Gentlemen,—I have to congratulate you on again forming an independent Section of Psychiatry, and that the term “Neurology” is allied with it. In the second Congress in Melbourne there was a Section of Psychology under the presidency of the late Dr. Manning, but in the succeeding Congresses our subject has been merged with that of State Medicine. I trust that you will be able to demonstrate that the placing of it on an independent footing is justified both in the number of papers and in the quality of the work undertaken. The programme before us, fortunately, promises well, thanks in the main to our energetic secretary, and I trust that it will afford us opportunities for instruction and interest.

The object of this paper is an endeavour to suggest for the consideration of the medical profession certain aspects of their legal duties and responsibilities in matters of lunacy.

This afternoon we have a wide field to traverse, and it is necessary, therefore, to select certain notable features for discussion, to omit much that might be said. I pray you excuse me if this discourse proves somewhat curt and dogmatic in dealing with the placement of the insane and the present position of psychiatry. Both are really in a state of flux, and we can only arrive at conclusions as provisional findings, to the best of our knowledge and belief, still requiring investigation and confirmation. That, of course, applies to the whole range of medicine as a science and as an art.

As mentioned in the careful summary by Dr. Wilcox in this Journal, October, 1908, p. 761, Drs. Clarke and Atwood remark that “not a few English writers fail to diagnosticate general paralysis in the absence of euphoria during some stage of the disease, a view we believe to be largely due to Mickle's teaching two decades ago” (Journal of Mental and Nervous Diseases, September, 1907).

The following observations are made on the menstrual history for ten years, from 1897–1907, of all newly admitted and transferred patients, in whom the catamenia were present, in the Holloway Sanatorium Hospital for the Insane. The patients were all drawn from the upper and middle classes, and their ages varied from seventeen to fifty-five years.

While acting as Assistant Medical Officer in the London County Asylum at Horton, Epsom (1907–1908), I made an investigation into the head measurements of the various classes of male lunatics, contrasting these with their bodily height and weight.

The recent Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble Minded was occupied with two main subjects of inquiry. First, the existing methods of dealing with idiots and epileptics, and with imbecile, feeble-minded or defective persons not certified under the Lunacy Laws. Second, the constitution, jurisdiction and working of the Commission in Lunacy, and other Lunacy Authorities. The Commissioners were requested also to report on any amendment of the law which should appear desirable in relation to these subjects.