Although the introduction of a modified or mitigated form of certificate of mental unsoundness, besides the one now in use, may be open to the objection mentioned, and to others conceivable, yet it would, on the other hand, possess certain advantages, and would, among others, be certainly an improvement upon the present state of things, by promoting the registration of numerous cases now unknown to the administrators of the Lunacy Laws.
It would be impossible to draw the line rigidly between really insane persons and those suffering from temporary delirium, or 'nervousness.' No ready cut and dried definitions of insanity would serve the purpose, and the discrimination of cases in order to their return as 'lunatic,' or as 'nervous,' must within certain limits rest upon definitions imposed by law, and beyond these to common sense and professional experience. With such criteria to guide, no sufferers from the delirium of fever, of alcoholism, or other kindred morbid state, and no eccentric personages whose peculiarities are not necessarily injurious to themselves, to others, or to their property, should be brought within the operation of the laws contrived to protect positive mental disorder. They would not occupy the same legal position as those classes proposed to be under one or other form of certificate; for, in our humble opinion, all those under certificate, whether as insane or as 'nervous' patients, should be under like legal disabilities in the management of themselves and their affairs, and partake of equal legal protection. In the preamble to the clauses suggested by Lord Shaftesbury, the nervous disorder or other mental affection is very properly supposed to be of a nature and extent to incapacitate the sufferers from the due management of themselves and their affairs; that is, that they are to be rightly placed under similar civil disabilities with the insane;--a position, which could, moreover, not be relaxed even in favour of those voluntarily placing themselves under treatment, without giving rise to much legal perplexity and quibbling. But this last-named result we have some apprehension might ensue, if the next sentence of the clause to those quoted were retained: forasmuch as, farther to define the class of persons to be legislated for, this sentence requires that their disorder shall not render them proper persons to be taken charge of and detained under care and treatment as insane; a condition, which seems to exclude them from the catalogue of insane persons in the eye of the law, and therefore to relieve them from the legal disabilities attaching to lunatics; but, perhaps, it is from ignorance of law that we cannot conceive how it is proposed to provide for the care and official supervision of persons alleged to be incapacitated from the management of themselves and their affairs, and at the same time to pronounce them unfit to be dealt with as insane.