Our Association, which celebrated its jubilee at the Annual Meeting held at Birmingham in 1891, under the presidency of Mr. Whitcombe, numbers but few members who know much about its origin, formation, and early history, and it has occurred to me that it might be well if a record of it could be obtained and published while there yet remain among us some of the survivors of its earlier days. It will always be a regret to me that this was not taken in hand before the death of our greatly lamented colleague, Dr. Hack Tuke, who was one of our oldest and most devoted members, for he knew so much about its past history, and was personally acquainted with most, if not all, of the original members. Sir John C. Bucknill is, as far as I can ascertain, the sole surviving member of the Association in the days when the roll of members was a very small one, numbering between 30 and 40 at most, and his name first appears in our records in 1849.∗

More than a generation ago (in 1860), in Hamburg, I made my first experiment in treating patients suffering from recent insanity, especially the excited, in bed. This treatment, continued in the Göttingen Asylum, forms a prominent part of my system. It may therefore be inferred that the first experiments were confirmed by many excellent results; while, on the other hand, there have not been wanting occasional failures, which, indeed, attend on every method of medical treatment. I am glad to have an opportunity of laying my experience in this matter before the Medico-Psychological Association. My contribution may be taken as a small tribute in recognition of all I have learned from Great Britain throughout my psychiatric career, both in theory and practice.

F. M., a domestic servant, aged 20 years, was received into the Inverness Asylum on 13th June, 1894, suffering from acute mania of about a fortnight's duration. There was no assigned cause for the attack, nor was a hereditary tendency to mental or nervous disease admitted.

The subject-matter of this paper is one that I have always taken a great interest in since my connection with psychology, believing it to be the key-stone to modern treatment of the insane, and a valuable adjunct in setting a good example to a class of people who are prone to do evil as the result of their mental aberration, or the tendency to do nothing, or from want of something to do. It is a truism that work is a powerful antidote to low spirits, and if we contrast the asylum treatment of to-day with that of years ago, how strange and startling is the effect!

A short account of the proceedings in a case of lunacy in the State of Colorado may not be without interest and value to the readers of this Journal, as there has been some agitation in England for the establishment of a similar form of procedure. As each State makes its own laws in the matter, they vary in every State of the American Union. In Colorado the procedure for committing a lunatic consists, briefly, in trial by jury before a judge or what we should call in England a stipendiary magistrate, and precisely resembles the proceedings of a criminal trial in England.

[The following communication was sent for publication by a journalist of experience. The mental aberrations described were preliminary to an attack of acute mania, from which the author happily recovered some three years ago.—Ed.]

Experiences in the mystical borderland of science have generally so little to commend them to the consideration of practical intellects, and are so often narrated in terms calculated to offend common sense, that I have for some years refrained from giving publicity to this account of the strange impressions on the visual sense which marked a period of some months of physical weakness and nervous tension. and if I now write of these visions it is in the hope that a faithful narrative of the circumstances may lead to sounder views than are now obtaining, and being widely promulgated by certain would-be leaders of thought who, in the Press and on the platform, are confounding this age of materialism by reviving teaching which would disgrace a heathen priesthood, and which outrages our fondest hopes and beliefs.

From time to time it is confidently asserted in the public Press that not only is insanity rapidly on the increase in English prisons, but that the present system of administration is largely responsible for this state of affairs. Such statements appear to be circulated without a real knowledge of the facts, and they tend to unsettle and mislead the public mind. With the object of showing that imprisonment, as at present conducted, has not the deteriorating effect on the nervous system that it is alleged to have, the following tables, founded on an examination of Table E, Commissioners of Local Prisons, Report, England, 1895, have been prepared. Before entering into statistical details it may not be out of place to state that increased interest has recently been displayed in things pertaining to criminality and to the physical, moral, and intellectual characteristics of the criminal. There can be no doubt that the somewhat extravagant views held by a section of continental criminologists have met with a ready acceptance in certain quarters in this country. Attempts have been made to prove that the stigmata, physical and psychical, said to have been observed amongst Italian criminals, are also present in English felons. These stigmata are to be found in varying and uncertain proportion amongst a part of the population of our prisons, but not, in my opinion, to such an extent as to warrant the assumption that there exists a special criminal type or a distinct criminal neurosis. Receding foreheads, square chins, large ears, and tattoo marks are but poor data on which to base a pathological criminology, but safer ground is reached in the presence of contorted and narrow palates, of heart disease, and tubercular affections, of the after-effects of syphilis and intemperance, all of which are to be frequently met with amongst criminals.

By using the expression pseudo-general paralysis I am quite aware that I lay myself open to criticism. It may be said that the term is not only useless, but even misleading. Some will say the diseases under question are either instances of general paralysis, or, if not of general paralysis, they are other forms of disease and ought to be named accordingly. In anticipation of such an objection I venture to remark that the term general paralysis, as at present used, tends to cover many cases which are not truly general paralyses, but rather cases of insanity associated with a form of paralysis which strictly speaking is only partial. Or, to put the matter conversely, are we not too apt to include under the term general paralysis cases which are really cases of special paralyses associated with insanity?

Public opinion will have it that this is a neurotic age, and that insanity is increasing year by year. The facts which have called forth this opinion, and appear to confirm it, are not by any means flattering to our civilisation or to the resistive power of latter-day humanity. The multiplication of asylums, and the numerical increase of the insane written large on the statistical returns of every civilised country during the past decade, apparently admit of no dubiety in regard to this question. It is necessary, therefore, that we should scan these facts more closely, and thus endeavour to ascertain if the increase of lunacy is real or assumed.