As a rule novelists have not been very successful in their delineation of mad people. They usually overdo it; their maniacs are too maniacal, and their melancholics too melancholy. Even when descriptions of milder cases of mental disorder have been attempted, as in those of Miss Flite in Bleak House, or Mr. F's aunt in Little Dorrit, they have not been altogether satisfactory. Neither have the dramatists been more fortunate. One of the first plays that I ever saw on a London stage was a dramatised version of Jane Eyre, and the character of Bertha, the mad woman, as featured by the actress, was a very terrible exhibition. It is only fair to say, however, that in several modern French plays, where a person of unsound mind has been included in the dramatis personæ, the character has been a fairly natural study of the disease.

It may seem out of place, whilst we are face to face with so grim a reality as a war for our very existence, and a war which has so deeply affected the life of every individual in this country as well as within the Empire, that we should be discussing the realms of dream-land; but we may claim that the “Bowmen,” in the early days of the war, laid particular emphasis upon dreams—for to these of our brave warriors, appeared the “Angel of the Mons,” and the “unconscious mind” has been drawn, in literature at any rate, into the tragedies of the war.

It will not be my desire to enter upon a full discussion of internal secretions; still it will be touched upon sufficiently in an attempt to link some disorders of nervous origin with a condition clearly defined by Eppinger and Hess as vagotonia.

I purpose giving first of all a short description of the steps taken in connection with the conversion of this institution into a war hospital, and of the necessary additions to the staff. No structural alterations were required to the buildings, as they were to be used only for mental cases, and the changes therefore required were very slight in comparison to what, for example, took place at Bangour or at other asylums. Most of you will have read the minute and vivid description by the President of our Association, Lieut.-Col. Thomson, when the Norfolk County Asylum was converted into a war hospital for the sick and wounded, but the radical changes described there in the buildings and amongst the staff were quite unnecessary at Dykebar, as it was taken over as a going concern. Consequently we were able to admit soldier patients almost at once when the others had been removed. It happened by good luck that the new nurses' home had just been completed, otherwise it would have been impossible to have accommodated all the female staff. With the exception of four orderlies who are billeted with the married orderlies, and tradesmen, all the others are housed in the institution. The daily routine in the institution is much the same as you are all accustomed to, except that there is here a certain liveliness, as the majority of the patients are young, strong, active men, and a march out here is quite a different thing to the slow and decrepit walking parties formerly in vogue, and in the farm and garden there is displayed energy never seen before. Work, and especially outside work, is encouraged, but of course there is always a certain proportion who cannot be persuaded to do anything.