The command laid upon mankind to increase and multiply on earth has been gladly obeyed and abundantly fulfilled. In parts thereof the multiplication has sometimes gone beyond the means of subsistence, and the unoccupied parts suitable for human habitation become scarcer, though there are yet vast areas of undeveloped land in the South American Continent. Nevertheless the race continues to multiply without regard to the possible risk that it may one day outgrow its means of subsistence, increase of population and increase of trade being the ideals which it is thought right to pursue in order to maintain and increase the health, wealth, and prosperity of the nation in particular and of the race in general. The more babies that are born and reared in a country, the more bargains that are made in it, the more wants and their gratifications are multiplied, the sounder is its strength and the brighter its future outlook, although it is not unimaginable that fewer children, fewer wants, fewer bargains might sometimes produce more health, more virtue, more progress, more stability. That, however, is an unbecoming suspicion to harbour, for it is unworthy the trust which it behoves a right-thinking mind to put in the providential scheme of the universe and its benevolent workings for human ends. Impotent to comprehend the mystery of things, foolish to expect it, fatuous to bewail his inability to get behind the veil, which would be to get absolutely out of his relative self, man is yet sure that the universe was created and works for his advantage and perfecting, and in that happy faith counts an unlimited procreation in gratification of a natural lust his proper and pleasing duty. The instinct of human nature dictates it, therefore the laws of universal nature were framed to sanctify it.

Gentlemen,—I welcome you to this the first meeting of the first new Section of the Royal Society of Medicine. I have consented to give an inaugural address, somewhat against my feelings, for I believe that as this Section is one starting with the full intention of work for the advance of medical science, time might have been better occupied in learning definite results of original work than in hearing generalities. I have to admit that I have had very long and perhaps exceptional opportunities of observing mental disorders, and it may be of service to record some of my impressions and hopes. I will shortly outline the past, survey the present, and prospect the future.

I feel that some apology is needed from me for venturing to introduce for your consideration a subject which, however important from the standpoint of the national health, bears but little relation to the deeper scientific problems usually discussed at the meetings of this Association. I can only urge in excuse for my temerity the desirability of calling attention to the changes recently introduced in the registration of deaths with the object of obtaining greater uniformity in tabulation and consequently greater accuracy in vital statistics. The matter concerns every registered medical practitioner, whose statutory duty it is to furnish the information on which the Registrar-General builds up his instructive tables, and all must appreciate the endeavour to secure the object referred to. In asylums for the insane, where the death-rate is relatively very high, there is ample opportunity for supplying precise information, especially as in three out of four cases the cause of death is verified by post-mortem examination, thereby enhancing the reliability of the returns.

In the United States of America each state has self-government and different laws, and the latter differ to an even greater extent than is the case between the laws of Scotland and England; consequently some states have progressed infinitely further than others in the laws and the application of these laws for the social welfare of the people.

The conception of puerperal insanity and of the mental diseases accompanying childbirth and lactation has undergone a considerable change during recent years.

The association of general paralysis with syphilis has probably been discussed with more frequency during the past two decades than any other subject relating to insanity, and probably the large majority of alienists now consider syphilis a sine quâ non in its causation.

On the evening of May 28th last, whilst making the visit for my colleague at the time of the evening meal, I had my attention drawn to a patient's urine by the deputy charge nurse of the male infirmary. He said it was very high coloured. I looked at the urine, and instead of finding, as I expected, a concentrated urine loaded with urates, I had presented for my inspection a urine of a distinctly reddish-brown colour, very suggestive of the presence of some blood derivative.

In the July number of the journal Drs. Dods Brown and Ross give an account of the various methods which have been used to produce an increase in the number of leucocytes in the blood. These methods are numerous and varied, but they do not include one which was discovered accidentally in the treatment of the case about to be described, nor have I been able to find any reference to a similar case in the literature. Various drugs such as nucleic acid, ceredin and argentum colloidale have proved efficacious, and Dr. Lewis Bruce has stimulated the leucocytes by the injection of such an irritant as turpentine. In the present case, however, the simple intra-venous injection of normal saline solution, containing no drug whatever, was found to produce a marked leucocytosis, which in one instance reached the high figure of 28,000. For permission to publish the notes of this case I am much indebted to the kindness of Dr. T. C. Mackenzie.

P. G—, æt. 40, admitted January 9th, 1912, on a charge of assault; had been a sailor for many years, during which period he contracted the morphia habit. Since 1884 he had been taking the drug, gradually arriving at the stage previous to admission, when he was taking 15 gr. a day. The largest dose he ever took was 15 gr., followed in an hour by 10 gr.