We have before us several papers and documents referring to this well-known hospital for the insane. Those who have paid the attention they deserve to the annual reports of the Commissioners in Lunacy will remember that, year by year, the site, the building, the internal arrangements, and the management of this institution, have been therein the subjects of censure and of earnest remonstrance, which the governors of the institution appear to have borne with remarkable equanimity, or perhaps more truly, with stolid apathy. In the earlier reports, the Commissioners put their recommendations in the mildest possible form; for instance, in June 1852, they suggest that “perhaps the governors may be disposed to consider favorably the hiring some land, &c.,” but during the past year, in which they visited the hospital twice, the Commissioners speak much more decidedly, “they regret very much to find that their suggestions have not been carried out, it is painful to them to revert so often to the various defects of the institution;” “the temperature of the galleries was much below what is usual in establishments of this nature; in the male wards being as low as 33° on February 29th, 1855; the extreme coldness of the hospital, together with the entire absence of furniture, presented a very bare and cheerless appearance, the means of occupation and amusement appear to be very scanty, &c.” We quote at length the report of the special inspection made by the noble Chairman of the Board, and two of the Visiting Commissioners.

No class of diseases with which man is afflicted are so various in their manifestations as those known under the general term of insanity. No diseases present such an infinite variety of light and shade belonging to their own nature, or to their intermixture with other maladies, or to the influence of temperament, of individual peculiarities of habit, or of social position; and therefore the diagnosis of no other class of diseases taxes nearly so much the ingenuity and the patience of the physician. The Diagnosis of almost all other diseases depends principally upon weighing the evidence afforded by physical signs and symptoms, upon evidence addressed to the senses; but in mental disease, it is for the most part dependent upon evidence which is cognizable by the intellect alone, and upon data which the senses furnish to us only at second hand. The physician is compelled to bring to this investigation, not only a knowledge of those functions which are subservient to the vegetative and animal life of the individual, but also a clear and analytical conception of those which collectively constitute mind. He must not only be a physician, but a metaphysician; not indeed in the almost opprobrious sense of the term, but in that better sense which designates a lover of truth, seeking to ascertain not the essence of mind or any other unattainable abstraction, but the laws of mind which are as regular as any other natural laws, and the knowledge of which offers to philosophy a wholesome and legitimate object of research.

In consequence of the resignation of Dr. Turner a vacancy has recently occurred among the Medical Commissioners of Lunacy. It has been filled up by the appointment of Dr. Wilkes, the able and experienced medical superintendent of the Staffordshire county asylum. The selection of Dr. Wilkes for this honourable and important office is known to have been due to the noble Chairman of the Board, who has for many years been well acquainted with his steady and intelligent devotion to the duties of his position, and with his successful exertions in establishing the Coton Hill Asylum, for the insane of the higher and middle classes. The appointment of Dr. Wilkes is justly gratifying to the class of professional men to whom he belongs, indicating, as it does, the paramount importance attached by the highest authorities to an intimate practical acquaintance with the management of asylums and the treatment of the insane.