This defective knowledge of insanity and its treatment ought not to be found, were medical instruction complete. But whilst the medical curricula make no requirement of instruction in mental disease necessary to medical qualifications, they are expanded so as to comprehend almost every branch of human knowledge, under the heads of 'Preliminary Education' and of 'Collateral Sciences,' and yet ignore psychological medicine, as though human beings were without minds, or, at least, without minds subject to disorder. The consequence is, as facts above illustrate, medical men enter into practice with no conception of the varied phenomena of mental disorder; unable to diagnose it; unfit to treat it, and glad to keep out of the way of its sufferers. Some, as before intimated, associate it, in their views, with inflammatory or congestive disease, and treat it accordingly, by blood-letting and the other parts of the so-called antiphlogistic regimen, to the speedy destruction of the patient, by increased maniacal excitement and concurrent exhaustion, or to his extreme detriment in relation to his prospects of recovery. Let us hope that this state of things may ere long be entirely amended, and that medical practitioners may be required to understand disorders of the mind as perfectly as those of the lungs.
Before quitting the subject of this section, a brief comment on the state of the law regulating the transference of weak cases to asylums will not be misplaced. According to _sect._ lxvii. 16 & 17 Vict. cap. 97, providing for the examination of alleged lunatics prior to removal to an asylum, it is enacted, "that in case any pauper deemed to be lunatic, cannot, on account of his health or other cause, be conveniently taken before a Justice, such pauper may be examined at his own abode;" and that, if found lunatic, he shall be conveyed to an "Asylum, Hospital, or House...; provided also, that if the physician, surgeon, or apothecary by whom any such pauper shall be examined shall certify in writing that he is not in a fit state to be removed, his removal shall be suspended until the same or some other physician, surgeon, or apothecary shall certify in writing that he is fit to be removed; and every such physician, surgeon, and apothecary is required to give such last-mentioned certificate as soon as in his judgment it ought to be given." A similar provision is made in the case of "Lunatics wandering at large, not being properly taken care of, or being cruelly treated" or neglected by their relatives, by the section next following (_sect._ lxviii).