In old times, when kings occasionally wanted to know the real opinion of their people, they asked their fool, and it has become a proverb that “fools tell the truth while laughing.” But the court jester is not always an agreeable man, and it is also said that before he teaches you the maxim he “will annoy and pester.” Thus we may suppose that these were of different kinds.

In my endeavour to provide a suitable obituary notice of Dr. Henry Maudsley, I shall make frequent use of his own words. and thus I begin with an extract from his obituary of his father-in-law, Dr. Conolly: “The history of the man is his character. When a man dies who has occupied a conspicuous place in the world's eye, there is a great noise of lamentation heard. At the moment it seems as if nothing ever could compensate for the mighty bereavement. But Nature's serene features, fixed in their majestic and unchanging calm, reveal no sympathy with the sorrows of her children. The individual loss is her gain, death is the new condition of life, and the funeral dirge the song of joy for the new Conception.”

Darwin, after a most comprehensive and searching investigation of the phenomena of life and variation, came to the conclusion that “man is the co-descendant with the other mammals of a common progenitor,” and still “bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.” With the immense and varied ancestry man has had, and the infinitude of his connections with the rest of the animal world, “atavism,” i.e., inheritance of characteristics from remote, not from the more immediate ancestors, is a very interesting subject of study. The presence of supernumerary nipples in man may be cited as an example of atavism. This abnormality has been noticed by me in four patients during five years' observations in the hospitals in this country. In some parts of Central and Eastern Europe a very high percentage of men is said to possess this abnormality. This characteristic is absent in apes, baboons, and monkeys, who are men's immediate successors, but is found in lemurs, an order of mammals lower in order. The rare occurrence of multiple births in women is a characteristic which is reversion, or atavistic towards the condition normal in lower vertebrates.

This communication is a continuation of our experimental work on the action of bacterial poisons upon the nervous system.

In 1914 (2), after several series of experiments, we drew attention to the differences between lymphogenous and haematogenous infection. The first was induced by infecting the ascending lymph stream of nerves ; the second by placing celloidin capsules containing a culture of bacteria in the abdominal cavity.

In a recent number of the Journal of Mental Science, Sir Bryan Donkin contributes some important and interesting “Notes on Mental Defects in Criminals.” This is an important contribution, because, with manifest sincerity, it criticises adversely an important modern idea: the idea that Criminological Science, that all Social Science, must be built upon facts, and facts only. And, apart from their general interest, these notes are particularly interesting to me, because they refer, more than incidentally, to my book The English Convict, wherein the validity of arguments and conclusions depends entirely upon the study and logic of facts whose value, for elucidating biological problems, Sir Bryan would appear to discredit. For this reason may I be permitted to say a few words in support of a position which has been formidably assailed?

During the first twelve months of the admission of patients to the mental wards of the Lord Derby War Hospital there were 2,429 admissions and 1,466 discharges. The average number of admissions per month was 202, and the average number of discharges per month was 122. To those who have devoted their time to the admission and discharge of mental cases in large asylums in peace time these numbers alone will convince them that the condition of things must be very different to what they have been accustomed. The enormous amount of work in investigating these cases will also, I am sure, be appreciated, and those who, in addition, have any knowledge of Army Forms and the preparation of these before the final discharge of a patient from hospital will realise the amount of routine necessary before these 1,466 patients could be discharged.

The term temperament is used in this paper to denote the sum total of inherent emotional potentialities and kinetic tendencies peculiar to the individual. A person's tendencies to action and reaction, his outlook upon life, and his liability to mental and nervous disorder, are in a large measure determined by the temperament with which he is born. Character, in the usual sense of the term, and personality, at any given time, are the resultant of temperament and environment in its widest sense, past and present, and previous reactions thereto, and are varying quantities. Temperament, although susceptible of modification by external influences, cannot be changed fundamentally in type.

I propose to deal with this subject in the light of present-day experience and knowledge, reflecting, to begin with, the medical opinion of to-day and afterwards that of the general public, and I propose to divide my theme into two sections: Firstly, the evident meaning attached to my title, viz., the different forms of mental abnormality resulting from excessive drinking in the individual, and secondly, the different mental states exhibited, or the different points of view adopted by the community responsible for the methods of its sale and use, and, as a consequence, for the maintenance of public order. In dealing with the latter section I shall pass in review the different legal measures that have been adopted to control its sale and the various steps that have been taken to safeguard the health of the people in connection with it.

The actions of the ductless glands are very complex, and become greatly complicated when one of them is either under or over acting, because of its stimulating or inhibitory effect upon some other endocrine organ. To help in the difficulty of understanding their action, as an aid in diagnosing abnormalities in their secretion and in administering extracts of these glands, we drew up the following tables. So as to do no injustice to the authors upon whose works we have taken the liberty to base these tables, we should like to repeat that in many cases, the author to whom we attribute a statement, is himself frequently quoting someone else, and often does not support the view we have credited to him. It is only by reference to the original work that the author's meaning can be appreciated. Accepting as probably correct Gower's theory, that epilepsy is due to some chemical affecting the nerve-cells (1), and considering the great influence the endocrine glands have on chemical changes of the body, we have endeavoured to study these glands in their relation to epilepsy, and to discover if there is any evidence of their abnormal action in this disease.

Many years ago Mr. H. G. Wells entered the “den of lions” and addressed the “Mind Association,” which embraces the most distinguished experts in metaphysics, on “Philosophy.” He was well received, however, and doubtless the expert mind was refreshed by the pres entation of the philosophy of the “plain man,” as expounded by the talented writer. Much more daring and bold is the present writer, who makes no claim to be a specialist in any direction, and does not possess expert learning except, perhaps, in metaphysics, in thus writing on so difficult and technical a subject as sanity for those who have made psychotherapeutics their life study. The object of this paper may, at once, be stated to be to express the profoundest admiration and appreciation of the methods of mental specialists, whose principles are in the estimation of the writer so eminently sound as viewed from the standpoint of both philosophy and religion.

Many varieties of functional disturbance are found in men enlisted for the present war, and not the least interesting is mutism. In a hospital set apart for the treatment of nervous disorders many cases of complete loss of speech are met with, and these may be divided conveniently into three main categories as follows: Mutism arising in the field, in hospital, and previous to participation in active service.

In June, 1916, a portion of the Lord Derby War Hospital was set aside for the care and treatment of cases of mental disorder occurring in non-commissioned officers and men of the British Expeditionary Forces. In addition, it was found that at the home training camps, and in soldiers doing garrison duty in India, Gibraltar, Sierra Leone, and so on, numerous cases of mental disorder were from time to time arising. As it was obviously impossible for general hospitals adequately to care for such cases, the Lord Derby War Hospital, pending their final disposal, was called upon to receive a certain number of them. Other arrangements have now been made for more expeditiously dealing with these cases, and in consequence none such are now received in this hospital.

Human perfectibility, or even entire social amelioration, appear with the passage of time to recede into a yet further distance; and, whilst forming subject-matter for academic discussion and for visionary imagination, they hardly come within the range of practical politics. With them, as with disquisitions about the hereafter, there has been a tendency to allow “other worldliness” to obscure the necessity for doing our duty here and now, and letting the distant future take care of itself. To those who object that this view is a sordid, or at least a selfish one, it may be answered that if we observe the Golden Rule—if even we practise but a negative virtue by refraining from doing evil—we shall yet make for the desired goal, possibly as rapidly as those who, their eyes fixed on that distant point, fail to observe the obstacles which lie immediately in their path, and who have, again and again, to arise bruised and disheartened by their stumbles and disappointments. It may indeed be that their aims are but illusions, mere figments of the fancy, impossible of realisation. “Uniform and universal knowledge, social salvation and sovereign goodness, a golden age to come excelling a past golden age, a Paradise regained in lieu of a Paradise lost, in fact, a kingdom of heaven on earth or elsewhere, are not yet matters with which the sober-minded scientist can grapple;” and nescience can only formulate them in phraseology which lacks verisimilitude even to those who utter it. It is doubtful whether the projectors of ideal commonwealths would have desired to have been themselves inhabitants thereof; even if they had had the will it is certain that they would not have had the ability to carry it into effect. Much of their work is perchance energy misdirected, and the words of Milton may be applicable to others as well as to him of whom he uttered them. “Plato, a man of high authority indeed, but least of all for his Commonwealth, in the book of his laws, which no City ever yet received, fed his fancie with making many edicts to his ayrie Burgomasters, which they who otherwise admire him wish had been rather buried and excused in the genial cups of an Academick night-sitting.” It is no use, as he further remarks, “to sequester out of the world into Atlantick and Eutopian politics, which never can be drawn into use, and will not mend our condition; but to ordain wisely as in this world of evil.”