In this country, Dr. Clouston has distinctly advanced our knowledge of the action and uses of narcotic remedies by experiments made to determine the effect on maniacal excitement of single doses of certain remedies, stimulants, and food; of, again, the effect on mania of prolonged courses of certain narcotic medicines, along with clinical observations on the effects of the same medicines in all kinds of insanity, and has determined the equivalent value of opium, bromide of potassium, and cannabis indica in the treatment of insanity.

Dr. Savage has experimented with one drug at a time on a number of patients, and has already given to the profession some valuable results in "Guy's Hospital Reports," and the Journal of Mental Science. "The West Riding Asylum Medical Reports" of Dr. Crichton Browne also contain some important experiments with drugs by himself and others; and in this connection I would notice the excellent clinical notes issued from time to time by Dr. Williams and other officers of the Haywards Heath Asylum, which are well worthy of more permanent record in the archives of the Association. I cannot, indeed, understand any one seriously maintaining that we are practically no better off in our medicinal resources now than we were forty years ago.

Whatever differences of opinion may exist in regard to the advantages gained by the introduction of new drugs, one thing is clear, that the employment and, let me add, the repose of patients, well-ordered arrangements, and the tact of the superintendent will oftentimes do more to reduce the amount of excitement and noise in an asylum than tons of chloral and bromide. For example, any one who has visited Hanwell knows that Dr. Rayner anticipates and prevents post-epileptic mania to a very large extent by the simple expedient of keeping patients in bed after their fits, just as he finds forced alimentation of patients rarely necessary when rest is resorted to. It is striking to see how, even in an over-grown asylum and an old building, the results of good management and treatment can be highly satisfactory, and worthy of an institution of such historic fame.

But, after all, the question faces us, are there or are there not more insane persons cured in 1881 than in 1841?

One's first impulse, of course, is to take the statistics of recovery for a certain number of the more recent, and compare them with those of the earlier years, or to take the recoveries of the past forty and place them side by side with those of the previous forty years. The attempt, however, is fraught with so many fallacies that it is dangerous to make such a comparison. In a report of Bethlem Hospital, issued in 1841, Sir Alexander Morison stated—not as anything exceptional—that seventy per cent. of the patients had been discharged cured; while an examination of the recoveries at this hospital for the last ten years shows a much smaller proportion per cent. But I cannot accept these comparisons as proving anything one way or the other, as various causes, quite apart from the comparative success of treatment at different periods, may explain the difference. Take a single asylum, like Hanwell, and compare the recoveries of a later with an earlier period. I find a population so fluctuating in character, in regard to curability, that the comparison becomes utterly worthless, and although it is true that during the last quinquennium 28.1 per cent. have recovered, as against 26.3 per cent. during the first quinquennium of the past forty years, in spite of there having been more incurables received during the later period, the result is not so satisfactory when we divide into certain periods the whole time during which Hanwell has been open (omitting the first four years). It then appears that during two previous periods the recoveries were higher than 28.1 per cent., viz. from 1840 to 1849 and from 1865 to 1874. Thus:—

1835-39 (inclusive)25.3
1840-4928.5
1850-5425.2
1855-6427.9
1865-7430.4
1875-7926.3

Or in quinquennial periods throughout:—

1835-39 (inclusive)24.8
1840-4426.3
1845-4932.1
1850-5425.2
1855-5930.7
1860-6427.0
1865-6930.4
1870-7430.5
1875-7926.3

If to escape the fallacies connected with the comparison of different periods of the same asylum, we go to the Lunacy Blue Books, we do not get any reliable figures before 1870, on account of transfers having been previously included in the admissions, so that a fair comparison of recent and former recoveries worked on the admissions is impossible.