PUBLIC COMPLAINTS 
Against Asylums for the Insane, and the 
Commitment of the Insane. 
By JOHN B. CHAPIN, M. D., 
Medical Superintendent, Willard Asylum for the Insane. 
[From the American Journal of Insanity, for July, 1883.] PUBLIC COMPLAINTS AGAINST ASYLUMS 
FOR THE INSANE, AND THE COM- 
MITMENT OF THE INSANE* 
BY JOHN B. CHAPIN, M. D., 
Medical Superintendent, Willard Asylum for the Insane. 
So frequent, causeless, undeserved and unexpected, 
have been the attacks upon the asylums for the insane, 
and those connected with them, that it has, probably, 
been the personal experience of some here present to 
enjoy a momentary sensation of relief after gleaning the 
morning papers to find they have not been publicly 
charged with the commission of some grave offenses; 
or, during a session of the legislature that no inimical 
measure has been proposed. It is a common occurrence 
that managers of sensational newspapers, pandering to 
a morbid appetite for wretched personalities, admit to 
their columns without hesitation the most improbable 
statements of persons who have been inmates of 
asylums for insane. The usual assumption is that 
these persons were sane and illegally confined on the 
allegation they were insane, and that a gross outrage 
has been committed involving the personal liberty of 
the citizen. Writs of habeas corpus have been issued 
on the petition and representations of discharged 
patients, and judges disregarding evidence presented in 
open court constituted themselves experts, and promptly 
discharged persons brought before them. Discharged 
patients and employes, persons with real or supposed 
grievances, or disaffected from various causes have been 
ready to join together or act singly to bring about 
* Read at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Superintendents of 
American Institutions for the Insane, held at Newport, R. I., June 26, 1883. 2 
legislative investigations of asylums. Testimony pre- 
sented before legislative committees has been circulated 
in a garbled form in utter disregard of, or without 
allusion to, statements in rebuttal. Not only have 
newspapers devoted to miscellaneous topics and news 
been active in exciting distrust in the existing asylum 
system, but a portion of the medical press has pre- 
sented its demands for what it calls "asylum reform." 
Societies devoted to special departments of medicine, 
and medicine and law, professional reformers and 
essayists, specialists and clergymen, the majority of 
whom when brought to the bar of the court could 
state nothing bearing on the pending question of their 
own knowledge from observation, or, were unable to 
furnish a suggestion that would lead to the production 
of witnesses, have nevertheless been active in proposing 
changes in the forms of commitment of the insane, and 
in criticising and denouncing the administration of the 
asylums. Lastly, a national society has been formed 
for the protection of the insane and the work of the 
prevention of insanity. 
While all these interests have been engaged in their 
several ways in depreciating and lowering the public 
estimate of the asylums, there is a suspicious paroxys- 
mal or volcanic activity in all these movements which 
shows itself about the time fixed for the assembling of 
the State legislature. So well-timed have been the 
articles in the medical press that the maker of 
prophetic almanacs might safely announce for Decem- 
ber-" About these days look out for editorials in the 
medical journals on asylum reform." 
It is within the recollection of the writer that 
thirteen official inquiries or investigations into the 
management of asylums of different States have been 
prosecuted by legislative authority during the past few 3 
years, though the actual number was probably much 
greater. In the State of New York, where ample 
power is given to a State Board of Charities^ and to a 
State Commissioner in Lunacy to maintain an effective 
inspection and supervision of the asylums, and with 
the machinery of these two distinct bodies in actual 
operation, four legislative investigations have quickly 
succeeded each other. It may also be stated as a part 
of this history that no less than twenty-five insane 
persons have been brought before the courts of the 
same State by writs of habeas corpus during the past 
two years, some of whom have been discharged as sane. 
Contributors to staid magazines and medical quar- 
terlies have found in the assumed mystery that surrounds 
asylum administration a fruitful subject of suspicious 
speculation, and have added the weight of their influ- 
ence to excite the universal distrust which now seems 
to exist. So virulent and persistent have been the as- 
saults of various kinds, and so deep-rooted is the preju- 
dice against what is called the asylum system that 
public confidence is well nigh destroyed. Some of the 
attacks upon the asylums have been admitted to be un- 
reasonable by those making them, but they have pro- 
ceeded to make them on the theory that public senti- 
ment and opinion must be aroused and alarmed in order 
that reform be brought about. No thought is given to 
the effect upon the organization and discipline of a 
public institution by the prosecution of ill-founded 
charges; to the feelings and anxieties of those who are 
compelled to place kindred in asylums; to the dis- 
couragements which public odium may bring upon the 
managers and medical officers of asylums; to the influ- 
ence which calumny may exert in deterring young 
physicians of professional ability and ambition from 
entering upon an honorable and humane wTork; nor to 4 
the restraining and conservative influences of profes- 
sional comity and courtesy which should govern the 
relations of medical men toward their professional 
brethren, who are engaged in a most difficult work sur- 
rounded by embarrassments for the most part beyond 
their control. In this connection it is a noteworthy 
circumstance that the care of the insane in the 
State asylums is a subject of greater solicitude than the 
situation and care of the friendless insane in poor- 
houses who are, according to all official and other 
accounts in the most forlorn, wretched, helpless and piti- 
able condition. The administration of the State asy- 
lums has been the subject of extraordinary criticism, 
while the fact that a system may have an existence with 
the sanction of law under which men may be chained 
in hand-cuffs and shackles in rooms for months; the 
sexes not separated by any building plan; insane per- 
sons kept in seclusion in basement rooms and in con- 
siderable numbers in wards without attendants, or 
proper medical attendance in the acute stages of insanity, 
has nowhere elicited any note or comment from those 
whose suspicious zeal finds an outlet in exciting and 
inflaming the public mind with apprehensions and 
prejudice toward the established institutions of the 
State. 
Of the various official examinations that have been 
incited by some of the various allegations to which 
allusion has been made, it may be stated that no con- 
spiracy on the part of a medical officer of an asylum, 
or an examining physician, has yet been disclosed. No 
sane person has been placed in an asylum for an im- 
proper purpose, or with the knowledge or belief that 
the person was sane.* The State laws regarding the 
* Ample powers of examination of asylums, of hearing and determining 
cases of improper detention are, by law, conferred upon the State Commis- 
sioners in Lunacy of the State of New York. The late Commissioner, 5 
commitment of the insane have been, as a rule, care- 
fully observed. Where mal-administration has been 
shown to have permeated the asylum, it lias resulted 
from ignorance or a vicious system of appointment 
which has existed, or the general deterioration of the 
service following the use of professional positions 
for purposes of party gain or advantage. If abuses 
and ill-treatment of patients have existed, they have 
occurred in violation of the printed and established 
rules and regulations of the asylum, and without the 
knowledge and connivance of the officers, as crimes 
are committed notwithstanding courts, laws, and 
prisons, exist for their prevention and punishment. 
Offenses come from the wickedness of the human heart 
and their prevention is one of the recognized unsolved 
social problems outside of asylums. 
It has been correctly observed that every superintend- 
ent of an asylum reposes among hidden forces of a volcanic 
nature, which may at any moment be moved to great 
activity. He may have discharged his whole duty, as 
he understands it, to the best of his ability, be more 
familiar with the defects of his institution than his 
detractors can hope to become, but, in his hour of trial, 
no good service record of a life time, or careful and 
faithful administration can be relied upon to shield 
him from suspicion and detraction. His tenure of 
office is at best of the most precarious nature, and, 
during its continuance, it has not unfrequently hap- 
pened that a superintendent of an asylum who has 
devoted more or less of the best days of his life in its 
service has suddenly found himself put upon his 
Dr. Ordronaux, after a service of several years stated to the writer that his 
office had been open to the public for the reception of all kinds of com- 
plaints, but, that not a single allegation of the detention of a sane person 
in an asylum had been presented to him ; and, that in his personal examina- 
tion of patients in asylums, no case of improper detention had been 
discovered by him. 6 
defense against merciless and unwarranted attacks 
upon his character and professional reputation, on 
which he may set a higher estimate than he would 
place on his usually limited earthly treasures. It has 
been the privilege and pleasure of various State legis- 
latures to move inquiries and investigations on petitions 
and presentments which any person may offer, and the 
press has assumed to publish as a part of its newspaper 
work, statements made by irresponsible and unreliable 
persons calculated to reflect injuriously, upon asylums 
and medical men connected with them. While the 
various investigations have been exceedingly barren of 
results, the indirect consequences have been of the 
most serious kind to the persons involved, in the par- 
alysis of energy and enthusiasm which has resulted, 
and the sense of injustice, ingratitude, and unjust 
suspicion which has been experienced, which time can 
not wholly eradicate. The friends of the insane who 
are compelled to look to the asylum as a refuge and 
place for medical care for their relatives have been 
filled with anxiety and apprehension. The spirit of 
philanthropy and benevolence which leads men and 
women to devote their best efforts to elevate the 
standard of care of the insane, and to give of their 
means for this purpose has received a severe shock. 
The asylums, instead of being regarded as hospitals 
and asylums for the medical treatment of a disordered 
condition, have come to be regarded as objects of 
suspicion; as convenient places for the " incarceration " 
of persons by designing relatives, and lunatic prisons, 
proper only for the detention of the criminal and 
dangerous insane. The following extract from a com- 
mentary upon a recent legislative investigation of 
charges made against an asylum in the State of Penn- 
sylvania, may have a wider application. "The result 7 
of the writer's observation during this investigation is, 
that if the hallucinations of the inmates of insane 
hospitals are to be received as competent evidence, the 
whole system of treating these unfortunate persons is 
a failure, and the result of such failure, should it 
become an established fact, would be that the old style 
of placing them in small filthy rooms, without ven- 
tilation or light, and where they can see no one except 
an attendant to pass their food through small openings 
in the door, with the accompanying cruelties of chains, 
whips, <fcc., will prevail. If reputable Christian 
physicians, and humane gentlemen who act as managers, 
are to be thus dragged before the public and exposed 
to harsh criticism whenever an uncured lunatic chooses 
to make a statement of cruelties, they will refuse to act, 
and thus the whole system of insane hospitals will 
become a failure, and the horrid receptacles of forty 
years ago must take their place." 
If the various manifestations which have been noticed 
are a correct reflection of public sentiment toward 
the asylums, they may well excite alarm for the future. 
The results certainly threaten to be far-reaching and 
disastrous, and the causes which have been operative to 
produce the present feeling may well engage the ser- 
ious consideration of the members of this body. We 
can not presume to question the right and power of the 
State government which creates the asylums to institute 
official inquiries in its own way, that it may be informed 
of the manner in which the laws for their administra- 
tion are executed. Several of the States have created 
permanent Lunacy Commissions, and Boards of State 
Charities, with ample powers to supervise, examine and 
make reports, and all the public asylums are managed 
by boards of trustees acting'under State authority. 
No proceeding in the management or administration of 8 
these institutions has a greater corrective and conserva- 
tive power than that to examine and report intelligently, 
independently, and fairly, upon their actual condition. 
In the judgment of the writer the asylums will suffer 
more from the omission to exercise the powers thus con- 
ferred, than from their execution in the spirit we have 
indicated. No objection will be interposed to the work 
of these boards which promises first to enlighten the 
public in respect to the actual state and operations of 
the asylums, and, secondly, to impart moral strength 
with which to make advances, as well as to withstand 
assaults from those who seek to pull down but have 
not the power, the ability, or desire to reconstruct. 
As we welcome the discussion of those social problems 
which enlightens and broadens public sentiment, by 
which alone any advances can be sustained, so does that 
liberty of the press, more properly denominated license, 
produce apprehension, paralyze effort, and destroy con- 
fidence. Its great power for good is conceded, but when 
unfortunately it is inspired for sensational purposes and 
exercised without responsibility and in utter disregard 
for the consequences, its utterances and influence are to 
be dreaded. 
The powers and duties of a Lunacy Commission and 
State Boards of Charities ought to be regarded by the 
asylums, and prove to be in fact and in practice, co- 
operative, not antagonistic-to be welcomed rather 
than repelled. These bodies where they exist should 
be the department of governmental supervision to 
which the delicate questions of policy, proper adminis- 
tration and its abuse, may be referred. Here it would 
seem there should be concentrated such wisdom, such a 
disposition to preserve and ingraft what is considered 
established by experience, such a guardianship of the 
best interests of the State in the administration of the 9 
asylums, that the various intricate questions of law and 
policy which arise might be safely intrusted to them 
for solution. The powers and privileges of the legis- 
lature, the courts, and the press, ought to be regarded 
as extraordinary, only to be invoked when the ordinary 
administrative machinery of the State may fail, or prove 
inadequate. 
One cause of popular distrust of the asylum system 
may be attributed in part to dissensions existing in the 
medical prof ession regardincj the letter plans of construc- 
tion, methods of administration or State policy, and the 
unfortunate and ill-advised uses which have been made of 
the differences that have existed. The fact that there is 
a non-agreement must be accepted as conclusive that 
the best methods have not yet been demonstrated. 
That all discussion should cease upon matters pertain- 
ing to the care of the insane because the limit of ad- 
vance was deemed to be attained would be a sad com- 
mentary upon the members of a liberal profession. 
The fact that discussion exists in any field of scientific 
inquiry is an indication of the prevalence of a spirit of 
inquiry and research. No objection can be properly 
offered to legitimate discussion, or impersonal criticism. 
In this manner alone can advances be made and errors 
corrected. While medical societies can not-afford to be 
intolerant of opinions honestly entertained, the mem- 
bers composing it can not defend their action in going 
outside to appeal to tribunals illy-prepared by techni- 
cal training to render judgment. It recently occurred 
that the alumni and the trustees of a college failing to 
agree about some question of internal administration 
one of the parties to the controversy sought an advant- 
age by attempting to procure favoring legislation. In 
another similar controversy-one wholly of internal 
administration and policy-the aggrieved party ap- 10 
pealed through the press to the tribunal of public sen- 
timent. In the discussions which have grown out of 
the modification of the code of medical ethics in the 
State of New York, questions which belong wholly to 
the profession to settle through its legally constituted 
machinery, have been brought into the newspaper forum 
to the scandal and destruction of its usages. Bills have 
engaged the attention of legislators to compel consulta- 
tions between physicians who do not affiliate in their 
practice and convictions, under the pains and penalties 
which attach to the commission of crimes-a propo- 
sition as communistic, by the way, as one to confiscate 
property of another kind to the uses of others. 
Quite analagous, and as mischievous in tendency, has 
been the action of medical and other societies which 
have so far departed from their constituted purposes, as 
to engage in formulating propositions and charges 
against the asylum system for presentation to State 
legislatures. Many of thfe charges have been pressed 
with such vigor as to lead to the opinion that they 
were prompted by personal grievances, or were the 
emanation of the mystery that surrounds all questions 
of medical politics. The zeal with which aggressive 
action has been urged has at times suggested the sus- 
picion whether the promoters have not been more 
actuated by a. desire to bring their organizations to 
popular notice than a real interest in the apparent 
objects they sought to accomplish. Whatever may 
have been the motives which have actuated medical 
societies and prominent physicians to go out of the 
usual way to discuss and accomplish the best methods 
of treatment of the insane, the tendency has been to 
excite distrust and destroy public confidence, as well as 
to bring the parties engaged into questionable prom- 
inence. If movements of this kind are to receive the 11 
approval of the best public sentiment-if every dis- 
affected portion of an organization, profession or calling 
may carry its grievances and opinions to the legislature 
for public ventilation and hearing-the time is not 
distant when divisions in religious bodies, benevolent 
societies, and business corporations will seek the sharp 
advantage which political legislation may grant in 
every controversy which may arise. 
Another source of disquietude to the public and the 
asylums, results from the law, or forms regulating the 
commitment of the insane to the asylums. This associa- 
tion, and the medical profession generally, have adhered 
to, and promulgated, the doctrine that insanity was a 
condition of disease, and the asylums or hospitals were 
specially instituted and established for its treatment by 
physicians. The earlier forms of commitment to the 
asylums were quite analagous to those observed for the 
admission of patients to the general hospitals of the 
present day. A certificate by physicians that a person 
is a proper case for treatment in a general hospital is 
usually required as a step preliminary to admission. 
A certificate signed by a physician (or physicians), that 
a person was insane, and a proper case for treatment in 
an asylum for the insane, was the usual rule of admis- 
sion for many years, and still continues to be the 
practice in several States and in England. By degrees, 
however, the rule has been changed, and stricter 
regulations governing the commitment of the insane 
are now in operation, and a general tendency in the 
direction of still more stringent laws exists. At an 
earlier day the larger proportion of admissions were 
recent cases about which no question as to the neces- 
sity of medical treatment would arise. With increased 
accommodation and a better understanding of insanity 
derived from experience there has been a recognition of 12 
the necessity of the confinement of certain insane persons 
not for medical treatment, but for public safety and 
judicious custodial care. Every asylum has gradually 
come to number in its population patients who are 
dangerous by reason of delusions, or, have indulged in 
outbreaks of passion to an extent to render them un- 
safe to be at large, and a nuisance to their families and 
the community in which they live-men and women 
who have degraded themselves by indulgence in vicious 
practices and narcotics, who find in the asylum a refuge 
and a system of kindly custodial care. They have a 
certain amount of intelligence unimpaired which is 
sharpened by improved habits of living and surround- 
ings. Their impatience of restraint is heightened by 
their inability to realize their actual condition as 
judged by others. They will not concede the justice of 
a system of restraint of personal liberty that takes 
counsel of its apprehensions. They are cunning 
enough to demand of the courts their liberty for the 
reason they have committed no crime, and after its com- 
mission to plead their irresponsibility. These persons 
prove to be as disturbing an element in the asylum as 
in the community in which they have resided. It 
would be the better policy of the asylum administra- 
tion to refuse to receive these cases when recognized, 
and rid itself of their presence until public sentiment 
shall cause their relation to the community to be more 
clearly defined. The complaints of illegal admission 
and detention made by these persons against the 
asylums, their personal opinions of the administration 
and fancied grievances, coupled with the deep-seated 
suspicion instilled in the public mind by the various 
agencies we have alluded to, have proved to be the 
exciting causes of nearly all the legislative investiga- 
tions of recent years. The outcome, however, of the 13 
investigations has been the recommendation, or enact- 
ment, of more stringent laws for the commitment of 
the insane to asylums, or so-called personal liberty 
bills. 
As an illustration of the tendencies of legislation in 
this direction, the following extracts are given from a 
bill which passed the lower branch of the New York 
legislature at its last session without, so far as we 
know, a dissenting voice. Time did not permit con- 
sideration of the measure by the upper house. The 
bill provided that insane persons should be admitted 
to the asylums only on an order of the court after a 
verdict of insanity by a jury; that twenty-four jury- 
men should be summoned, from whom twelve were to 
be selected, to trv the insanitv of the "accused:" that 
a trial of such question be had by the court and jury; 
that five day's notice thereof be given to the "accused 
" and such trial shall be conducted in all respects as a 
trial for a felony" with right to call witnesses, 
challenge jurors and every right accorded to a person 
indicted for a felony; the trial to be conducted by the 
district attorney or by counsel approved by the judge. 
" If the jury shall find the accused to be insane to such 
a degree as to render it unsafe for him to be at large, 
they shall so specify in their verdict; and thereupon a 
record of such conviction shall be made up, * * * 
the detention of any person against his will without 
such record to be a misdemeanor to be punished with 
fine and imprisonment. Persons detained in an asylum 
longer than one year may on demand have a trial by 
jury." Such are some of the provisions of a proposed 
law commended to the favorable action of the legisla- 
ture of one of the larger States, and receiving nearly a 
unanimous vote of one of its legislative branches; a 
bill, which if it became a law, would require annually 14 
at least 3,000 sittings of the courts, the services of 
several thousand lawyers an equal number of times, and 
the summons of no less than 72,000 jurymen, and the 
expense attending the presence of witnesses, in order 
that the unfortunate persons "accused" of insanity 
might he properly "convicted" and the liberties of 
5,000,000 people preserved against the supposed 
designs of less than a dozen peaceably disposed physi- 
cians. 
In two of the cases brought before the courts on 
writs of habeas corpus, the judges acting separately, 
conceded the existence of insanity, but remarked that no 
crime had been committed, and in the opinion of the 
court the lunatics were not dangerous, and took the 
responsibility of discharging them from the asylum. 
Assuming the proposed jury law, and the opinions of 
the two judges to be a fair exposition of the judicial 
sentiment regarding the commitment of the insane, if 
these views should further take the form of legislative 
enactment, the effect upon the interests of the insane 
and the asylums would be disastrous in the extreme. 
The asylums and hospitals would be changed 
from places for the medical treatment of the 
insane to lunatic prisons. Insane persons would 
be committed, or permitted to be detained only 
after commission of criminal acts, or when mani- 
festly insane in the judgment of a jury, but not for 
medical treatment and care. The medical idea is now 
prominent in the administration, but it would be sup- 
planted by some other system than the present one, 
and a class of officials to be known as wardens or 
keepers would take the places of physicians. Friends 
of patients shrinking from the publicity and scandal 
of a public trial, would retain them at home beyond 
the curable stage, or remove them to other States. It 15 
becomes the members of this association, of the medical 
profession, of all interested in one of the most obscure 
social problems, to be fairly warned and aroused by 
the disturbing and demoralizing tendencies of the day, 
before it is too late. It is to be hoped the apprehen- 
sions expressed are not to be realized, that the fears 
incited by the various agencies to which allusion has 
been made have been overrated, and that publicity, 
diffusion of knowledge and candid discussion, will 
exercise the usual corrective power. 
A retrospective comparison will show that great ad- 
vances have been made in asylum administration, equal if 
not greater than in any other department of hospital care. 
Can any one say the limit has been reached ? If intelli- 
gent criticism fairly expressed shall not have the effect 
to quicken self-examination, if we proceed with our 
work, not recognizing that it may still have the im- 
perfections inherent in all human undertakings, 
generous moral support to attain a higher plane of 
excellence need not be expected. It has been the 
history of asylum care of the insane, that improvements 
and the best methods have been the work and 
individual effort of physicians in charge of asylums, 
and have not resulted from the action of boards, 
societies, or legislative enactments, although the latter 
have done, and may do, much to cause their universal 
adoption. While we are willing to concede the asylums 
are not in all respects what we would desire, the hope 
and reliance for any changes for the better, which future 
experience may show to be wise, must be mainly upon 
the physicians now and hereafter engaged in asylum 
service. 
In respect to the delicate question of the commit- 
ment of the insane which has been, and will continue 
to be, a disturbing one to the asylums and the public, 16 
because it is not yet satisfactorily settled, changes 
should be very cautiously and considerately made. 
The principal source of trouble to be anticipated is to 
come from the commitment to the asylums on medical 
certificates alone, or medical certificates approved by 
magistrates or judges, of a class of insane persons sent 
to asylums not for medical treatment but for custodial 
care, some of the peculiarities of which class have been 
alluded to in another part of this article. Until the 
status of this class is more clearly defined it would 
be politic to exclude them from the asylums as far as 
practicable, and to discharge them as soon as it can be 
legally accomplished. We have grave doubts of the 
sufficiency of a commitment signed by physicians, even 
if "approved" by a judge of a court of record. The 
theory on which society proceeds to restrain a member 
of it of his personal liberty is that he has committed a 
crime for which he shall atone or expiate by a loss of his 
personal liberty or other penalty or because he is danger- 
ous to others or to himself. Insanity if established by the 
certificate or evidence of physicians may properly bring 
the individual within the latter category. The medi- 
cal certificate is but a diagnosis and can have no legal 
force even if fortified with the approval of a judge as 
in the New York State proceeding. The proceeding to 
be complete should require, further, an order of a judge or 
magistrate authorizing the admission of the insane per- 
son to an asylum, and such additional legislation where 
necessary, declaring a legally constituted asylum for the 
insane, a proper place of detention for such persons. 
The form of commitment prescribed in Massachusetts 
is quite in accord with views here expressed. On one 
point we are well satisfied that the insane should not 
be committed solely on the certificates of medical men, 
nor by any proceeding which places the whole respons- 17 
ibility of detaining a patient on the medical superin- 
tendent of an asylum when presented for admission. 
In the paper which has been read, it has been the 
purpose to present to the Association some of thecauses 
which are embarrassing the work of its members, and 
impairing public confidence in a very necessary class of 
institutions. Amons; the influences engaged in this 
work may be mentioned, the sensational press; state- 
ments of disaffected employes and unrecovered pa- 
tients, societies and medical men who appeal to the 
newspapers and to laymen to settle questions which are 
professional; and secondly, the unsolved problem of the 
commitment of the insane to asylums. To counteract 
the former there must be co-operation between asylums 
and the managerial and visitorial machinery of the 
State, where such has been established, that the fullest 
details of their actual condition and administration 
be brought within reach of the public. Publicity and 
the general diffusion of knowledge in respect to these, 
as well as publicity of the nature and inspiration 
of all antagonistic influences, will prove the most 
reliable correctives and restore confidence. State 
legislatures might profitably refer certain kinds of 
complaints to such State Boards or Commissions 
as by law are already empowered to examine and 
investigate the State asylums. As to the laws re- 
lating to the commitment of the insane, it must be 
borne in mind the asylum management does not make 
them, although a contrary impression sometimes seems 
to prevail, but is mainly concerned in carefully execu- 
ting those that may be enacted by competent authority. THE 
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INSANITY. 
The American Journal of Insanity is published quarterly, at the 
State Lunatic Asylum, Utica, N. Y. The first number of each volume 
is issued in July. 
Editor, 
JOHN P. GRAY, M. D., LL. D., Medical Superintendent. 
Associate Editors, 
EDWARD N. BRUSH, M. D., j 
G. ALDER BLUMER, M. D., I 
A Assistant .Ph ysicians. 
ELI E. JOSSELYN, M. D., j 5 
CHARLES W. PILGRIM, M. D., J 
THEODORE DEECKE, Special Pathologist. 
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION, 
Five Dollars per Annum, in Advance. 
Exchanges Books for Review, and Business Communications 
may be sent to the Editor, directed as follows: "Journal of 
Insanity, State Lunatic Asylum, Utica, N. Y." 
The Journal now enters upon its fortieth volume. It was es- 
tablished by the late Dr. Brigham, the first Superintendent of the 
New York State Lunatic Asylum, and after his death edited by Dr. T. 
Romeyn Beck, author of "Beck's Medical Jurisprudence;" and since 
1854, by Dr. John P. Gray, and the Medical Staff of the Asylum. It is 
the oldest journal devoted especially to Insanity, its Treatment, Juris- 
prudence, &c., and is particularly valuable to the medical and legal 
professions, and to all interested in the subject of Insanity and Phy- 
chological Science.