Within the last two years no less than three Parliamentary Reports, dealing with the problems presented by the familiar phenomena of inebriety and recidivism, have been published, and a measure designed, and, to a large extent, calculated to carry the main recommendations embodied in these documents into effect, has been read a second time in the House of Lords, under the pilotage of the then head of English legal administration. These facts show that public opinion has at length been thoroughly aroused as to the necessity for fresh legislation on the subject of habitual drunkenness and crime, and render any preliminary historical sketch of the growth of the movement, which is apparently at last on the eve of attaining its objects, superfluous. If there is any member of the medical or legal profession who is still in ignorance of the process by which the problems in question have been brought to the stage of perfect ripeness for legislative solution, he may be referred with confidence to an admirable summary of the Parliamentary history of legislation affecting inebriates by Mr. Legge, the Secretary to the Inebriates Committee, 1891, which forms the 6th appendix to the minutes of evidence taken by that body, and is reproduced, with some additions and alterations, as Appendix M in the evidence taken by the Scottish Committee of 1894, and to the three Parliamentary Reports which have suggested the present review (see note, sup.).

I do not wish to enter into any dissertation on the question of mechanical restraint, as such, or to conduct the discussion in to an academic debate on the ethics of mechanical restraint. I want to take a more limited view. I want this discussion really to be, if possible, an interchange of views as to the best way of treating and managing certain difficult and exceptional cases which crop up every now and then. I propose to give you the benefit of my experience in dealing with some exceptionally difficult cases, in which I have found a modified use of mechanical restraint beneficial to the patient.