Round about thirty-five years ago, when I was first introduced to the affairs of our Association by two of my chiefs, A. W. Daniel, who was secretary of our Education Committee, and John R. Lord, who officially or unofficially filled almost every other available office—at this time I became aware that there were two categories of President; those elected because of their professional eminence, and those who were rewarded for their services to the Association—and of course there were many who qualified under both headings. Now, in spite of Dr. MacNiven's generous words, I feel that my own election has come about entirely through the kindness and indulgence of our members. It is recorded in divers places in our annals that a warm welcome is traditionally extended to newly-joined members, and I can testify that I have throughout experienced this kindness at your hands irrespective of the rank I happened to occupy or of my success or lack of success in the promotion race. For this experience, of which today marks the culmination, I am truly grateful; and I can confidently claim that in loyalty and affection towards the Association, though in no other respect, I can stand comparison with the greatest of my predecessors.

The Presidency of this Association carries with it an opportunity for service commensurate with the challenge of the time, and I am grateful that you should think me worthy of this high honour and fit for such responsibility at a crucial phase in the development of psychiatry. Events will show whether you have been wise in your choice, but however that may be you can be sure of my utmost effort on behalf of the Association.

The 120th year of our Association's existence is nearing its end and we are approaching the actual 120th anniversary of its foundation. Through the kindness of the Management Committee we are able to meet at its birthplace, Gloucester, and to visit the hospital where it was conceived and brought into existence. At that time known as the Gloucestershire General Lunatic Asylum, and now as Horton Road Hospital, it is one of the oldest buildings continuously in use for the care of the mentally ill.

Permit me to begin by saying how pleased and proud I am to have received the invitation to deliver this year's Maudsley lecture. This is, I think, one of the highest honours that our psychiatric confraternity can confer on any of its members, and is something that the recipient will treasure as an enduring reward.

I am going to give sketches of the lives of three notable nineteenth-century psychiatrists who were associated with and lived in my own county of Warwickshire.

The diagram, which has no relation to brain structure, represents the way in which, in terms of function, mood is regulated by a mechanism which is disordered in cases of pathological elation and depression. It illustrates the points in the regulation mechanism at which physical treatment with different agents can be applied. This theoretical model reconciles the following observations:

The following are summaries of work carried out at Powick Hospital, Worcester, as a project approved by the Medical Research Committee of the Birmingham Regional Hospital Board, which also gave financial assistance.

This thesis gives an account of the use of cortisone and adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) in the treatment of prolonged comas occurring in the course of deep insulin coma treatment. Cases in which neither hormone was used are also included. The pathology and aetiology of this type of prolonged coma are discussed and a classification of the cases seen is made.

The descriptive study reported here has three main objects: to describe in detail the natural history of a group of obsessional patients; to compare the findings in this group with those in comparable groups of hysterics and anxiety neurotics; and to find in what ways a sample composed of in-patients of a mental hospital differs from other groups of obsessional patients previously described.

The present paper is based on the study of the drinking habits of British seamen interviewed during a recent journey.

Kraepelin's diagnostic classification of the endogenous psychoses received world-wide acceptance, but today it is generally considered to have failed and is at times rejected by some workers with a few scornful words. This is not due to Kraepelin's own work but is the result of the way in which his successors have used his concepts. Kraepelin himself was not satisfied with the rough division of the endogenous psychoses into the two forms of manic-depressive insanity and schizophrenia, or as he termed it, dementia praecox. He, in fact, never ceased trying to isolate more disease entities. Thus, for example, he differentiated a large number of special forms of schizophrenia. Although he defined the two major groups of endogenous psychoses, this did not mean that he limited the number of diagnostic categories. On the contrary, he investigated all special forms of mental illness very carefully. If he saw a clinical picture which was unknown to him he would say, “So far I do not know this clinical picture, we should describe it adequately, perhaps other cases will occur as well, which will allow the isolation of a characteristic clinical picture.”