The Sun.
London, England, 1856-09-04 00:00:00

pfout of bI o.i4ttiwt34 404toty ba If4to tto
work furthered we find him offering a number .1
suggestions whereby the management of public*
asylums may be improved. Th., various objections
made to the principle with which lie is identidad,
wemay add, are ably combatted and illustrations
drawn from the experience of medical man both al
home and abroad contribute largely to the iSatits
blishinont of his views as embracing the true prin•
ciples of successful treatment. The following ex-
tract will show how asylums were conducted in the
" good old days :"
Secresy had long been the protection of the officers.
The physicians administered medicines of which the na-
ture was concealed. Visitors were, as much as possible,
excluded. The committee of managers were equally at,
r Tant arri ignorant. Every abuse reigned uncontrolled.
The poorer patients were half starved. There was no
classification within doors or without. Cleanliness and
ventilation were di3regarded. Numbers of patients were
huddled together in ma, l day room.. Some slept three
in a bed. The use of chains seems to have been very
general. The actual disappearance of many patients was
never accounted for ; and some were supposed to have
been killed. In reportinc the number of deaths, several
—sometimes 100 out of 300 _were taken from the list of
dead, and placed in the list of cured. A general system
of dishonesty and peculation prevailed. The physician
was dishonest; the steward falsified his accounts and
burnt his books; and the matron, a worthy coadjutor,
made a profit on the articles purchased by her for the use
of the house."
Having shown the progress made in the practice of
non-restraint in public asylums, Dr. Coi2olly re-
marks :
"But the example set in them has forced some degree
of reform into every institution for insane persons, how-
ever private. Even in workhouses, although still defi-
cient in the proper means of treating the many recent
cases almost unavoidably sent to them, the principles of
treatment are better understood than formerly, so that
the number of furious cases brought into the county
asylums is probably less than it used to be. The old
method of at once, and indiscriminately, fastening down
every troublesome patient, made many frantic who are
now preserved from that dreadful aggravation of their
malady, and preserved by the kindness and judgment of
the medical officers of parish unions. The very great
improvement in private asylums has been mainly pro-
moted by the indefatigable industry of the Commis-
sioners in Lunacy during the last ten years ; but some
of the improvement, it is but just to say, has been spon-
taneous on the part of the proprietors of the most re-
spectable 'f such establishments, men of high character
and education, and not without a considerable sacrifice
of money. It is yet to be regretted that licences cannot
in all cases be restricted to persons so qualified and die.
posed ; and that the most specious appearances, includ-
ing prompt and wonderful unfastenings and dressings of
the astonished patients, are too successfully emp'oyed to
make the inspection of the Commissioners futile. As too
many of the private asylums are still deficient in the
means of non-restraint, and either superintended or
visited by medical men who have taken no pains to ac-
quaint themselves with the practice of large asylums, I
have never ventured to say that mechanical restraints
can be wholly abolished in them. It occasions, there.
fore, no great surprise to find that the managers of only
thirty-seven private asylums, out of eighty-four from
which returns were made to the Commissioners, had
contrived to conduct their houses without mechanical
restraints when the Eighth Report was published. There
is too much reason to fear that, in the fourty-four other
private asylums from which no returns were made, the
discreet silence proves the preservation of most of the
old abuses."

There is, it will be seen, need for closer inspection,
as well as for more discretion, in granting licences to
insure proper treatment for such of our unfortunate
fellow-creatures as, by the violation of natural
laws, or a mysterious Providence, are deprival of
the blessed gift of reason.

Prelatic° Presbyterianism. By the Rev. Richard
Dill, A.M. Dublin : I\l‘Glashan and Gill.
The author of this work would appear to be one
of those right-minded men who will not wink nor
connive at abuses in the Church, however great
the hazard of "impracticability"—that, we believe,
is the modern word for straightforwardness—and
who accordingly have to suffer for it. Left exe-
cutor to the bequest of a Mrs. Magee, for a Pres-
byterian College, Mr. Dill, it is his state-
ment not ours, was plied with all sorts of cajollery
and appliances of coercion to abandon his trust,
but plied in vain. Now, having contended suc-
cessfully for the proper application of the trust,
we find him defending himself against certain
alleged calumnies embodied in the minutes of the
Presbyterian Assembly. Into the particulars of
these it is not necessary we should enter. Those
who feel interested in the case will buy the book,
in which they will further find an exposure and
denunciation of the prelatic tendencies of certain
dominant members of the Presbyterian Church in
Iceland.

A. Descriptive Dictionary of the Indian Islands
and Adjacent Countries. By John Crawfurd,
F.R.S. Bradbury and Evans.

In the compass of a crown octavo volume those
who are desiroto to become acquainted with the
history, products, drc., of these interesting islands
and the countries adjacent, will find an ample and
well-arranged store of useful information. Some
years ago the author published a descriptive ac-
count, which, instead of re-publishing, he has
thrown into the present form, adding thereto all
the information he has acquired since that period.
The wisdom of this measure is apparent at a glance,
for the reader has but to turn to a particular letter
to obtain what otherwise would occasion him some
degree of research, and perhaps, in addition, a
feeling of apprehension at the apparent magnitude
of his task to discover. An excellent map accom-
panies the work, and contributes to its sterling
value.

The Military Organisation and Administration of
France. By Thomas James Thackeray. Thos.
Cantley Newby.

The second, and we suppose, concluding volume
of a work on the above subject, the materials for
which have been drawn, we are told, from official
and other authentic sources of information. The
generally recognised necessity for reform in our
military system renders a reliable description of
the way in which military affairs are administered
by our warlike heighbours desirable, and so far as
we can judge the volume before us may be de-
pended upon for furnishing the required informa-
tion in a lucid and methodical manner.