royal College in their time. 
They were all mental physicians. They represented five generations of father to 
son and—they would forgive him being personal in this matter—they were all, he 
was proud to say, ancestors of his own—his uncle, his grandfather, his great 
grandfather, and his great great grandfather, and therefore he was more “ tarnished ” 
than Mr. Trevor suggested. When he told the company that the name of these 
ancestors was Monro he thought many of the company would recognise he was 
right when he made a very special effort to be present and take his humble part in 
these proceedings. He was proud to respond for the City of York. When he 


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asked himself why they should have chosen York for their meeting-place he found 
a multitude of reasons. Among them there was the reason that actuated everyone 
when they wanted to get away from all those things which ordinarily occupied 
them, from all possibility of being reminded of ordinary duties, and therefore they 
came to a county which was peculiarly sane, and a county which had been—at least 
till the last fortnight or so—well known for its sanity. There was another reason 
which appealed particularly to him why York should be attractive. He represented 
one side and the Lord Mayor represented another side of very ancient jurisdictions. 
He believed even at the present moment the Lord Mayor did not exercise any 
jurisdiction over the speaker’s property, and that he could do what he liked and the 
Lord Mayor could not touch him so long as he was in the Dean's Park and on his 
own ground. (Laughter.) There was an ancient jurisdiction known as the Liberty 
of St. Peter which dated back to Edward III. |Two years ago, when there was an 
idea of the military occupation of certain houses within the Liberty, he told the 
officer who came to inquire about it that it would be convenient to him if a certain 
house might be commandeered. The officer replied his instructions were that that 
was impossible, because it was in the Liberty of St. Peter. If, therefore, he was 
immune from the War Office and “ Dora,” he was also immune from the Lord Mayor. 
(Laughter.) The great building within that Liberty, which dominated the land¬ 
scape when they got outside York, dominated the affections and loyalty of all 
people in York and Yorkshire. That great building stood in every sense for 
religion. He ventured with all diffidence to welcome them to York, because he 
represented the Minster, and the Minster represented religion. Personally he 
believed that if the country was to be what they all hoped it would be after the 
war, it would only be by those who represented their noble profession and those 
who represented his in the widest sense working shoulder to shoulder and hand in 
hand. He believed that the forces of science and the forces of religion probably 
came closer together in connection with their work than in connection with any 
other branch of science. He believed the day when they thought there was any 
sort of antagonism between science and religion was passing away, and he trusted 
that the day was coming when they who represented the religious side of things 
would take larger and wider views than in the past, and that the medical men 
would come nearer to the clergy than had been customary in days gone by. When 
they were both working for the highest welfare of humanity they would work 
together, and therefore they would succeed. (Applause.) 

"Yorkshire Medicine.” 

Mr. Arthur Rowntree, proposing " Yorkshire Medicine,” said it would be 
easy to go through a long list of men who had been famous in York and the 
county in connection with medicine. But he might just refer to two or three who 
were of special interest to some of them. They need only go back to Martin 
Lister, who must have been one of the first Fellows of the Royal Society in 
Charles IPs reign. He seems to have turned his attention to other things, for he 
was spoken of as the first who noted with interest the piece of Roman military 
architecture that York possessed in the Multangular Tower. Then there were two 
surgeons at the York County Hospital, Drake and Atkinson, both better known 
on other grounds—Drake as the author of the famous Eberacum, and Atkinson as 
one of the founders of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society. Then, of course, there 
was Jonathan Hutchinson, who went out from the medical school in York to win 
fame in London. When some of them were boys the name of North, too, was a 
household word in York. Those in that room, as elsewhere, might be divided into 
two classes—the healers and the sufferers. The healers sometimes condemned 
the sufferers to sit in their armchairs and enjoy the fellowship of books in a way 
that they would not be able to enjoy them they were allowed to go about their 
daily occupation. Thus he recalled the famous Dr. Slop. His biographer gave 
them a vivid description of the man which none could ever forget. He talked of 
his four feet of perpendicular height, his breadth, and "the sesquipedality of his 
belly, which might have done honour to a sergeant in the Horse Guards.” In 
such reverence did they hold Dr. Slop in York that he believed they still retained 
in the archives of the Medical Society his immortal forceps. (Laughter.) He 
had recently been reading with great enjoyment the life of Lord Lister, whom he 


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claimed as a Yorkshireman—(Laughter)—for in the sixteenth century there were 
many Listers in Yorkshire, and a matter of two or three hundred years was insuffi¬ 
cient to eradicate the Yorkshire strain from his blood. He was especially pleased 
to claim Lord Lister as a Yorkshireman because it seemed to him he stood so well 
for their profession, as he taught his students to make their progress guided by 
“ unfettered truth and love unfeigned.” (Applause.) He coupled the toast with 
the names of Dr. Wardrop Griffith and Mr. G. W. Gostling, the latter the President 
of the York Medical Society and a real healer, as he knew, and the former the 
Principal of the Leeds School of Medicine. He did it, full of local York patriotism, 
for he was one of those who still believed that his ancient city of York was made 
by nature and by man to be a University city. In the eighth century it was vir¬ 
tually a University city, and scholars were senCout from it to almost every part of 
Europe. When York was practically a University city in the eighth century, 
Leeds was still primeval forest. But the Fates, or the Furies, had gone against 
them, and to-day they dare not ask, 11 Can any good thing come out of Leeds?” 
They remembered in this connection two names among others—Sir Clifford Allbutt 
and Sir Berkeley Moynihan. They also remembefed Dr. Wardrop Griffith, and he 
thought of him as representative of those hundreds of healers in this great county 
who in times of depression gave them back their confidence in themselves, as 
representative of the hundreds of men who spent their time in alleviating untold 
human suffering, and of the great procession of those men who tread the road of 
life in step with knowledge and wisdom because they held that great dictum of 
Pasteur, that in the field of observation chance only favours the mind that is pre¬ 
pared. (Applause.) 

Dr. Wardrop Griffith, in responding, said the subject of Yorkshire medicine 
was a very large and extensive one. He might be excused if he thought of it from 
three points of view: the Medical School at Leeds, the Medical School at Sheffield, 
and—the backbone of the profession—the practitioners all through Yorkshire. If 
he limited his subject to the Medical School at Leeds, it naturally divided itself, as 
most things did, into three parts—past, present and future. In regard to the past, 
distinguished names had been mentioned. In regard to the present, one dis¬ 
tinguished name had been mentioned—Sir Berkeley Moynihan—and for the 
speaker to have had his name mentioned alongside those of Sir Clifford Allbutt 
and Sir Berkeley Moynihan was indeed an honour. Sir Clifford Allbutt 
was the man who in the past was associated with Leeds, and whose name they 
honoured most of all, not only for his scientific ability, but for his kindness of 
heart and charm of manner, which seemed to grow greater as he advanced in years. 
The speaker mentioned that when he went to Leeds in 1883 he was Sir Clifford’s 
last house-physician, for he retired from the Staff of the Infirmary in 1884. Dr. 
Griffith outlined the later stages of Sir Clifford Allbutt’s career, and said that 
when one considered how he had adorned the position of Professor of Physic at 
Cambridge University since 1891, then truly they might say this was the age of old 
men. But he was still young enough to preside at medical meetings, and to speak 
with all his old charm of manner and with his beautiful English which they all 
admired so much. As to the future, he had only to refer them to the most 
stimulating words which had fallen from Sir George Newman. The future 
of the medical profession as a teaching profession, was bound up to a great 
extent with the spirit of everything which had fallen from him. They had been 
considering of late certain alterations which might spring from what he regarded 
as one of the most remarkable documents that had ever appeared—Sir George 
Newman’s “ Report on Medical Education.” If they could bring in a great many 
of his suggestions, while they retained the daily-bread side of teaching, then he 
ventured to think the future of medical education in this country would approxi¬ 
mate more to the high ideal which Sir George had sketched out. (Applause.) 

Mr. G. Wilfrid Gostling said he regarded it as a very great honour to be 
coupled with the toast, and he accepted it as President of the York Medical 
Society. With reference to what Mr. Rowntree had said about a University for 
York, might he suggest that in the Palace of the Stuart Kings, the Museum, and 
the site of the exhibition they had a site for a University which, perhaps, under the 
Education Committee, might be realised in the future. York County Hospital, 
unfortunately, lost its Teaching School owing to the number of beds not being 
adequate. He very much regretted that the Governors and Trustees were not 


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far-sighted enough to increase the numbers of beds so that they could continue the 
School, for with Sir Jonathan Hutchinson and Mr. Jackson they had good reason to 
continue the School. 

“The Guests." 

Dr. Oswald said he had to propose the health of those who had accepted their 
hospitality, who had broken bread with them, and who were now their friends. 
It would be impossible to deal with them individually, but he must mention Dr. 
Henri Colin, of Paris. They honoured him not only for his own qualities—and 
they were many—not only for the eminence which he had attained in the specialty 
and in the general profession of medicine, but they honoured him as a son of 
France—(Applause)—France, rapidly healing of her wounds, relieved of her 
agony ; France—the old but ever-chivalrous and honourable enemy of this country, 
and now her firm and enduring friend. Perhaps he should have said the old enemy 
of England, because, Scot as he was, he remembered she was never the enemy 
of Scotland ; indeed, they cherished her memory as their ally against “ perfidious 
Albion.” (Laughter.) Referring to the presence of the Dean, he said they 
highly appreciated the connection between the Church and Medicine. They in the 
specialty valued its ministrations and knew how much it helped them in their 
work in dealing with one of the most grievous afflictions which God could put 
upon suffering people. As regards Sir George Newman, he hoped he would 
succeed in carrying into actual practice the ideas which he had so eloquently 
expressed. 

He wished to say how much they appreciated the support given them in 
their difficult work by the general practitioners, how much they valued their 
sympathy and help. In regard to the lay guests, he would like specially to refer to 
the presence of Mr. Tuke, one of the lineal descendants of William Tuke, who 
founded the Retreat, the Mecca of the mental physician. It was said that “ science 
knows no frontier," and they hoped that the presence of Dr. Colin would lead to 
a continuance of the friendship and intimacy between their Association and the 
corresponding societies in France. 

Dr. Henri Colin, in responding, thanked the members of the Association for 
the honour done to the Soci^t6 Medico-Psychologique of Paris by the invitation 
to their meeting. They would excuse him if he read his speech, because it was so 
long since he had the opportunity of speaking English that he was not over¬ 
confident. Would they allow him to express the sentiments of deep gratitude 
that the French felt towards them? They would never forget that England was 
the first to stand by them ; they would never forget that without the British fleet 
the war would have been lost, just as would have been the case if during more 
than two years the French soldiers had not opposed a stubborn resistance to 
German barbarism. This would have been a universal calamity, for this war was 
not a war of one nation against another nation ; it was a superhuman fight in 
order to save what they felt were the most noble things on earth—justice and the 
freedom and rights of mankind. (Applause.) Two great democracies—England 
and France—rose to defend these imprescriptible rights, and these two democracies 
were well made to understand and to assist each other. Both of them had always 
fought in order to insure to men a greater amount of liberty and welfare; both of 
them, for this one object, had made a revolution. Was it not a marvellous 
thing that, even when France and England fought against each other, they had 
not for that ceased to keep a mutual esteem and admiration one for the other? 
British philosophers, scientific men, were the friends of French encyclopaedists of 
the eighteenth century who prepared the great Revolution. Even when they 
were adversaries the French spoke of them with admiration. “ Ces tiers Anglais ’’ 
—" these proud English ”—said Mirabeau. The key of this mutual esteem was 
to be found, he believed, in the deep sense of justice and in the keen appreciation 
of individual liberty which is to be found in their two nations. An example will 
enable him to make this thought quite clear. He did not believe that an affair 
like the Dreyfus case could have awakened the formidable and tremendous move¬ 
ment which they remembered except in a democracy like theirs, or in a democracy 
like that of England. This indignation, which made a whole nation rise because 
an unmerited wrong had been caused to one sole man, would not have been 
understood in Germany, where everything was submitted to a so-called State 


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interest, as if injustice and evil could be of any use to the State. One of the 
facts that struck him most during the war was that in France the incomparable 
victories of a Napoleon had not prevented the thinking and liberal classes to 
protest against his imperialism and despotism. This never took place in Germany, 
where everybody lightly accepted the war and the worst atrocities if some profit 
could be had in that way. One was amazed to think that a country which has 
given birth to such a great number of illustrious thinkers and philosophers could 
have been brought down to have such childish and at the same time such 
monstrous conceptions. Now that their soldiers had come in innumerable forces 
on the soil of France, he hoped they would understand the soul and they would 
love his country ; they had been able to know it closely and not merely to get a 
false idea of it by what they saw of a cosmopolitan part of Paris, which is not the 
real Paris. Just as it seemed to him impossible for one to come to England to 
know the English, their habits, their homes, and not to love and admire England, 
it seemed to him impossible to come to France and know France without loving 
and admiring France. He could not refrain from expressing sentiments which he 
felt so deeply, and he thought he could not find a better place to do so than at that 
meeting of psychologists, accustomed to deal with the various manifestations of 
mind and the greatly diversified feelings of human nature. That was the reason 
why meetings like that were of such great utility. He hoped that in their turn 
they would come and take part in their Congress, especially if their next Congress 
was held, as they hoped, in their dear city of Strasbourg, now at last liberated. 
(Loud applause.) 

During the evening a programme of piano and violin selections was given by 
Mr. W. Baines and Miss Madge Tuff, Mr. Frank Straw contributing songs. 

MORNING SESSION.— Wednesday, July 23RD. 

Held at the Bishops’ Room, St. William’s College, York, Dr. Bedford Pierce, 
President, in the chair. 

Papers. 

Dr. G. L. Brunton read a paper entitled " Notes on the Cytology of the 
Cerebro-spinal Fluid.” 

The President said the paper represented an immense amount of good work. 
It was the record of original research undertaken by Dr. Brunton, and was, he 
believed, an abstract of a fuller paper which he prepared for his M.D. thesis at 
Edinburgh, where it obtained very marked distinction. A technical paper of that 
character was a rather difficult thing to discuss. Many of them were almost 
exclusively concerned with clinical medicine and their knowledge of pathology was 
not great, but they had the pleasure of the presence with them of Capt. Latham, a 
pathologist from New South Wales, and he hoped he would take part in the 
discussion. 

Dr Robertson said he thought Dr. Brunton's observations were extremely 
important from the clinical point of view ; it was one of those instances where they 
obtained very great help from laboratory work. Its chief reference was the 
diagnosis of general paralysis and differential diagnosis of other conditions some¬ 
what related to it. General paralysis was the most terrible disease with which man 
was afflicted, and its diagnosis practically meant sentencing a man to death, and 
therefore should not be done unless every precaution had been taken. The 
discovery of several laboratory tests for general paralysis enabled them to 
diagnose this disease with greater certitude—in fact, he thought no disease could 
be diagnosed so certainly. At the same time there were some doubtful cases, and 
it was from these cases they derived help. With regard to diagnosis by these 
cells he believed there was absolutely no specific test for general paralysis in 
respect of the presence of these cells, or the proportion in which they were to be 
found. They found them apparently in many different conditions ; they found 
them in all syphilitic conditions, and he did not think there was any definite con¬ 
clusion to come to in regard to them. He believed the lattice-cell was merely a 
degenerated cell; it looked as if the cell were become fatty, and he thought no very 
special significance could be attached to it. Dr. Muirhead and Dr. Henderson 
found all these cells even in the fluid of pleural effusion and tubercular meningitis. 
Though it was a great advantage to have this examination of the cells, and in the 
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majority of cases the help obtained was very great and confirmed one's diagnosis 
of general paralysis, still, in the extremely doubtful cases he did not know that 
one could come to any definite conclusion either by the presence or the percentage 
of the cells. With their increased knowledge of general paralysis they realised 
that syphilitic conditions—chronic syphilitic lesions—gradually passed into con¬ 
ditions of incurability, and the phenomena they presented resembled general 
paralysis very closely. 

Capt. Latham expressed his deep sense of gratitude to the reader of the paper. 
He said it had been the custom in New South Wales to examine every case by 
Wassermann reaction, and if there was no result the cerebro-spinal fluid was sent 
down to be examined. The method employed was the same as that used 
ordinarily in counting white blood-corpuscles, and they found this worked very 
well, and in the majority of cases the results were as the lecturer stated. In some 
cases it was valuable in examining cases of insanity due to lead poisoning, which 
was rather frequent in Brisbane among children, who were much given to scraping 
the powder paint from the verandahs. If not treated early by lumbar puncture it 
meant total blindness. He was once asked to see a child in hospital, suffering 
from encephalitis of unknown origin. He examined it and found very few cells 
but an excess of globulin. A lot of very important work was done in their 
laboratory in connection with the treatment of general paralysis by injecting 
salvarsan, and he thought it was true to say that a large number of these cases 
regularly went out of the hospital and then came back again, and the question 
remained how far were they cases of general paralysis ? It was impossible at 
times to tell cases of general paralysis from the peculiar conditions of the spinal 
fluid. They had done several hundred experiments, and they found they very 
seldom got an increase of cells without an increase of globulin. In regard to the 
cell-count, in a certain number of cases it was found that the cell-count decreased 
as a person went under treatment with intra-venous salvarsan and the subsequent 
injection. Capt. Latham mentioned, as showing the care taken with these cases, 
that they encouraged inquiry among the friends of the patients, and got to know 
many wives and children on whom they found the definite stigmata. A great 
many families of patients treated in mental hospitals were affected and did not 
know it, and they then had the opportunity of getting treatment through the 
energy of the medical officer in charge of the case. 

Dr. Edwards said the thing that would come home to most of them with a 
note of wonder was what Dr. Robertson had remarked about the question of 
lymphocytes in the cerebro-spinal fluid not being pathognomonic of general 
paralysis. In recent years most of them had made this test in association with the 
Wassermann reaction, and had made a positive diagnosis on the result. He 
remembered a -man transferred to his care who had no clinical trace of the 
disease; he was apparently normal, so much so that the family thought 
a mistake had been made. An eminent pathologist had examined the cerebro¬ 
spinal fluid a year earlier and had found lymphocytes. He asked him to renew 
the test, but he was assured in reply that there was not the slightest use in doing so 
as the former examination had entirely settled the prognosis. The subsequent history 
proved that he was right. Most of them as clinical physicians had never given 
thought as to the type of cells ; but, in future, he would get the varieties of cells 
examined, and bear in mind Dr. Brunton’s results. In conclusion he did not think 
that it had been generally realised what Dr. Robertson had told them of the 
difference between the various parasyphilitic conditions. 

The President said that one remark of Dr. Latham’s showed them they could 
learn something from Australia. Neighbouring asylums in England were not 
able to join together for pathological investigation. The auditors would not 
permit it. With the very full system of co-ordination between the institutions in 
New South Wales their pathological work could be done easily and efficiently. 
Here every institution had to do what it could by itself; the smaller ones were not 
able to join with others in co-operative work of this kind. 

Dr. Brunton thanked the members for the favourable reception they had given 
to his paper. 

Analysis of Cases of Mental Defect. 

Dr. J. E. Middlemiss read a paper entitled “ An Analysis of Two Hundred 
Cases of Mental Defect.” 


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The President said they would prefer to read the paper quietly before dis¬ 
cussing it, but he would like to say he thought Leeds was to be congratulated on 
possessing a medical officer who took such pains with the cases of mental defect 
with which he had to deal. 

Col. Dawson associated himself with the President’s remarks and said they 
would learn much from the paper when they had been able to study it quietly. 

Dr. Edwards said the references to the stigmata of degeneracy were full of 
interest, and he wondered if Dr. Middlemiss had noticed any large proportion of 
the condition of polydactylism, web-finger or other abnormalities. In his own 
personal observation he had often noticed the conformation of the hand was of a 
simian type in people who developed dementia prsecox. 

Dr. Middlemiss said he did not recall many cases of actual polydactylism. He 
had met cases where there was disparity in two or three fingers, but the toes were 
approximately the same length. He did know that he had noticed hands abso¬ 
lutely comparable to the dementia prcecox type of hand ; he had met them long 
and flat. He was convinced anomalies of the hand were properly described as 
stigmatic. 

War Fatigue as a Cause of General Paralysis. 

Dr. Henri Colin contributed a paper on “The Influence of War Fatigue on 
General Paralysis.” He summarised his paper as follows : 

(1) The question of the reform of general paralysis in the Army in France has 
gone through two phases. It is only since July, 1917, that the great majority of 
psychologists have recognised that in the aetiology of Bayle's disease the influence 
of the war was much greater than had been supposed to be the case. 

(2) The observations which had been gathered in the military section of the 
Villejuif Asylum, which is placed under my direction, have confirmed us in that 
conviction. Especially the rile of all kinds of fatigue, toxi-infection, emotion, 
etc., has seemed to us to play a most real part in the exceptional rapidity of the 
evolution of general paralysis in the fighting units. 

S The most recent services of general pathology explain the rile. General 
ysis is due to a hypersensibility of the nervous tissue. It is also, clinically 
speaking, a malady due to exhaustion. This notion of exhaustion enables us to 
do the synthesis of the observed cases. 

The President, congratulating Dr. Colin, said he had raised many serious 
problems which were of great importance in this country. The question of the 
extreme rapidity of acceleration of general paralysis arising from war strain was 
one of which he personally had not had much experience, but there were service 
members present who would be able to say whether the observations in Paris 
corresponded to those in England. He felt that the whole question of the 
retiology of general paralysis was at present in a most unsatisfactory position. 
The London school had always held the doctrine, “ No syphilis, no general 
paralysis,” and it had gradually gained ground until it was almost an accepted 
dogma. He had always had doubts of its truth. In a large percentage of cases 
spirochaetes can be found in the cortex of the brain, but the evidence is not satis¬ 
factorily demonstrated. He had asked pathologists about them and they told 
him there was an immense number. They were found in everybody's mouths 
in conditions of health, and the differentiation was by no means satisfactorily 
established, nor their life-history particularly well worked out. He was not aware 
that the micro-organism which was found in the brains of sufferers from general 
paralysis was sufficiently identified as the spirochrete of syphilis. If syphilis was 
the basis of general paralysis, why was it they never found the tertiary symptoms 
in general paralysis? It was most unusual to find well-known syphilitic stigmata 
in persons who died of general paralysis. He had been much struck by the facts 
which Dr. Colin brought out as to the causation of general paralysis—emotion, 
accident, and so on. We had a great deal yet to learn of the part which the 
micro-organism played in its genesis. 

Col. Dawson congratulated M. Colin on a-i extremely interesting paper which 
raised many points. Owing to his position as Mental Specialist to the Irish 
Command and the special medical board which dealt with Ireland, Col. Dawson 
said he had seen a certain number of cases caused by war conditions. These 
cases had not presented any very marked peculiarities. Of course he had no 


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observed them from day to day, but his impression was that they were not of a 
specially rapid type. General paralysis in Ireland was almost a rarity ; most of 
the country places in Ireland were absolutely free from venereal disease, so com¬ 
paratively few of the Irish soldiers had been syphilised in the first instance what¬ 
ever may have happened when they were abroad. As regards the aetiology of 
general paralysis, personally he believed syphilis was the essential factor, but so 
small a number of them developed general paralysis that there must be other 
influences giving rise to it. Fatigue must have played a leading part, combined 
with emotion and toxins. He would like to know if alcoholism played a 
leading part in Dr. Colin’s cases, because he had thought that in civil life 
alcoholism had played a leading part on nervous systems weakened by syphilitic 
virus. Many of Dr. Colin’s colleagues laid great emphasis upon the influence of 
alcohol. If one admitted, as he thought they must admit, that comparatively few 
syphilised people got general paralysis, then it followed that there must be a 
number who w'ould not get it if it were not for the stress and strain and toxins 
brought to bear upon them. That being so it was obviously unjust to penalise 
men who developed it, by reducing their pensions. Personally, he thought a man 
who, so far as they could tell, was sound when he went out, and who, as a result of 
service, had developed general paralysis, was due for a full pension. With regard 
to the question of the absence of tertiary signs, which was the rule in general 
paralysis if not invariably so, he did not think there was much in that, because they 
found the same thing in other conditions which were toxic—for instance, in alcoholic 
diseases of the nervous system. They did not get cirrhosis of the liver in asylums 
although in many cases the insanity was due to alcoholic indulgence. 

Dr. Robertson added his thanks to Dr. Colin for his masterly summary of the 
aetiology of general paralysis. He believed the procedure in this country in regard 
to the pensions of those suffering from general paralysis was very largely founded 
on the work done by Dr. Colin. His observations on special cases of general 
paralysis confirmed those presented by Dr. Colin. They had been impressed at 
Morningside by the rapid course of general paralysis during the war. Dr. Colin 
had raised the whole question of the astiology. His own inclination was rather 
against the hypothesis that there were accessory factors, but his belief had been 
somewhat shaken by what Dr. Colin had said and the evidence he had produced. 
He thought they might agree that the statement, “ No syphilis, no general paralysis,” 
was absolutely true. He did not think any statement had been made which 
refuted it. The point was, Why should so few who suffered from syphilis develop 
general paralysis and so many escape? In the first place, general paralysis was a 
disease which started very late ; he only knew' three cases in which it started 
within three years of the infection. The best explanation of this was that general 
paralysis must be looked upon as a hypersensitive reaction. If this were so they 
must look upon it as a condition in which there was re-invasion of the brain by 
spirochsetes some years after infection—generally five years. 

The President : Where is the micro-organism all the while ? 

Dr. Robertson said the brain was invaded in the secondary stage, and then 
there was a latent period during which people were supposed to be cured. In this 
stage, where there were no apparent symptoms, they knew by the Wassermann 
reaction it was merely a latent condition, and then for some reason—it might be 
alcoholism—the spirochaete became active and invaded the brain a second time. It 
was quite true, as everyone realised, that they seldom got cases of general paralysis 
which had had tertiary lesions, but there had been numbers reported and he had 
seen certain cases. Seeing that general paralysis did not develop, on an average, 
till at least five years after syphilis, and a very large number of those who suffered 
from it recovered—Boas made observations in 2,000 cases of syphilitics and found 
in two-thirds of the cases negative reaction, therefore they still had one-third 
suffering from latent syphilis—they might say they had 9 to 15 per cent, of the 
cases of latent syphilis developing general paralysis. That was a very large per¬ 
centage, but if they compared it with the number of lesions in other diseases—take 
diphtheria and diphtheritic paralysis—it did not amount to more than 12 per cent. 
of the cases in which it developed. No one dragged in accessory factors as to 
why one suffered from diphtheritic paralysis. Why should there be any extra 
factor in the syphilis cases? He did not think it at all necessary there should be 
an accessory factor called for. There was one point connected with the tetiology 


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of general paralysis worth reference : lie thought the amount which developed in 
women and children was not relatively the same proportion as developed in men. 
The amount of general paralysis among women is comparatively small, and they 
knew a very large number of children suffered from inherited syphilis, especially 
amongst imbeciles, but the amount of general paralysis that occurred in young 
children was very small. It was only in 1877 that Dr. Clouston described his first 
case of juvenile general paralysis. It was an extraordinary thing there should be 
a lesser number developing general paralysis in children, and it was possible they 
were not subjected to the accessory factors—as Dr. Colin and others stated—of 
accident and alcoholism. That might be the explanation. It had been a great 
pleasure to have Dr. Colin to present them with such a masterly paper, and as an 
associate member of the French Society it gave him additional pleasure to thank 
him for his address. 

Dr. Ross said that in the later years of the war he was posted to a northern war 
hospital for general paralytics. He was present at the time of their reception, and 
having charge of the refractory wards he got nearly all the general paralytics. 
There was a very large number of young men, twenty-six years of age or there¬ 
abouts, many of whom had a history of recent syphilis—quite a number since the 
war began—and therefore there could be no doubt about the acceleration of the 
disease. A large number were very excited and had to go into the refractory 
wards, so there was little doubt about the aggravation of it. Also a very large 
number died or were in a moribund state in a very short time, and that was why 
they had not been seen in civil hospitals. These men were kept in military 
hospitals rather than sent to civil asylums, and many went down in health 
rapidly. Another point—and this would interest Dr. Brunton—when the cerebro¬ 
spinal fluid was examined in many cases a large number of them had an enormous 
number of cells. He wondered what had been the general experience of repatriated 
prisoners. Quite a large number had turned out to have general paralysis—in 
fact some of their medical men wondered whether the Germans had been playing 
tricks. These men had been exposed to all sorts of privation and hardship—more 
than the average soldiers—and the great majority had a history of brutality, and 
these might constitute factors in the development. One thing had rather 
dismayed him—the large number of cases not recognised although they showed a 
great many of the symptoms. He quoted the history of one case; the doctors had 
noticed at different times all the symptoms, yet general paralysis never once 
appeared on the man's sheet until he (Dr. Ross) actually wrote it in himself. It 
was the worst case he had had. He thought it was rather appalling how very 
many general paralytics went about the world unrecognised by medical men. 

Capt. Latham said that in Australia the serums of patients in temporary 
syphilitic hospitals were examined. The medical officers seemed sceptical of the 
result and asked him to do it again ; apparently for some reason or other the incuba¬ 
tion period seemed too short and most of the soldiers too young. In most cases 
the symptoms were very mild, and being very mild the medical officers doubted 
the diagnosis. In a certain number of cases where the cerebro-spinal fluid was 
examined there was no doubt—particularly in view of the quantity of globulin— 
that they had to deal with very serious lesions. In contradiction to Col. Dawson’s 
experience, general paralysis was a very serious disease in Sydney and one of 
the most important causes of death in New South Wales. Their medical officers 
were well acquainted with it, and one was surprised with the suddenness of the 
symptoms needing certification. The onset was frequently too sudden for sclerosis, 
and it gave one the impression that they were suffering from toxaemia. As to the 
causation of general paralysis by syphilis, he said they had tried injecting animals 
with small quantities of spirochaetes, and in a certain number of cases they had 
induced a condition resembling general paralysis. 

Dr. Colin, replying on the discussion, said they all agreed that alcohol besides 
syphilis must be a factor of general paralysis, but in war time they had not noticed 
the preponderating influence of alcohol. He was glad to see from an article in 
the last number of the Journal of Mental Science that Dr. Chambers had come to 
the same conclusion. A certain number of absolutely teetotal physicians were apt 
to come to false conclusions on this matter. Fever symptoms were so often like 
alcohol symptoms that care must be exercised not to confuse one with the other. 
He did not think the influence of alcohol in general paralysis was very great. He 


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was of Dr. Robertson’s opinion that syphilis was the primary factor. He always 
felt that if it were the only cause of general paralysis, then men had not a right 
to a pension ; but, though it was the primary cause, there were many others. He 
mentioned that he had had a case where only a few months intervened between 
re-infection and the onset of general paralysis. In reference to the case of 
returned prisoners, he had noticed that there were many instances of general 
paralysis, and it was horrible to think they had not been noticed while prisoners in 
Germany. The same lack of recognition of cases as bad happened in England had 
also occurred in France, where general paralytics had been swept into the Army. 
He quoted the particulars of two typical cases, and said he agreed that in every 
country the knowledge of the retiology of mental diseases was still in a backward 
condition. 


MENTAL DEFICIENCY. 

A representative meeting, convened by the Essex Voluntary Association for 
the Care of the Mentally Defective, which will lead to results of far-reaching 
importance, was held at River Plate House, Finsbury Circus, London, E.C. 2, on 
May 29th, when a large body of justices decided that a practical mental expert 
be appointed to advise Essex courts of summary jurisdiction on the mental 
condition of doubtful cases charged with crime. Above one hundred justices 
from Essex, Colchester, East Ham and Southend were present. The following is 
a summary of the speeches and the arguments brought forward: 

The Chairman of the Essex County Council (Mr. W. S. Chisenhale Marsh), 
in opening the meeting, said that during the last fifteen or twenty years the 
practice of giving bail to persons had made it difficult to keep the mentally 
defective under observation. He had received a letter from the Magistrate at 
Westminster Police Court suggesting that remand homes were wanted for medical 
observation. 

Mr. Trevor, a Commissioner of the Board of Control, said: It will be 
remembered that the Report of the Royal Commission on the Feeble-minded stated 
that there were large numbers of defectives whose wayward and irresponsible lives 
caused an infinity of trouble and misery to their friends and themselves, entailing 
a great deal of wasteful expenditure on the community. 

As the result of the Report of the Royal Commission the Mental Deficiency 
Act, 1913, was passed, which provided for the custodial care of defectives under 
very careful safeguards. Before much could be done in working the Act the war 
came, and, not unnaturally, any effective working of the Act had to be postponed. 
Now that, as is hoped, peace has returned, the Board of Control are urged by the 
Government to do all that is possible to encourage local authorities to work the 
Act. At the same time a Bill has been presented to Parliament to remove 
the limitation of the Government grant of £150,000 which had been inserted in 
Section 47 of the Act, and which had been allocated amongst the various local 
authorities in England and Wales on the basis of population. The result now is 
that local authorities will no longer be restricted by the limited amount of the 
grant allocated to them, but will receive half of all approved expenditure. It 
must not be thought that such a step indicates any reckless extravagance, for, on the 
contrary, it is hoped that an expenditure of money now will effect real economy in 
the future. 

The general scheme of the Act is this : In the first place certain definitions are 
given of defectives, which include idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, and moral 
imbeciles. The circumstances are then set out which enable defectives coming 
within these categories to be dealt with under the Act. When any such defective 
is dealt with by order under the Act the local authority has the duty imposed on 
it of making provision for the case, and the Government contributes one-half 
towards the cost of its maintenance. The Act proceeds to impose certain duties 
upon local authorities, and also certain duties upon justices or judicial authorities 
when called on to make orders under the Act. 

Duties of local authorities: Ascertainment. —Sect. 30 (a) of the Act provides 
that it is the duty of a local authority to ascertain what persons within their area 


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are defectives subject to be dealt with under the Act. This duty up to the 
present has only been partially carried out, and is complicated by the fact that a 
local authority has no duties in the first instance as regards defective children who 
are being dealt with by local education authorities, or defectives who are 
being dealt with by Poor Law authorities. The Royal Commission reported 
that there were some 150,000 defectives at large in the country, some 60,000 of 
whom were in urgent need of supervision. At the present time less than 10,000 
defectives are being dealt with under the Act, and of these between three and four 
thousand were being dealt with under the Idiots Act before the Mental Deficiency 
Act came into operation. It is evident that a great deal still requires to be done 
in the direction of ascertainment. 

Accommodation .—The local authority has also to provide suitable accom¬ 
modation for persons dealt with under order. Speaking generally, in England 
and Wales but little new accommodation has been provided. Essex is more 
fortunately situated than most other counties, inasmuch as it is able to send its 
most pressing cases to the excellent Royal Eastern Counties’ Institution at 
Colchester. It has also a call on the institutions of the Metropolitan Asylums' 
Board, which have been approved under Sect. 37 of the Act. The Board of 
Control think that the county will have to take steps to get more of the Poor 
Law institutions within the area approved under this section. 

Duties of Justices .—In making orders for the detention of defectives under 
the Act very responsible duties are imposed on the justices, whether sitting in 
court or acting as judicial authorities under the Act. Many of the requirements 
of the Act are very complicated, but, in view of the serious consequences of the 
making of an order to the person affected, a certain amount of strictness is 
undoubtedly required. It has to be remembered that some of the cases in which 
justices will properly be asked to make orders are not easily recognisable 
on the view. Feeble-minded persons and moral imbeciles present some of the 
most difficult psychological problems, and in these matters it would be advisable 
for a justice not to depend on his own impression of the case but to be absolutely 
guided by the two medical certificates. 

The ultimate success of the Act must depend on the completeness with which 
juvenile cases are deal with. At the present time it is impossible to find institu¬ 
tions in which to detain all the adults who require protection. With the children, 
however, if they are duly reported by the local education authority before leaving 
school and are then dealt with by the Mental Deficiency authorities, good results 
should be shown in a comparatively short space of time. Complete co-operation 
is essential between local authorities, local education authorities, and poor-law 
authorities, and it appears to the Board of Control that in the case of a large 
county like Essex it would be very advisable to appoint a whole-time expert medical 
officer, whose duty it would be to advise and report on all cases occurring within 
the area of the county. The Board of Control are entirely in favour of the resolution 
which is about to be put to the meeting. 

Sir H. Bryan Donkin, Director of Convict Prisons : I am glad of the opportunity 
of making a few remarks on this subject. The prison authorities, and especially 
the medical department, contributed largely by their repeated representations 
to the appointment in 1904 of the Royal Commission on the Care and 
Control of the Feeble-minded (of which I was a member), and this led up in time 
to Parliamentary action. More than twenty years ago, when I was appointed a 
Commissioner of Prisons, I was soon convinced of the necessity of a change in the 
law under which all more or less irresponsible offenders, except such as could be 
certified under the Lunacy Acts, had to be tried as ordinary criminals, and treated 
as such with respect to their discharge on licence or on expiry of sentence. The 
only really differential treatment they have even now consists in the fact that they 
have been for many years regarded and separately classified while in prison as 
weak-minded, and placed by the Commissioners under special medical regulations 
as to supervision, employment, and treatment generally. 

The Royal Commission reported in 1908. It was not until 1912 that a Bill 
embodying a considerable part of its recommendations was introduced into 
Parliament. Opposed by vigorous parti-coloured criticism, it was withdrawn by 
the Home Secretary, and in 1913 another Bill, widely differing from the first in 
many important respects, became the present Mental Deficiency Act. This Act 


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has caused much disappointment among the supporters of the first Bill, and much 
tribulation among those who have to administer it, both medical and lay. 

The remarks I am about to make in support of the resolution concerning the 
appointment of a specially qualified medical officer to assist the courts in dealing 
with suspected cases of “mental deficiency” are merely general, and are intended 
as a preliminary to the more practical information and comments which will be 
given to this meeting by Dr. Treadwell out of his long and up-to-date experience 
both as former prison medical officer and as a Commissioner. It is no easy 
matter, even for an expert, in some cases to decide justly whether any person of 
any age is mentally defective to such a degree as to be regarded and treated as 
more or less irresponsible, or, in other words, unfitted for such punishment as would 
be rightly awarded to the average sane individual. It follows that no action should 
be taken in the direction of deciding the question of any offender’s mental con¬ 
dition without having recourse to an accredited medical opinion. But it is equally 
important that the courts or councils who may appoint such medical advisers 
should recognise fully that in a considerable number of cases it is impossible even 
for the most experienced practitioner to form a trustworthy opinion in one interview. 
This is a point of first importance, which Dr. Treadwell will illustrate. 

I agree with those who urge that suspected “ mental defectives ” should not be 
sent to prisons for the purpose of obtaining medical opinions on their mental 
state. I have very good reason to be convinced that in the larger number of 
instances the opinions of the medical officers of prisons are of the highest value at 
the present time ; but in a service which in some of the smaller prisons is supplied 
by local practitioners it is not to be expected that every one of them would take 
the responsibility of deciding on a case of patent difficulty. Moreover, it seems 
to be not fair that the suspected “ defective ” should be sent into a prison at all for 
the purpose of obtaining a medical opinion. 

The existing difficulty as to the certification of mentally defective offenders is 
mostly due to the drafting of the Bill of 1913—now the Mental Deficiency Act. 
At the head of this Act are certain so-called “ definitions ” of the various grades of 
defect, and it is enacted that only those persons whose cases can be stated to 
come under these “ definitions ” are to be certified as mentally defective. These 
descriptions or interpretations of the words idiot, imbecile, feeble-minded and 
moral imbecile are generally taken to imply that in every certificate there must be 
evidence given that the alleged mental defect did exist from birth or from an early 
age. At any rate, such is the meaning seemingly placed upon this clause by the 
Board of Control; and such also is the way in which many, if not most, of the 
medical men called upon to certify, do actually read it. 

It follows that this clause of the Act, interpreted as it is, and probably 
correctly interpreted as far as literal accuracy goes, demands a far more rigid, 
and, indeed, a far more impracticable definition of congenital mental deficiency 
than is required in the case of certification in lunacy by either the Board of Control 
or any court of law. As a matter of fact there is no definition at all of " lunacy " 
(i.e., the state of lunacy) in the Lunacy Acts. It is true that in the glossary of the 
Lunacy Act, 1890, it is said that “ lunatic ” means an idiot or a person of unsound 
mind. This merely divides “ lunatics ” into two classes ; but there is no attempt 
to say what is meant by either of the terms “ idiot " or “ unsound mind.” I suppose, 
however, that most doctors in certifying take idiot to mean mentally defective 
from birth, and unsound mind to mean a disordered or defective mental state of 
a person whose mind has once been sound. 

It was not the intention of the Royal Commission on the Feeble-minded, or, as 
I believe, of the framers of the Bill of 1912, to make the above-named so-called 
definitions statutory as they stand now in the Mental Deficiency Act, October, 
1913, or to require that contemporary evidence must be obtained in all cases that 
the person to be certified was actually known to be defective in early childhood. 
This requirement is seen on reflection to be absurd. In a large majority of the 
cases with which the Mental Deficiency Act was meant to deal the diagnosis of 
the early origin of the defect, even without any contemporary evidence of it, is"as 
sound and trustworthy as that of a large number of diagnoses made not only in 
lunacy, but also in many other departments of medical practice which of necessity 
are based to a considerable extent on analogy and inference. 

I am forced to the opinion that this provision at least in the existing Act should 


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be altered, for it seems very unlikely that its present interpretation will become 
enlightened by the process of time alone. At present the claim in question is not 
only one example of the proverbial differences between medicine and the law, but 
it is also a stumbling-block for practitioners in each of these faculties. 

Mr. O. F. N. Treadwell (Prison Commissioner): I am very glad of the 
opportunity afforded me by the kind invitation of the Essex Voluntary Associa¬ 
tion to attend this meeting, and say a few words on the working of the Mental 
Deficiency Act, 1913, from the prison point of view. 

We have had a good deal of experience during this past five years, particularly 
as regards the difficulties involved in certification, owing to the limitations imposed 
by the Act and of the delay, which appears to be unavoidable at present, in finding 
institutions to accept the cases. 

As regards the difficulties of certification, these are probably more fully realised 
by those who have to deal with cases in prison than elsewhere, because it is the 
commission of some crime that accentuates the need for action. Practically all 
the cases we deal with are over the age of sixteen—many are adults; obviously 
they have always been mentally defective, but they have, before the commission 
of the offence with which they are charged or for which they have been convicted, 
escaped recognition, or at any rate certification. They are therefore evidently not 
obvious cases. It is, of course, the commission of some obvious offence which 
accentuates the need for institutional treatment, care and control. 

Sect. 1 of the Act defines the classes of persons who shall be deemed defectives 
within the meaning of the Act. I need not refer to classes (a) or (6)—idiots and 
imbeciles. They seldom come to prison or present difficulty. 

Class (c)—feeble-minded persons—differ very much in degree and kind, and 
many present much difficulty. There must be intellectual defect; but in cases 
where the defect is not of marked degree it is not always easy to say whether it 
is the result of developmental defect, or due to want of, or neglect of educational 
opportunity. Age has an important bearing. The older the person when coming 
under first observation, the more difficult it is to prove that the condition existed 
from birth, or from an early age. Very commonly they come for the first time 
under the observation of the medical officer of the prison. The early history of the 
case is generally essential; this necessitates research and delay. Most medical 
officers are extremely loath to certify without a full early history. 

When we come to class (d )—moral imbeciles—our troubles really begin. This 
class is perhaps the most frequent and certainly the most troublesome met with in 
our prisons. Naturally this is so, because the definition connotes disorder of 
conduct, and it is for some disorder of conduct that they are brought before the 
courts and into prison. Where a moral imbecile is also a feeble-minded person 
the task of certification is of course easier. Again, certain offences of themselves 
indicate probable mental defect, but many of these moral imbeciles come in for 
offences such as are common to ordinary criminals. They frequently exhibit 
little or no intellectual defect, have attained a very fair education, and in prison, 
unless they are violent, destructive, or intractable, prone to self-injury, suicide or 
feigned attempts at suicide, may have no opportunity to demonstrate the particular 
quality of misconduct to which they are addicted. Perhaps the most prominent 
feature in this type is “ lack of control,” but it is not easy to say whether this is 
inherent in the individual. Age, again, is an important factor. Obviously they 
have always been mentally defective, but no action has been taken to deal with 
them until they commit crime, or repeatedly commit crime, and the urgency for 
action then becomes apparent. 

The following case is a good illustration, perhaps, of the difficulty experienced. 
A young woman, set. 20, charged with false pretences, tried at quarter sessions, 
found to be mentally deficient, ordered to be detained for twelve months in an 
institution, which, however, refused to receive her; returned and was liberated. 
Admission to another home was secured and she remained there some time, but 
was found to be unmanageable and released. Again brought up for larceny and 
sentenced to twelve months’ hard labour. Certified under sect. 9 (I), (rf), as a 
moral imbecile. Said to be cunning, plausible, vain, deceitful, very untruthful, 
and sullen if corrected. Has been troublesome since the age of seven years, when 
she ran away from home. Incorrigible, prone to suicidal attempts, but it is 
doubtful if they are genuine. Six convictions had been recorded against her since 


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the age of thirteen and a-half. Removed to an institution for mental defectives. 
After about a year licensed from there, the authorities reporting that under super¬ 
vision she has behaved well, showing great restraint and self-control. A few weeks 
after again brought up for stealing and sentenced to twelve months’ hard labour. 
In prison violent at times and further attempts at suicide. Re-certified, and 
again removed to an Institution. 

In all cases the early history is very valuable ; it necessitates much careful 
inquiry and research, and takes time to collect. I must take this opportunity 
of saying how much we are indebted to the Essex Voluntary Association for 
kindly placing at our disposal much valuable information as to early history in 
several cases from the county of Essex. 

A few words as to Borstal detention for young adults. Borstal detention is not 
at all suitable for mentally defective persons. The Borstal institutions are for 
the express purpose of teaching occupations which shall fit the young delinquent 
for industrial life outside, and for reformation of character. Mental defectives are 
a source of much trouble; they tend to contaminate and corrupt the normal 
inmates. The Commissioners always strongly recommend to the courts that 
young persons suffering from mental defect should not be sentenced to Borstal 
detention. 

And now as regards procedure when a case comes before the court. It is of 
the utmost importance, I think, that a mental defective should be dealt with by 
the court of competent jurisdiction under sect. |8 of the Act, rather than that a 
sentence should be passed with a view to action under sect. 9. Prison is not a 
suitable place for the detention of mental defectives if it can possibly be avoided. 
Dr. Potts will, I hope, tell us of the procedure which has been adopted at 
Birmingham, but I may say that the Prison Commissioners are endeavouring 
to co-operate with the Birmingham justices, by setting aside a portion of the 
hospital wings—both male and female—for the reception of such cases on remand 
as they are compelled to send into prison for observation and report. 

It is intended to appoint a whole-time medical officer of the prison service in 
order that he may devote himself as part of his duty primarily to the examination 
of these mental cases. Where an expert medical practitioner is appointed with 
whom the justices can confer, very valuable co-operation and consultation can be 
arranged between him and the medical officer of the prison in certain cases which 
for some reason or other must be remanded to prison. 

In conclusion I should like to say a few words as to the use of prisons as 
“ places of safety” under the Act. If it is admitted that prisons are unsuitable 
for the detention of mental defectives, they are unsuitable for use as “ places of 
safety.” Unfortunately there is often much delay in finding an institution to take 
the case; consequently the court cannot make an order, but directs that a petition 
be presented when an institution has been found, as provided for in sect. 8. A 
mental defective may thus be detained in prison for some time—perhaps two or 
three months. If no institution can be found, the person cannot be kept indefinitely 
and has to be discharged. No doubt as institutions increase in number and 
become available, this will be rectified. 

I have perhaps said sufficient to indicate how important it is to have expert 
medical advice available at the trial of these mentally defective persons, and I can 
cordially support the resolution which is to be submitted to this meeting. 

W. A. Potts, M.A., M.D. (Medical Officer to the Birmingham Committee for 
the Care of the Mentally Defective ; Psychological Expert to the Birmingham 
Magistrates) : During the war many authorities refrained from carrying out their 
duties under the Mental Deficiency Act owing to the necessity for economy. That 
reason for delay is now happily removed. As a matter of fact, however, it never 
was an economy to ignore defectives who ought to be segregated. If you reflect 
that 15 per cent, of all persons in prison are mentally defective, that 30 per cent, of 
those in rescue homes are equally irresponsible, and a similar number of the women 
in the maternity wards of the workhouse are of the same type, it requires no great 
effort of the imagination to see that leaving these cases uncared for really means 
keeping up more institutions and a larger staff of attendants than would be required 
if such mental defectives were properly cared for from the first in a suitable institu¬ 
tion. Often during the war a mother, who might have been working at munitions, 
was forced to stay at home to look after one defective child, when one attendant 


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might have been looking after ten defectives in an institution. Even if neglecting 
these cases meant economy now, it certainly does not mean anything of the kind for 
future generations. It has been estimated that one criminal, the notorious Ada 
Juke, known as “ Margaret, the Mother of Criminals,” cost the United States 
1,300,000 dollars, owing to the fact that of her twelve hundred direct descendants, 
nearly one thousand were criminals, prostitutes, paupers, inebriates, or insane. A 
similar woman cost the Germans much the same sum ; of the German woman’s 
direct descendants seventy-six were convicted of crime and several of murder. 

One fallacy in connection with defectives is the idea that anyone can recognise 
them. This is due to many people thinking only of idiots, and overlooking the two 
higher grades, the imbeciles and the feeble-minded. These higher grades have a 
greater potentiality for harm, and are a much more numerous class. Often only 
doctors with special experience can recognise them. Not only do ordinary 
people fail to see them, but often ordinary doctors do so, too; it is essential 
that they should be examined by a medical practitioner who has had special 
experience of such cases. 

One reason why defectives are often overlooked is because many people do not 
understand that mental defect is a disorder, not of the intellect, but of the mind ; 
intelligence is only one province of the mind and may be unimpaired in mental 
defect; the diagnosis rests on disorder of conduct and lack of adaptability to the 
environment. 

How then are magistrates to recognise such cases ? They cannot be expected to 
diagnose them. What they should do is to refer to their expert all cases they do 
not quite understand, especially when frequent repetition of the same offence, 
unusual offences, or offences inconsistent with the home and general upbringing 
of the delinquent, suggest the possibility of mental defect or some other 
abnormality. 

The medical examiner will never get all the cases he ought to have under the 
Mental Deficiency Act unless some such scheme is adopted as that recently 
inaugurated by the Birmingham justices, for which we are so greatly indebted to 
their chairman, Mr. Beesley. Under this scheme are referred not only the 
obviously mentally defective, but also those in whom there may be such a defect. 
This scheme has already been the means of saving from prison young delinquents 
who ought never to go to prison, because their crime is the expression of some 
mental or physical abnormality which can only be properly dealt with in other 
ways. Cases referred by the magistrates because the cause of crime appears to be 
a complete mystery are not necessarily hard to understand when the prisoner is 
thoroughly examined, and especially when methods are employed to see how far 
mental and physical abnormalities, unsuitable occupations and surroundings are 
responsible. Modern treatment can work wonders in many of these cases. 

Mr. |ames Tabor (Chairman of the Essex County Committee for the Care 
of the Mentally Defective), proposed the following resolution : 

"That this meeting, realising the necessity of expert medical opinion 
in doubtful cases under Section 8 of the Mental Deficiency Act, 1913, brought 
before courts of summary jurisdiction, requests the Standing Joint Committee 
to consider the provision of such expert medical assistance for all Petty 
Sessional Divisions in the administrative County of Essex.” 

He said that, owing to the war, the activities of mental deficiency committees had 
been much restricted, but that possibly that had not been a bad thing for them, as 
they were, so to speak, on probation, and could not have been as successful as they 
had been if they had not carried public opinion with them. This he believed they 
had done, and that now, with the cessation of hostilities and the issue by the Board of 
Control of the circular of March 8th, 1919, they were ready for greater exertions, 
and that any steps that they took would be supported by the public, even to the 
extent of asking for further legislation, if necessary, to carry out their programme. 
During the war they had concentrated their attention chiefly on the children passed 
on to them by the Education Authorities, but now they would be in a position to 
deal with adults also—a most important branch of their work. To enable this 
to be done efficiently, magistrates, before whom many mentally defective persons 
came, should be able to call in the assistance of a medical expert where there was 
any doubt as to the best method of adjudicating upon their cases in their own 
interests and in those of the community, for it was the high-grade defectives— 


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defectives as to whose mental condition only an expert could speak definitely—who 
were the greatest danger to the nation, and should be put under efficient control 
that the supply of mental defectives in future generations might be cut off at the 
source. He therefore trusted that the meeting would support the resolution then 
and there, and that such of them as were magistrates would make full use of the 
expert, if and when appointed. 

Capt. A. J. Unett, D.S.O. (Chief Constable of Essex), seconded the resolution 
which was passed unanimously. 

Since the above report was in print we have received the following contribution 
from Dr. Edgar Hunt, which we add with pleasure as a supplement to the report. 
—Eds 

SOME NOTES 

on a representative meeting, convened by the Voluntary Association to discuss 
the administration of the Mental Deficiency Act (with special reference to criminal 
defectives), and held on May 29th last at River Plate House. 

By Edgar A. Hunt, J.P., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., L.S.A., Medical Visitor to the 
Justices under the Lunacy and Mental Deficiency Acts for the county of 
Essex and the Borough of Colchester, Chairman of the House Committee of 
the Royal Eastern Counties’Institution for Idiots, Imbeciles and the Feeble¬ 
minded, etc. 

1 will deal first with the main resolution, which was proposed by Mr. Jame 
Tabor and carried unanimously, vie., “ That this meeting, realising the necessity 
of expert medical opinion in doubtful cases under section 8 of the Mental Deficiency 
Act, 1913, brought before courts of summary jurisdiction, requests the Standing 
Joint Committee to consider the provision of such expert medical assistance for 
all petty sessional divisions in the administrative county of Essex.” 

When 1 voted for this resolution I was under the impression that what was 
intended was the appointment of one mental expert for the whole county—a new 
whole-time official—a medical man, if possible, somewhat after the style of Dr. 
Potts, of Birmingham. 

But a circular letter of Miss Nevill—the excellent and indefatigable organising 
Secretary of the Essex Voluntary Association for the care of the Mentally Defec¬ 
tive—dated July 3rd, states “ until after the appointment by the various benches of 
a court doctor, who is a practical mental expert, etc.,” surely it is not fora moment 
contemplated that a mental expert is to be appointed for each bench of magis¬ 
trates ! Real mental experts are few and far between. In the old days before the 
Mental Deficiency Act was passed—in the course of an extensive general practice 
extending over a long period—l used to be astonished at the ignorance of medical 
men generally about mental disease. Again and again they refused to sign certi¬ 
ficates under the Lunacy Act when there was no doubt a certificate should have 
been signed in the interest of both the patient and the public. I wonder disasters 
have not been more frequent than they have been owing to this unreasonable 
refusal to certify. Heaven knows there have been many more than there ought 
to have been ; and where there has not been disaster there has frequently been a 
large amount of sorrow, distress, worry and expense to the relatives which they 
might and ought to have been spared. If there was difficulty in getting cases 
certified under the Lunacy Act, there is ten times as much difficulty under the 
Mental Deficiency Act—this was well brought out and ably commented on during 
the meeting. I do not hesitate to say that under present conditions the usefulness 
of the Mental Deficiency Act is being much impaired because of the inability of 
numbers of medical men to deal adequately with the cases brought before them. 
I am not in a position to judge how mental defect is now being dealt with at the 
various schools of medicine. I entered at St. George’s in 1874, and in my time 
the education'imparted to students in mental disease was lamentably inadequate. 
It is obvious that a special training is now required to enable students to act at all 
properly in the carrying out of the Mental Deficiency Act when they become 
qualified. It may be such training is being given, and I hope it is. How 
necessary it is is shown by a single case of much interest which came under my 
notice in one of my recent official visits. The lad concerned is undoubtedly feeble¬ 
minded, and has been classed as such by one or two experts. He is a section 8 


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case, and an appeal is impending. Jn connection with the necessary legal pro¬ 
ceedings several medical men have been consulted, and no less than four of them 
—and some of them were medical men of considerable standing—have definitely 
certified that the lad is not feeble-minded. When in doubt classify the case as 
“ backward " is a frequent refuge for the inexperienced practitioner. They fail to 
see why the patient is “ backward ”—fail to see that he (or she) is “ backward ” 
because of mental defect. The mental expert appointed to guide the justices must 
be a really able, capable and practical man, one whose opinions must be sound, 
and whose decisions must be able to stand even very hostile criticism. I hope the 
folly—if it is contemplated—of attempting to find a mental expert in every petty 
sessional area will be nipped in the bud. I trust that one mental expert, in the 
true sense of the word, may be appointed for the whole county. He would neces- 
• sarily act rather on behalf of the authorities ; the medical visitor to the justices 
must continue to exist and must act rather on behalf of the public, and while he 
must do his best in every way to promote the beneficial working of the Mental 
Deficiency Act, must never lose sight of the " liberty of the subject ” side of the 
question. 

“ A boy may not be able to make a good Latin verse, but nevertheless he may 
be able to make a very good table,” was one of the many pithy sayings of my 
famous headmaster, the late Edward Thring, of Uppingham. Now, there are some 
such boys (and girls) in institutions, and their cases call for very special considera¬ 
tion. I come now to that most important point, vie., the provision of some suitable 
place (or places) in the county where mental defectives can reside when allowed 
out on licence—when allowed out on probation for varying periods provided they 
are kept under proper care, supervision and control. In many cases we have found 
that the home accommodation of such cases is utterly inadequate, that while it was 
very right and proper these cases should be allowed out on probation, it would be 
worse than useless to allow such cases to spend their period of probation at home. 

I have in my mind an institution to which lads are sent who have been guilty of 
some crime—frequently some very trivial offence, and have been dealt with under 
Section 8. A good many of these lads are high-grade feeble-minded ; some of 
them are undoubtedly cases of “ late development ”—a subject which requires an 
article to itself, and that not a short one if full justice is done to it; the majority 
have not had a chance—bad parents, bad homes, their start in life has indeed been 
a poor one. Many of these lads—these “ street arabs ”—are embryo hooligans of a 
bad type. But not all—very far from it. And it is not right that all who have 
been found mentally defective in some degree should be condemned practically 
to "imprisonment for life” after committing some trivial offence. The mental 
enthusiast might say they are to have the benefit of “ life-long care.” " The man 
in the street ” protests against them being "shut up” for life. 

Now, in such an institution as the one I am referring to there is a small pro¬ 
portion of cases which ought to be given every chance to prove themselves worthy 
of freedom and to regain their liberty—perhaps not as perfect mentally, but who 
nevertheless may make useful law-abiding citizens and wage-earners. 

It is obviously no easy matter to find anyone who is mentally perfect. That may 
seem a startling statement, but the mentally perfect would possess the talents of a 
senior wrangler, a senior classic, and a master of every subject calling for the 
exercise of brain power! Where is such a person? A certain proportion of 
defectives if given a fair chance may become useful members of society. I am 
fortunate in having had to work with a number of justices and lady visitors who 
are all reasonable and level-headed and who are not “ cranks.” Many of these are 
sure that the question of the continued confinement of certain cases will be raised 
before long in the House of Commons. It is a matter of some surprise to myself 
that some of those who opposed the Mental Deficiency Act—rabid cranks on the 
question of the " liberty of the subject ”—have not already caused a stir in the 
legislature about such cases as those I am dealing with. 

It is everything for all concerned in the working of the Lunacy and the Mental 
Deficiency Acts to have “ public opinion ” with them—to have the support and 
sympathy of the public. And I must say in Essex we have been successful in 
obtaining this. At last interest in the subject has been aroused, and the general 
public recognises the necessity for, and the advantage of, the Mental Deficiency Act. 

A few suitable cases—now confined—should be allowed out on probation, and there 


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should be a “half-way house” between confinement'and liberty—possible ultimate 
liberty, of which cases should have the opportunity of proving themselves worthy. 
My idea is such “ probation home or hostel ” should be the residence of the medical 
mental expert for the county, that he should have under him a resident head 
attendant and head nurse for the male and female sides. To this hostel could be 
sent those borderland difficult cases, on the mentality of whom it is impossible to 
decide at a single interview. To this home cases could be sent on remand ; they 
would be under supervision possibly for some time, and after the decision about 
their mental state had been arrived at, that decision could be reported to the 
justices before whom they had come in the first instance. 

This hostel should be a real training home in which males and females could be 
taught what they were found to be most fitted for, and by the practice of which 
they might be able to earn a living. As they made good progress they would 
gradually be allowed more and more liberty. The period of probation would be 
renewed and extended, but all the while, until discharged, the certificates would 
hold good, and in case of necessity—for breaches of discipline, insubordination, 
misconduct or for other reasons—the cases could be sent back to where they came 
from or to institutions thought perhaps more suitable for their particular grade, to 
continue in confinement. 

The finding of a suitable “ guardian ” for these cases on probation is an extremely 
difficult matter. There is a “ Society for the After-care of the Insane ”—there does 
not seem to be one “ for the after-care of the feeble-minded.” It seems to me here 
is a large field for voluntary philanthropy, if the State cannot at present undertake 
the matter. 

But I hope an amended Act will insist upon the provision of such “ half-way 
houses ” by the local authorities. 

By such an Act visiting justices ought to be invested with similar powers to those 
they possess under the Lunacy Act—“ but that is another story.” 


DEATH OF DR. MERCIER. 

Criminologist and Physician. 

In Dr. Charles Arthur Mercier, whose death occurred at Bournemouth yesterday, 
the world of medicine in the department ofjpsychiatry loses one of its most brilliant 
and distinguished ornaments. A subtle dialectician, a keen and logical debater, 
a psychologist, and a philosopher, he was also a practical alienist physician. 

Of Huguenot extraction, and the son of a clergyman, he spent his early life in 
Scotland, and he owed much to a capable and generous-minded mother, to whose 
memory he was always unflinchingly loyal. The family being left badly off on his 
father’s death, he joined a ship’s crew and went to Mogador, and afterwards entered 
a woollen warehouse in the City. He then took to medicine, and from the outset 
of his career as a student in the London Hospital he was marked for success. His 
high graduation at the London University, together with his obtaining of the 
Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons, seemed to foreshadow distinction 
for him in the more purely practical aspect of the medical profession, but the bent 
ofjhis mind was towards introspection and analysis. His great admiration for 
Spencer, the philosopher of evolution, and his devotion to his teacher and friend, 
Dr. Hughlings Jackson, led him to study mental diseases and neurology. He 
gained an extensive as well as nn intimate.and accurate knowledge of insanity in 
its various aspects by holding the post of medical officer in two large public 
asylums—the Bucks County Asylum and the City of London Asylum at Stone— 
and until the last few years he was the resident physician of a private asylum near 
London, where he was the personal and devoted friend of the patients under his 
care. He was greatly attracted to the legal aspects of mental diseases, and the 
quality of his mind might best be described as forensic and analytic. His stern 
logic led him at times to appear to over-advocate a weak claim. Dr. Mercier was 
essentially the champion of the weak against the strong. It was through his 
support and strenuous advocacy that a Bill was more than once introduced by 
Lord Halsbury, then Lord Chancellor, into the House of Lords to legalise the 


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treatment of insanity in its incipient stages, for insanity was only too well known 
to Dr Mercier to be curable indirectly in proportion to its duration. He continued 
to urge with unremitting persistence the necessity for increasing the number of 
the scandalously overworked Lunacy Commissioners. 

An effective speaker, Dr. Mercier might have attained even greater distinction 
in the legal profession than that which he achieved in psychiatric medicine. He 
was an invaluable member of a deputation, for his cold convincing logic could be 
relied upon in the face of countless difficulties to justify his point or to prove his 
argument. Those who were favoured with his confidence appreciated his striking 
independence, his clear intellectual ability, and his strong moral nature. His 
friendship was real for those he liked, even when these disagreed from him. His 
unflinching courage made him a strong opponent, yet, unlike many combatants, he 
had no venom in his nature. In debate he was as often effective by a humorous 
exposure as by his uncompromising logic. As a writer he was clear, incisive, and 
accurate—almost a purist in the use of the English language. He was as widely 
known in America as he was in this country, and a visit he paid to Boston a few 
years ago brought him an enthusiastic welcome from the charmed circle of lawyers, 
medical men, and literary critics of the American academic world. 

Dr. Mercier’s most intimate work for the benefit of the insane was chiefly 
known to mental experts, who were his colleagues on the Council of the Medico- 
Psychological Association, as well as on its Parliamentary and Educational Com¬ 
mittee, where his special qualities were most valued and appreciated. Some time 
back he served as President of the Medico-Psychological Association as well as of 
the Psychiatry section of the British Medical Association Congress at Oxford. 
He was a member of the Departmental Committee in regard to the treatment of 
inebriety, and he gave expert evidence before the Royal Commission on the Care 
and Control of the Feeble-minded as the representative of the Royal College of 
Physicians of London. Like his teacher, Herbert Spencer, he had a great power 
of generalisation based upon a wide acquaintance with biology and the natural 
sciences. Besides special text-books upon psychology, he contributed articles to 
medical and ether periodical literature as well as to various encyclopaedias and 
dictionaries. He also contributed a number of letters to The Times. London 
University (for which he was examiner in his special subject) awarded him the 
degree of Doctor of Medicine in Mental Diseases, accompanied by its gold medal 
for special merit. He was a member of many learned societies, and he took a 
particular interest in the work of the Medico-Legal Society. He was a Fellow 
of the Royal College of Physicians. It was only last January that the Swiney 
Prize was awarded to him for his work on Crime and Criminals ; this was the 
second time that that honour had been conferred on him, for ten years ago he 
won it for his book on Criminal Responsibility. In 1910 he stood, though 
unsuccessfully, for the Waynflete Chair of Philosophy at Oxford, and soon after¬ 
wards his New Logic appeared, a volume in which he attacked what he conceived 
to be Aristotelian logic with great vigour, but with an insufficient comprehension 
of the subject. Indeed, logic, both theoretical and practical, was not always his 
strong point, logician though he claimed to be; and in his miscellaneous writings, 
outside his own special subjects, there were occasional faults of reasoning. But 
in a comparatively short life he did a prodigious quantity of hard, intellectual 
work, and his interests were so many that it is not surprising if in his parrrga his 
pen sometimes ran away with him. 

He was married, but his wife predeceased him for a number of years, and he 
has left no family. 

A correspondent writes: 

Might I be allowed to add a note to your obituary notice of Dr. Mercier? 
Dr. Mercier was twice married. His first wife died a considerable number of 
years ago. In 1913 he married Miss Mary MacDougall, whose early death in 
1915 was a severe blow to him, coming as it did at a time when the progressive 
failure of health which marked the last fifteen years of his life had reached a stage 
which would have quelled a less robust spirit. Since then he had been living more 
or less in seclusion at Bournemouth. But physical infirmity was never able to 
damp his intellectual ardour. Practically bereft of sight and hearing, he none the 


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314 NOTES AND NEWS. [Oct., 

less kept up his literary and speculative interests, and only a few weeks ago was 
writing to a friend of a new book that he had a mind to write. His intellectual 
zest and keenness were undimmed. His death was quite unexpected, and was due 
to pleurisy contracted at the end of last week.— Times, September 4th, 1919. 


EXAMINATION FOR NURSING CERTIFICATE. 

List of Successful Candidates. 

Final Examination, May, 1919. 

Chester County. — Margaret Langton, Edith Taylor, Beatrice Lewis, Edith Emily 
Williams, Betty Williams. 

Cheshire, Macclesfield. —Cecilia Moore, Minnie Wigglesworth, Elizabeth Ellen 
O’Connor. 

Cumberland and Westmorland. —Ethel Mary Howe. 

Dorchester. —Beatrice May Message, Anna Hennessey, Dorothy Isabel Evett, 
Annie Maud Mary Atkins, Agnes Bridget McDonnell. 

Essex, Severalls. —Mabel Blanche Button, Evelyn Gray, Florence Reddiford, 
Mabel Gertrude Taylor. 

Glamorgan, Bridgend. —Catherine A. Thomas, Muriel Owen, Bridget Alysions 
Neville, Winifred Elinor Preece. 

Kent, Barming Heath. —Hannah Helene E. Hardingue, Eva Gladys Wood, 
Phyllis Mary Evans, Gladys May Bishop, Hannah J. Kirby, Veronica Mawdsley, 
Laura Violet Killian. 

Kent, Chatham. —Mary Hotton, Amy A. Wellard, Mary Angus. 

City of London. —Ethel Florence Tucker. 

Cane Hill. —Mary Connell, Rose Elizabeth Martin, Daisy Ella Martin, Elsie May 
Payne, Harriette May Pauli, Nellie Louisa Mary Perrey, Gladys Garrood Smith, 
Leelia Kearney. 

Hanwell. —Isabella Davies, Marie Plumb, Minnie Elizabeth Lelean, Louise Scott. 

Leng Grove. —Rose Alice Ethel Message, Annie Jane Jones, Honoria Martha 
Byrne, Lilian Margaret Blythe, Albert James Ring. 

Colnty Hatch. —Alice Taylor, Nora Annie Coles, Myra Compton, May Good, 
Margaret K. M. Westcott, Jessie Myrtle Bingham. 

Banstead. —Winifred Constance Bright, Phyllis Stribbling, Elizabeth Rose 
Neighbour, Lucy Jordan, Margaret Priscilla Day, May Gladys Waylan, Florence 
Ada Devey, Lucy Eleanor Pownall, Jessie Elsie Dawson 

Fountains Temporary. —Jessie Macdiarmid, Edith Morrison. 

Napsbury. —Annie Laundon, Lucy Downes, Elsie G. Rogers, Ethel Mary Davis, 
Annie Keziah Richardson. 

Notts County. —Florrie Leeson, Annie Gamble, Betsey Todd, Irene Ethel Godber. 

Shropshire County. —Frances Nellie Dodd. 

Staffs, Burnt-wood. —Annie Gibson. 

Staffs, Cheddleton. —Mary Ellen Watters, Gladys Ethel Chaplin, Charity Elinor 
Rooney, Mary Frances Coyle. 

Sussex, Hellingley. —Ada Kathleen Redfern, Rose Brett, Bertha Elizabeth Miles, 
Margaret Mary Clarkson. 

Worcestershire, Barnsley Hall. —Harry Milhouse Storr, Frank Walton, Ellen 
Lee Tomkys. 

Birmingham, Winson Green. —Emma Benton, Rose Adelaide Shilvock. 

Hull City. —Maude Miller, Agnes Senior, Annie Hunt, Jenny Bate, Emmeline 
Grayshon, Annie Kirby. 

Leicester Borough. —Mabel Wakefield, Isabella Catherine Johnston, Lillian Soar, 
Edith King. 

Notts City. —Blodwen Davies, Jane Riley, Daisy Branston. 

Sunderland Borough. —Ronald W. G. Dean, Mary Hewitt. 

York City. — # Elizabeth Rains. 

Norwich City. —Winifrede Alice Mayes. 

Bethlem Hospital. — Rose Amelins Huss, Alice Maud Martin. 


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1919 ] NOTES AND NEWS. 3 I 5 

Bootham Park. —*May Boyes, Mary Black, Christina Watt, Florence May 
Mitchell, *Amy Walker. 

Brislington House. —Miriam Andrews, Mabel Elizabeth Doling. 

Camberwell House. —Lillian Bateman, Jessie Webster, Gertrude Izod. 

Colon Hill. —Mary Vincent. 

Middleton Hall. —Muriel Chesher, Ada Bruce. 

St. Andrew's, Northampton. —Ralph Leonard Haynes, Ralph Neal Easton. 
Ticehurst. —Louisa Ford, Martha Wootten, Emily Charlotte Fry, Ivy Victoria 
Holtham. 

Warneford, Oxon. —Evelyn Emily Swadling. 

York, Retreat. —*Margaret Emily Wilmot, Ethel Barbara Davison. 

Aberdeen Royal. —Williamina Burr, Elizabeth Anderson, Annie J. E, Gordon, 
Florence Watson. 

Aberdeen District. —Mary J. Gerrard, Jessie S. Roy, Florence Stephen, Catherine 
Crichton, Leslie D. Duncan, Lily J. Reid, Mary A. Thomson, Helen McLean. 

Ayr District. —Janet T. McCulloch, Jane B. McKellar, Elspeth G. Kirkwood, 
Donald Cowan, David Reid, George Burns, Agnes Shankland Malloch, Janet 
Sutherland MacKenzie, Jane Fulton White, Agnes Bain Haig, Margaret 
Mathieson, Agnes Boyle Cowan. 

Banff. —Jennie Murray Burnett, Maggie Ann Stewart, Susan Mackintosh. 
Crichton. —John Laurie Campbell, William Francis Farrington, Mary Campbell, 
Mary MacFadyen, Mary Tait, Sarah Johnstone McLean, Rebecca McQuarrie, 
Maggie Gordon Matthew, Adelaide McAdam, Mary Ann Waite Starkey, Elizabeth 

j ane Beaton, Lena Ellen Weston, Molly Graham, Margaret Eliza Kennedy, Jean 
ohnstone Ross, Jean Quinn, Mary Fraser Edgar, Annie Mary Weir. 

Gartnavel. —Betty Orr, Catherine Cameron, Mary Mackenzie, Ethel Ellen 
Ferguson, Catherine T. Robertson, Molly McCann, William Arrol. 

Gartloch. —Flora Robertson, Christina MacAskill, Margaret Findlay, Morag 
Kennedy, Janet McK. Shennan, Isobel McC. Parker, Catherine Campbell Galbraith, 
Kathleen Connolly, Margaret Grey Summers. 

Woodilee. —Helen Horn Brown, Jessie Ann Cook, Agnes Cowie Hamilton, 
•Georgina H. Wilson. 

Craig House. —Kathleen Chisholm, Mary Cochrane, Ruby Swanson. 

Edinburgh Royal. —Elizabeth M. Ewing, Mabel Brown, Muriel M. Pond, 
Margaret Weir Fleming, Janet Williamson, *Ina M. Nicolson, Maggie C. Dower, 
Jessie W. Johnstone. 

Elgin District. —Isabella Hadden, Ann B. Strathdee, Lily L. Taylor. 

Hawkhead. —*Jeannie Lovie Corbett, Isabella K. Russell or Macdonald, Dorothy 
Dawe. 

Lanark. —Elsie Campbell, Jean McHardy, Mary McHattie, Annie McLaughlin, 
Catherine Smith. 

Midlothian and Peebles. —Mary Keith, Agnes G. Lemmon. 

Melrose. —Margaret Webster. 

Montrose Royal. —Williamina Denchar Allan, Janet Crombie, Isabella Jane 
Ferrier, Matilda Neave Guthrie, Robina Canning McKay, Jane Nicolson, Alice 
Smith, Margaret Charlotte Sutherland, *Margaret Tierney, # Rachael Smith. 

Murray. —Elspeth Hazel Macdonald Baillie, Helen Sharp Brown, Elizabeth 
Maclean, Jean R. C. Buchan. 

Riccartsbar, Paisley. —Mary B. Morrow, Elizabeth Jane Dawson, *Jane Bishop 
Alexander. 

Mullingar. —Joseph Farrell, Cecilia McDonnell, William Flanagan. 

Omagh. —Maria Haddon, Isabella Mary Gay, Margaret Lynn, Mary C. Morris, 
Mary McGonagle, Catherine Bella McNulty, Bridget Sweeney. 

Portrane. —Margaret Gilmartin, Catherine Tighe, Patrick Healy. 

Richmond. —Elizabeth Dalton, Martha Connell, Michael Purfield. 

St. Patrick's. —Ida Jordeson, Thomas Mullarney, Michael Joseph O’Neill. 

Fife and Kinross. —Johan McDonald, Catherine Fraser Wilson, Angusina Murray 
Rhind, Jessie Ann Taylor, Agnes Gordon Robertson, Esther Stark, Marion Waddell 
Coffield. 

Warwick County. —Dela Everall, Evely Rochford. 

* Passed with distinction. 

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NOTES AND NEWS. 


[Oct 


Preliminary Examination, May, 1919. 

Cumberland and Westmorland. —J. B. Ferguson, E. B. Smith, S. Tracey, 

J. Hardy, O. L. Sainty. 

Chester County. —F. Carman, S. Bretherton, E. Mackay, E. O'Keefe, E. Walley, 
N. Hiron, D. Price, M. H. Jones. 

Macclesfield. —L. Newbold, J. R. Lyne, E. M. Clewlow, H. A. Belfield. 

Dorset County. —W. T. Hunt, H. F. Fox, K. Riglar, F. Dean. 

Essex, Severalls. —J. T. Harper, E. Wilson, D. Wilson, E. Taylor, M. Smith, 
E. M. Pullen, G. Morgan, E. Kenyon, H. Henfrey, J. Hudson, R. A. T. Grant, 
E. M. Denley, D. G. Deary, E. M. Calver, A. E. Bailey, E. A. Barton, M. Arthur. 
Essex, Brentwood. —W. L. E. Kennard. 

Glamorgan, Bridgend. — B. Bowen, L. Davies, M. John, L. Jones, A. Roberts, 

G. Vaughan, C. A. Davies, G. M. Richards. 

Isle of Man. -E. M. Kelley, A. L. Knight. 

Barming Heath. — M. E. Shaw. 

Claybury, L.C.C. —L. Clare, M. B. Hyland, E. Godden, W. Roberts, E. Redden. 
Cane Hill. —J. A. Ishmael, C. Moran, G. M. Rumble, D. M. Drake, R. A. Fraser, 
S. T. Wilson, A. M. Purdy, D. L. Skelton, A. Keating, B. Croxford, D. T. Shep¬ 
herd, M. C. Jones. 

L.C.C., Hanwell. — M. Baker, A. Frost, A. Turner, A. L. Lear, J. Jones, D. 
Granger, E. B. Sawyer, L. Archer, H. Vernon. 

L.C., Colney Hatih. —L. K. Gentry, A. L. Downs. 

L.C, Banstead. —L. Maguire, A. McBrien, A. Crowe, K. O’Shea, J. M. Hurley. 
L.C., Long Grove. —M. A. Barry, M. G. Burns, G. M. Howell, C. M. Povey, 
L. Stevenson, S. T. Williams. 

Notts City. —L. McGuinness, M. L. Barrett, H. Coope, J. M. Glennon, M. A. 
Jourdan, N. Wolgate. 

Shropshire County. —E. Bray, L. Morgan. 

Surrey, Netherne. —N. C. Brown, D. M. Pitman, A. L. Ward, H. Bakewell. 
Sussex, Hellingley. —G. F. Bath, A. M. Tanner, F. B. K. Knight, F. M. Shook, 

H. Peddle, J. F. Challenor, B. McPartland, N. Nuttall, N. F. Fahy. 

Worcester, Barnsley Hall. —L. Clifton, D. W. Wilson, W. L. Porter, G. M. 
Licence, R. Burton, J. W. Durrant, W. L. Griffiths. 

Yorks, Storthes Hall. —A. M. Duffield, T. Reddick, A. Sharpe. 

Winson Green. —C. C. Griffiths, B. Bosworth. 

Derby Borough. —Dora Twigge, Evelyn W. Lee. 

Brighton Borough. —C. L. Thomson, B. M. Fidler, E. Ayres, R. J. Wingrove, 

K. E. Clifford, F. Phillips. 

Leicester Borough. —E. M. Griffin, A. Hurren, H. M. Babb. 

Hull City. —J. W. Ellerker, J. Hemmingway, M. Hardie, R. Nicholson, 
J. Richardson, M. L. Willoughby, L. Rowley, B. A. Patrick. 

Norwich City. —M. E. Wilson, L. Sturman, F. M. J. Tooke, C. M. Holland, 
C. E. Gould, F. G. Garland, H. E. M. Foster. 

Sunderland Borough. —M. E. Bailey, J. Collins, K. Edwards, M. Fagan, 
G. Goodings, C. Lawson, A. G. Press, J. Pybus, E. M. Wanless. 

York City. —F. M. Swift. 

Caterham. —G. L. Potter, H. C. Woodward. 

Leavesden. —G. M. Howes, D. M. Maycock, C. E. Pulford, G. F. V. Fry, 
S. Rowney. 

Bethlem. —K. A. Hughes, W. D. Tindall, M. King, N. Waite, M. Tweeddale, 
C. Gill. 

Bootham Park. —J. C. Warren. 

Brislington House. —E. G. Fynes, E. M. Matthews. 

Camberwell House. —W. J. Witts, A. S. Prince, H. E. Buckley, D. G. Pears, 
E. Rowlands, G. M. Haynes. 

Coton Hill. —H. Somers, D. Taylor, G. Hodson, F. Heathcote. 

St. Andrew's Hospital. —W. E. Isom, E. E. Munday, B. O. Goode, O. Gibbons 
N. Buckley, M. J. Browne, M. A. Leslie. 

Warneford, Oxford. —E. M. Dean, G. J. Harris, H. Davies, F. C. Redding, 
J. A. Tutty. 


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19 19 '] NOTES AND NEWS. 317 

Aberdeen Royal. —J. Duncan, A. M. Fraser, J. Sorrie, A. Duncan, A. Davidson, 

L. E. Milne. 

Aberdeen District. —A. B. M. Milton, J. G. Wilson, J. S. Beaton. 

Ayr District. —Patrick McGlynn, J. McNicoI, M. E. Smith, A. Henderson, 
E. L. N. Smellie. 

Banff. —Donald Matheson, J. Watson, E. C. Brodie. 

Crichton. —A. Hendry, J. Callanden, M. B. Edine, D. J. McDonald, A. Duncan, 
J. Ferguson, L. Shelbourne, K. A. M. MacLeod, J. C. Muircroft, M. McLugash. 
Craig House. —M. F. Simpson, S. Rodden, J. G. Nicolson, M. Cremin, 

M. Wixted. 

Edinburgh Royal. —J. M. Grant, E. M. Gray. 

Fife and Kinross. —A. V. Rodden, C. Nuthall, W. Young, E. Allan, A. W. 
Anderson, A. C. Mather, B. Hadden, W. Anderson. 

Gartnavel. —J.- McPherson, A. O’Donnell, B. Sharkey, M. Rennie, J. M. A. 
Rennie, E. Bailie, M. McLellan, C. Macdonald, B. Levy. 

Woodilee. —L. O'Rourke, N. Edwards, A. Mulgrew, J. Walkinshaw, M. Cart¬ 
wright, A. N. Campbell, M. Kelly, S. Johnston, K. Ross, J. Begbie, P. Keogh, 
W. Dunsmore, E. M. Wilkie, C. Lyons. 

Gartloch. —G. McLellan. 

Hawkhead. —A. D. Glendinning. 

Inverness. —J. J. Morrison. 

Lanark. —J. B. Robertson. 

Midlothian. — A. Bell, M. Hamilton, H. King. 

Melrose. —E. Graham, J. J. O’Hara, T. F. E. O'Hara. 

Murray. —J. W. Dean. 

Ballinasloe.— M. Goode, A. Finnerty, M. C. Quigley, M. Hynes, P. Gauley, 
J. Gilleece, G. Jennings, P. Tapley, M. Mee, J. Naughton, T. McGann, 
E. O'Connall. 

Mullingar. —B. Geoghegan, K. Fitzsimmons, T. Farrell. 

Omagh. —M. E. Baird, J. McCanny, A. McDermott, C. Quinn. 

Portrane. —E. Brady, R. Cox, F. Byrne. 

Richmond. —M. Kavanagh, E. Deasy, A. Fitzsimmons, M. Dunne, J. Hall, 
M. Crowe, F. Moore, M. Murphy, P. McNally, P. Brennan. 

St. Patrick's. —F. M. Montague, M. Corcoran, J. K. Boyd, A. Maguire. 

Scottish National Inst. —J. Cairns. 

Fountains Temporary. —F. M. W. Gill, F. Fray, D. L. Gilbey, 1 . Gregory. 
Darenth. —L. Radley, A. Stone, A. E. Crawley, E. L. Wollaston, M. Morley, 
A. Dunford, D. L. Dunn. 

Warwick County. —B. Callanan, N. Hall, H. Greenway, L. Murphy, E. A. 
Gilligan, M. Wright, E. A. Prestwich, C. J. Hawker, A. Rogers, C. Blount, 
G. Burgess, T. Dearl. 

Montrose. —M. A. I. Belnaves, M. France, F. N. Henry, A. Smart, A. C. Smith. 


NOTICE TO CONTRIBUTORS. 

N.B. —The Editors will be glad to receive contributions of interest, clinical 
records, etc., from any members who can find time to write (whether these have 
been read at meetings or not) for publication in the Journal. They will also feel 
obliged if contributors will send in their papers at as early a date in each quarter 
as possible. 

Writers are requested kindly to bear in mind that, according to Ltx(a) of the 
Articles of Association, “ all papers read at the Annual, General, or Divisional 
Meetings of the Association shall be the property of the Association, unless the 
author shall have previously obtained the written consent of the Editors to the 
contrary.” 

Pagers read at Association Meetings should, therefore, not be published in other 
Journals without such sanction having been previously granted. 


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INDEX TO VOL. LXV. 


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Part I.—GENERAL INDEX. 

Abbasiya Asylum, report, 1917, 131 
Alcoholic psychoses, 167 

Alkali agents in the treatment of delirium tremens, 121 

American Medico-Psychological Association, Presidential address, by James V. 

Anglin, M.D., 1 
Appointments, 140, 217 
Artes et Medicina, 96 

Asylum administration as effected by present events, Dr. Wolseley Lewis’s 

scheme, 124 

,, „ some present-day problems connected with, 198 

„ Workers' Association and the Medico-Psychological Association, 283 

Balance sheet, 277 

Board of Control and the Ministry of Health, 280 • 

Calcium, uses of, in excited cases, 109 
Cerebro-spinal fluid in mental disease, cytology of the, 249 
Chapin, John, obituary, 46, 57 
Clinical neurology and psychiatry, 119 
„ notes and cases, 109, 202, 25S 
„ psychology, present position of, 141 
Colin, M. le Henri, welcome to, 285 
Correspondence, 135 
Council, election of, 275 
,, report of the, 275 
Criminal actions, factors of, 87 
Criminology, 205 

Cytology of the cerebro-spinal fluid in mental disease, 249 

Delirium tremens, treatment of, by spinal puncture, stimulation and the use of 
alkali agents, 121 
Delusions, genesis of, 187 

Dementia paralytica, treatment of, with subdural injections of neosalvarsan, 24 
„ prtecox, 167 

Dinner, annual, at York, 289 

Editors’ report, 278 

Education Committee, report, 279 

Egypt, report for the year 1917 from the Lunacy division, being the 23rd annual 
report on the Government asylum at Abbasiya and the 6th annual report on 
the asylum of Khanka, 131 
English war psychology, 65 

Environment, influence of, on psychic secretion, 180 
Epilepsy, 170 

,, clinical studies in, 119 


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INDEX. 


319 


Epilepsy in twins, notes on two cases, 262 
„ mental content in, 119 

Epileptic attacks, psychological and therapeutic value of mental content, during 
and following, 119 

„ constitution, personality study of the, 119 

„ the true, 119 

Epitome of current literature, 44, 117, 209, 273 

Examination for nursing certificate: list of successful candidates, 314 
Expeditionary force, British, mental wards with the, 152 

Feeble-mindedness in British Expeditionary force, 161 
Fits, a group of, 202 

Focal infections, r 6 le of, in the psychoses, 274 

General paralysis, war fatigue as a cause of, 307 
German war psychology, 65 
Goitre and the psychoses, 235 
Griffith, A. Hume, obituary, 46, 60 

Herbert, Thomas, obituary, 46, 62 
Hypnotic suggestion, notes on a case treated by, 258 
,, „ discussion, 284 

Infective factors in some types of neurasthenia, 16 
Influenza, psychoses associated with, 121 
Insane, pseudo-hermaphroditism in the, 209 
Insanity, confusional, 163 
,, delusional, 165 

Ireland, sixty-seventh annual report of the Inspectors of Lunatics for the year 
ending December 31st, 1917, 263 
Irish Division of the Medico-Psychological Association, 130 

Khanka Asylum, report, 1917, 131 

Lebanon, Syria, Mental Hospital at, 46 
Logan, Dr., death of, 46 
Logic, mysticism and, 111 

Lunacy Legislation, sub-committee of the Medico-Psychological Association of 
Great Britain and Ireland, report, 36, 47 
Luncheon at York, report of speeches, 287 

Mania, 168 

Manic-depressive psychosis, so-called lucid interval in, 44 
Maudsley Lectureship, report on the, 211 
Medicina et Artes, 96 

Medico-Psychological Association, proposed new bye-laws, 211 

» » >, meetings, 45, 122 (special), 129, 211 

„ „ „ seventy-eighth annual meeting, 275 

,, „ „ and the Ministry of Health, 283 

„ „ Society of Paris, greetings from the, 123 

Melancholia, 167 
Members, election of, 212 

Mental deficiency, conference convened by the Essex Voluntary Association, 304 
,, content in epilepsy, 119 

,, disease, cytology of the cerebro-spinal fluid in, 249 
,, instability, 162 

„ wards with the British Expeditionary Force, 152 

Mercier, Dr. C. A., obituary, 263, 314 
Military training, war neuroses and, 273 
Ministry of Health and the Board of Control, 280 
Mould, George Wm., obituary, 122, 136 


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INDEX. 


320 

Mysticism and logic, 111 

Neosalvarsan, treatment of dementia paralytica with, 24 
Nervous debility, 162 

Neurasthenia, infective factors in some types of, 16 
Neuroses, war, and military training, 273 
Northern and Midland Division meeting, 212 
Notes and news, 45, 122, 211, 275 

Obituary.—Ballard, Capt. E. F., 61 
Chapin, John, 46, 57 
Griffith, A. Hume, 46, 60 
Herbert, Thomas, 46, 62 
Logan, Dr., 46 
Mercier, Charles A., 263, 312 
Mould, George YV., 122, 136 
Reid, William, 46 
Spensley, Capt. F. O., 46 
Wigglesworth, Joseph, 216, 288 
Occasional notes, 263 

Paralysis, general, 168 

Paris, Medico-Psychological Society of, greetings from, 123 
Parliamentary Committee report, 280 
Pierce, Bedford, elected President, 275 

Presidential address on psychiatry a hundred years ago, with comments on the 
problems of to-day, 219 
Prison reform, 215 
Prizes, presentation of, 288 
Pseudo-hermaphroditism in the insane, 209 
Psychasthenia, 170 

Psychic secretion, the influence of environment, 180 

Psychiatry a hundred years ago, with comments on the problems of to-day, 219 
Psycho-analysis, paper on, 204 
Psychology, clinical, present position of, 141 
„ war, English and German, 65 
Psychoses associated with influenza, 121 
„ goitre and the, 235 

,, in the Expeditionary forces, 101 

„ role of local infections in the, 274 
Psychosis, manic-depressive, so-called lucid interval in, 44 

Registrar, notices by the, 63, 140 
Reid, William, obituary, 46 
Report of the Council, 275 

„ of the Editors, 278 

,, of the Education Committee, 279 

„ of the Parliamentary Committee, 280 

„ of the Sub-committee on English Lunacy Legislation, 36, 47 
„ of the Treasurer, 276 

,, on the Maudsley Lectureship, 211 

Reviews, 109, 204 

Scottish Division of the Medico-Psychological Association, meetings, 56, 214 

Secretary, resignation of Dr. R. H. Steen, 123 

Soutar, Dr. J. G., retirement of, 136 

South-Eastern Division, meeting, 214 

South-Western Division, meeting, 213 

Spensley, Capt. F. O., death of, 46 

Spinal puncture in the treatment of delirium tremens, 121 
Stupor, 170 


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INDEX. 


321 


Steen, R. H., resignation of, as secretary, 123 
Stimulation in the treatment of delirium tremens, 121 

Treasurer’s report, 276 
Twins, epilepsy in, 262 

Unconscious, Why is the unconscious? 117 

War fatigue as a factor of general paralysis, 301 
War neuroses and military training, 273 
War psychology : English and German, 65 
Wiglesworth, Joseph, obituary, 216 
Wounds, self-inflicted, 157 


Part II.— ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 

Anglin, James V., presidential address delivered before the American Medico- 
Psychological Association, 1 

Brunton, G. L., on the cytology of the cerebro spinal fluid in mental disease, 249 
Cathcart, Col. E. P., psychic secretion : the influence of environment, 180 
Chambers, W. D., mental wards with the British Expeditionary force: a review of 
ten months' experiences, 152 

Colin, Henri, war fatigue as a cause of general paralysis, 301 
Dougall, Major Wm., present position of clinical psychology, 141 
Donkin, H. Bryan, factors of criminal actions, 87 
Grimbly, Alan F., Artes et Medicina, 96 
Helweg, Hj., see Schroder, Geo. E. 

Lewis, H. Wolseley, scheme for asylum administration as effected by present 
events, 124 

Maudsley, Henry, war psychology: English and German, 65 
McDowall, Colin, genesis of delusions: clinical notes and discussion, 187 
Medico-Psychological Association of Great Britain and Ireland, report of English 
Lunacy Legislation Sub-committee, 36 
Nicolson, D. D., appreciation of Dr. George William Mould, 138 
Pearce, O. P. Napier, psychoses in the Expeditionary forces, 101 
Phillips, Norman Routh, goitre and the psychoses, 235 

Pierce, Bedford, psychiatry a hundred years ago, with comments on the problems 
of to-day: presidential address, 1919, 219 
„ „ -some present-day problems connected with the administration of 

asylums, 198 

Robertson, W. Ford, infective factors in some types of neurasthenia, 16 

Savage, Sir George H., obituary notice of Dr. George William Mould, 136 
Schroder, George E., and Helweg, Hj., some experiments on treatment of dementia 
paralytica with subdural injections of neosalvarsan, 24 

Part III.—REVIEWS. 

Cole, R. H., Mental Diseases, 266 

Coover, John Edgar, Experiments in Psychical Research, California, 1917, 270 

Glucek, Bernard, Studies in Forensic Psychiatry, London, 266 

Jelliffe, Smith E., and White, W. A., Diseases of the Nervous System: a Text¬ 
book of Neurology and Psychiatry. Second edition : Philadelphia and New 
York, 1917, 109 

Jones, Ernest, Papers on Psycho-analysis, London, 204 
Long, H. W., Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living, London, 267 
Mercier, Charles A., Spirit Experiences, London, 272 


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322 INDEX. 

Parmelee, Maurice, Criminology, New York, 1918, 205 

Rignano, Eugenio, Essays in Scientific Synthesis, 114 
Robie, W. F., Rational Sex Ethics, London, 267 
Russell, Bertrand, Mysticism and Logic, London, 1918, 111 

Sixty-seventh Annual Report of the Inspectors of Lunatics (Ireland) for the Year 
ending December 31st, 1917, 263 


Part IV.—AUTHORS REFERRED TO IN THE EPITOME. 


Cotton, H. A., 274 
Gordon, A., 44 
Hoppe, H. H., 121 


Jones, Ernest, 117 

Maurice, Dr., 117 
Menninger, Karl A., 12 

Nicoll, Dr., 117 


O’Malley, Mary, 209 
Pierce, Clark L., 119 
Rivers, W. H. R., 117, 273 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Photograph of George William Mould, 65 
Photograph to illustrate Dr. Toledo’s paper, 262 
Photograph of Joseph Wiglesworth, 141 
Tables to illustrate Dr. Brunton’s paper, 255, 256 


~T-\ 


ADLARD AND SON AND WEST NEWMAN, LTD., IMPR., LONDON AND DORKING. 


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