In my endeavour to provide a suitable obituary notice of Dr. Henry Maudsley, I shall make frequent use of his own words. and thus I begin with an extract from his obituary of his father-in-law, Dr. Conolly: “The history of the man is his character. When a man dies who has occupied a conspicuous place in the world's eye, there is a great noise of lamentation heard. At the moment it seems as if nothing ever could compensate for the mighty bereavement. But Nature's serene features, fixed in their majestic and unchanging calm, reveal no sympathy with the sorrows of her children. The individual loss is her gain, death is the new condition of life, and the funeral dirge the song of joy for the new Conception.”

In a recent number of the Journal of Mental Science, Sir Bryan Donkin contributes some important and interesting “Notes on Mental Defects in Criminals.” This is an important contribution, because, with manifest sincerity, it criticises adversely an important modern idea: the idea that Criminological Science, that all Social Science, must be built upon facts, and facts only. And, apart from their general interest, these notes are particularly interesting to me, because they refer, more than incidentally, to my book The English Convict, wherein the validity of arguments and conclusions depends entirely upon the study and logic of facts whose value, for elucidating biological problems, Sir Bryan would appear to discredit. For this reason may I be permitted to say a few words in support of a position which has been formidably assailed?

I propose to deal with this subject in the light of present-day experience and knowledge, reflecting, to begin with, the medical opinion of to-day and afterwards that of the general public, and I propose to divide my theme into two sections: Firstly, the evident meaning attached to my title, viz., the different forms of mental abnormality resulting from excessive drinking in the individual, and secondly, the different mental states exhibited, or the different points of view adopted by the community responsible for the methods of its sale and use, and, as a consequence, for the maintenance of public order. In dealing with the latter section I shall pass in review the different legal measures that have been adopted to control its sale and the various steps that have been taken to safeguard the health of the people in connection with it.

In June, 1916, a portion of the Lord Derby War Hospital was set aside for the care and treatment of cases of mental disorder occurring in non-commissioned officers and men of the British Expeditionary Forces. In addition, it was found that at the home training camps, and in soldiers doing garrison duty in India, Gibraltar, Sierra Leone, and so on, numerous cases of mental disorder were from time to time arising. As it was obviously impossible for general hospitals adequately to care for such cases, the Lord Derby War Hospital, pending their final disposal, was called upon to receive a certain number of them. Other arrangements have now been made for more expeditiously dealing with these cases, and in consequence none such are now received in this hospital.

Human perfectibility, or even entire social amelioration, appear with the passage of time to recede into a yet further distance; and, whilst forming subject-matter for academic discussion and for visionary imagination, they hardly come within the range of practical politics. With them, as with disquisitions about the hereafter, there has been a tendency to allow “other worldliness” to obscure the necessity for doing our duty here and now, and letting the distant future take care of itself. To those who object that this view is a sordid, or at least a selfish one, it may be answered that if we observe the Golden Rule—if even we practise but a negative virtue by refraining from doing evil—we shall yet make for the desired goal, possibly as rapidly as those who, their eyes fixed on that distant point, fail to observe the obstacles which lie immediately in their path, and who have, again and again, to arise bruised and disheartened by their stumbles and disappointments. It may indeed be that their aims are but illusions, mere figments of the fancy, impossible of realisation. “Uniform and universal knowledge, social salvation and sovereign goodness, a golden age to come excelling a past golden age, a Paradise regained in lieu of a Paradise lost, in fact, a kingdom of heaven on earth or elsewhere, are not yet matters with which the sober-minded scientist can grapple;” and nescience can only formulate them in phraseology which lacks verisimilitude even to those who utter it. It is doubtful whether the projectors of ideal commonwealths would have desired to have been themselves inhabitants thereof; even if they had had the will it is certain that they would not have had the ability to carry it into effect. Much of their work is perchance energy misdirected, and the words of Milton may be applicable to others as well as to him of whom he uttered them. “Plato, a man of high authority indeed, but least of all for his Commonwealth, in the book of his laws, which no City ever yet received, fed his fancie with making many edicts to his ayrie Burgomasters, which they who otherwise admire him wish had been rather buried and excused in the genial cups of an Academick night-sitting.” It is no use, as he further remarks, “to sequester out of the world into Atlantick and Eutopian politics, which never can be drawn into use, and will not mend our condition; but to ordain wisely as in this world of evil.”

The question of how best to secure early treatment for sufferers from mental derangement has long engaged the attention of the medical profession. It will not therefore, we premise, be out of place to scrutinise some of the more recent pronouncements on this subject. and we could not probably find a more appropriate text for discussion in this connection than the little volume on Shell-Shock by Profs. Elliot-Smith and Pear, a second edition of which has lately appeared, the first having been rapidly exhausted. We welcome this fact as showing that more or less general interest in this most vital and important subject is being aroused, and we hope the demand will continue, although, as will be seen, we have perused its contents with somewhat mingled feelings, especially when taken in connection with an address delivered, since the publication of the book, by Prof. Elliot-Smith at the Royal Institution for Public Health.