Among the most miserable asylums for the insane, the asylums for boroughs were until lately conspicuous. Inconvenient buildings, unfavorably situated, and regarded as only inferior appendages to hospitals for the sick, were assigned to the insane poor both of boroughs and some of our largest towns, and presented examples of every evil that could be accumulated on mental affliction. In some instances, as at Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester, new asylums have now been erected, better situated, superintended by medical men devoting their whole time to them, and ranking among the most improved asylums in the country. A few of the old examples, however, yet remain.

A. T., a male patient, æt. 32, ‘unmarried, and by occupation a labourer, deaf and dumb, was admitted into the Colney Hatch Asylum on the 7th of January, 1853; having been subject to epilepsy from childhood, the convulsive paroxysms, of late years, having been succeeded by tendency to dangerous violence. He was of medium stature, of robust make, the osseous and muscular systems, as is generally the case with epileptics, well developed; the neck short and chest broad.

In a recent review of the answers of the medical officers of asylums, published in the Eighth Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy, it is objected that “many of the gentlemen who have forwarded replies to the Commissioners, and who have expressed an unqualified opinion in favor of non-restraint are men of but limited experience, having but for a short time been practically engaged in the treatment of the insane Again, a few of the medical men who answered the circular of the Commissioners, are in the habit of admitting into these houses a limited number of ‘nervous invalids,’ a quiet class of patients, not at all likely to require the application of mechanical restraint in their treatment. The evidence of these gentlemen is not, therefore, of much value quoad the question at issue.'’

At the Baiter sessions of the year 1846, fifteen justices of this county were appointed a committee, to superintend the erecting or providing of an asylum for the pauper lunatics, in terms of the Act 8th and 9th Victoria, Cap. 126. And at a meeting held on the 80th of August, 1847, the committee directed their clerk to advertise for a site for the asylum, according to the rules of the Commissioners in Lunacy. They finally selected the ground on which the asylum has been erected—eighty-six acres of the Brentwood Hall estate, the same having been purchased for the sum of £8000. After obtaining the sanction of the Court of Quarter Sessions, the committee proceeded to take farther steps in the execution of their commission, and at a meeting held on the 25th October, 1848, they resolved to select a certain number of architects, not exceeding ten, who should be invited to send in plans for the asylum, and that the sum of £100 should be awarded to the second best plan, and £50 to the third best. The committee having availed themselves of the advice and assistance of the county surveyor, and also of a medical gentleman connected with asylums, and having taken their opinion on the comparative merits of the respective plans, resolved on accepting the plan of Mr. H. E. Kendall, Junr., of 83 Brunswick: Square, London, as the best offered to them; which, after having been altered and amended to the satisfaction of the Commissioners, was submitted to the January session, 1850, for the approbation of the Court.

The Commissioners in Lunacy have done great service to the public by drawing up their Eighth Report to the Lord Chancellor, and especially by publishing the answers received to their circular enquiring particularly into the employment or disuse of instrumental restraint or seclusion.

Gentlemen,—On Tuesday last, the Committee of Visitors at their meeting, at which four only were present, called upon me to resign my appointment, in consequence of conclusions which they had formed in reference to my conduct; I haying laid before them circumstances in which I considered that my direction^ as to the treatment of patients, had been disobeyed, and myself grossly insulted.

“Ce qui est malade chex l' aliéné, ce n' est en règle générale, ni le corps seulement, ni seulement l' áme ou P esprit ou la raison humaine; mais c' est l' homms pris dans tout l' ensemble admirable mais compliqué, de ses facultés physiques, intellectuelles et morales; C' est l' homme entier, prie comme individu.”–Dr. H. Van Leuween, Rapport sur la Fondation, &c.

In following the order that we have fixed upon, we most begin with general pathology, which as you see in the above diagram, is divided into three groups of lesions. 1st, Partial 2nd, General 3rd, Those primitively partial which tend to become general.