Section 330 of the Lunacy Act, 1890, re-enacting section 12 of the Lunacy Acts Amendment Act, 1889, provides as follows:—

1. (1). “A person who before the passing of this Act has signed, or carried out, or done any act with a view to sign or carry out, an order purporting to be a reception order, or a medical certificate that a person is of unsound mind, and a person who, after the passing of this Act, presents a petition for any such order, or signs, or carries out, or does any act with a view to sign or carry out, an order purporting to be a report or certificate under this Act, or does anything in pursuance of this Act, shall not be liable to any civil or criminal proceedings whether on the ground of want of jurisdiction or on any other ground, if such person has acted in good faith and with reasonable care.

2. (2). “If any proceedings are taken against any person for signing or carrying out, or doing any act with a view to sign or carry out, any such order, report, or certificate, or presenting any such petition as in the preceding subsection mentioned, or doing anything in pursuance of this Act, such proceedings may, upon summary application to the High Court or a judge thereof be stayed upon such terms as to costs and otherwise as the court or judge may think fit, if the court or judge is satisfied that there is no reasonable ground for alleging want of good faith or reasonable care.”

The influence of mental distress in generating cancer of the breasts and uterus of women has long been notorious. The testimony of Dr. Walshe (“On Cancer,” 1846, p. 155), and of Sir James Paget (“Surgical Pathology,” 3rd edition, p. 800) is sufficiently emphatic; and in my own writings I have had occasion to lay great stress upon the significance of such conditions as antecedents to malignant disease of almost every pathological variety. Among Cancer Hospital in-patients, of both sexes, symptoms of mental unsoundness are far from infrequent. It occurred to me, therefore, that an inquiry as to the actual prevalence of cancerous maladies among the insane might prove of some value, especially as such developments are becoming so increasingly frequent among us, and as anything bearing upon their peculiarities of selection or of distribution cannot well be devoid of interest to the pathological inquirer. I accordingly instituted on my own account a miniature “collective investigation,” the net results of which I now venture to lay before you, with the expression of my great indebtedness to those medical gentlemen practising in this particular field who have so kindly assisted me by courteous, and often very full, replies to my questions.