Dr. SKAE-I think it is common to feed with the stomach pump long after it is unnecessary, just because the patients desire to be fed that way.

Dr. HOWDEN-I had a patient who lay down upon the bed and passed the stomach pump herself; she would not take food in any other way. As to accidents occurring by artificial feeding, I do not mean that these are confined to the stomach pump. I mean any kind of forced feeding by Dr. Rorie's spoon or otherwise. gave up the stomach pump for five years, but took to it again. I thought the annoyance to the patient was greater in the one case than in the other."

Dr. YELLOWLEES-I think it is a very happy thing we departed from the immediate scope of the paper, for we have had some interesting practical conversation about artificial feeding. I have not seen dangerous results from enemata, and I am surprised that Dr. Rorie has never found a patient whom he could not feed with the spoon. I feel very strongly that there are cases where the spoon is a total failure unless you push its use to such an extent that it becomes positively perilous. I have no hesitation in preferring the stomach pump as being the least exciting to the patient. I have never seen dangerous results from stomach pump feeding, and I am surprised that it is affirmed there is a connection between stomach feeding and gangrene of the lungs. I think the conditions in which you find gangrene of the lungs are just the conditions in which you will find artificial feeding necessary. But it would be interesting further to investigate the subject, and therefore I think we should all look back on our death registers. I believe there is more danger from forcible feeding by the spoon, in consequence of the food getting into the air passages, than by the stomach pump. I would not allow any patient to go a week without food; I would feed artificially sooner than that, but I hold it is a state of mind to be deprecated to allow patients to get into such a condition as to lie down and pass the stomach pump themselves.

Dr. GAIRDNER, speaking of fever patients, said that as a general rule the whole alimentary and digestive systems go together, and it did not seem that putting food into the stomach would enable it to be digested.

A vote of thanks to the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons for the use of the Hall concluded the proceedings.

Obituary.

ROBERT STEWART, M.D., BELFAST.

The Medico-Psychological Association has sustained a severe loss in Ireland by the death, on the 6th April, of Dr. Robert Stewart, the Resident Physician Superintendent of the District Lunatic Asylum in Belfast. The late Dr. Stewart was born in 1803 in Dublin, and received his professional education at the College of Surgeons' School of Surgery in Dublin, and took his medical degree after study. ing at the University of Glasgow. He entered the profession in 1829, and for the first six years of his professional career he was engaged in general practice in Dublin. In 1835 he was appointed Superintendent of the Belfast District Asylum, the first of the Irish asylums that had the advantage of a Resident Physician. For many years Dr. Stewart, was the "Father" of the Irish Asylum service, and was looked up to with feelings of the greatest respect and confidence by his colleagues in the profession, and by the general body of Irish Superintendents. From the outset he was a warm supporter of the MedicoPsychological Association, of which he was the first branch-secretary for Ireland, an office that he retained up to the last general meeting of the Association. The duties connected with the honorary secretaryship were discharged by Dr. Stewart with so much zeal and efficiency that when he tendered his resignation it was found extremely difficult to induce any of his Irish brethren to allow their names to be submitted to succeed him, as a general feeling existed that it would be impossible for anyone who did not enjoy the wide popularity of Dr. Stewart to attempt to perform the duties after him. Dr. Stewart, early in

his asylum career, pronounced himself a warm adherent of the non-restraint system of treatment, then in its infancy; but he at the same time conceded that cases might arise which would justify the imposition of mechanical in preference to prolonged vital restraint. In practice his patients enjoyed all the advantages of the principle of non-restraint, but in rare and exceptional cases the subject of our notice did not hesitate to express his conviction that a patient might be restrained with advantage to himself and to those around him. During the forty years that Dr. Stewart was the Chief Officer of the Belfast Asylum that institution attained a high reputation for the skill and humanity that guided its administration. By the profession in Belfast Dr. Stewart was deeply respected; he possessed the entire confidence of his subordinate officers; and we use no mere form of speech when we add that he was loved by his patients. Dr. Stewart was a man of wide attainments, and of sympathies as wide as his attainments. He was a frequent contributor to the pages of the "Journal of Mental Science" and other medical periodicals; and his kindly presence will be deeply missed at the approaching meeting of the Association in Dublin. The fatal cold which passed into pleuritis was caught while discharging the charitable office of collecting subscriptions for the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund Society of Ireland, of the Belfast branch of which he was for thirty-two years the honorary secretary. He died on the 6th April, after an illness of only five days. The most touching tribute to his memory was to be seen in the unaffected grief and dismay of the asylum patients to whose care and well-being he had devoted the energies of a long and valuable life.

Appointments.

BIRT, E., M.R.C.S.E., has been appointed Assistant Medical Officer to the Salop and Montgomery Counties Lunatic Asylum, Bicton, near Shrewsbury, vice Talbot, resigned.

COOKE, E. M., M.R.C.S.E., has been appointed second Assistant Medical Officer to the Worcester County and City Lunatic Asylum, Powick.

DICKSON, H., M.B., has been appointed Assistant Medical Officer to the Bristol Lunatic Asylum, Stapleton, near Bristol, vice Draper, resigned.

FAUSSETT, J. D., L.M. and S.T.C.D., has been appointed Assistant Medical Officer to The Friends' Retreat, near York, vice Widdas, resigned.

GOWAN, C., M.D., C.M., L.R.C.S. Ed., Senior Assistant Medical Officer at the Worcester County and City Lunatic Asylum, Powick, has been appointed Medical Superintendent of the Toronto Lunatic Asylum, Canada, vice J. Workman, M.D., resigned.

MERRICK, A. S., M.D., L.R.C.S. Ed., has been appointed Resident Medical Superintendent to the Antrim Lunatic Asylum, Belfast, vice Stewart, deceased. MICKLEY, G., M.B., C.M., has been appointed Resident Medical Superintendent of St. Luke's Hospital for Lunatics, vice Eager, resigned, on becoming proprietor of Northwoods Asylum, near Bristol.

SHAPTER, L., B.A., M.B., has been appointed Consulting Physician to the Wonford House Hospital for the Insane, near Exeter.

WALLIS, J. A. M., L.R.C.P. Ed., L.R.C.S.I., has been appointed Resident Medical Superintendent of the Hull Borough Lunatic Asylum, vice Casson resigned.

THE JOURNAL OF MENTAL SCIENCE.

[Published by Authority of the Medico-Psychological Association.]

No. 95. NEW SERIES,

No 59.

OCTOBER, 1875.

VOL. XXI.

PART 1.-ORIGINAL ARTICLES.

President's Address at the Annual Meeting of the MedicoPsychological Association, held August 11th, 1875, at the Royal College of Physicians, Dublin. By JAMES F. DUNCAN, M.D., President of the College.

GENTLEMEN,-In the name of the Irish members of our Association, I desire to greet you all with a very cordial welcome on the occasion of this your second visit to our city. Fourteen years have elapsed since you last honoured us with your presence. I hope that a careful comparison of the present state of the institutions here with their condition then will convince you that the spirit of improvement has been among us, and that we have endeavoured in some measure to keep pace with the progress apparent in other districts in this department of the healing art.

I cannot omit here saying how deeply I deplore the loss sustained by our Association in the death of four of our most efficient Irish members during the last year, all of whom would have joined most heartily in our endeavours to make this meeting acceptable to you and creditable to ourselves. The four gentlemen referred to are Dr. Shiell, of Enniscorthy; Dr. Eaton, of Ballinasloe; Dr. Murphy, of Killarney; and Dr. Robt. Stewart, of Belfast. Of our late Honorary Secretary I wish to speak more particularly. He had long desired to see the Association repeat its visit to this country, and for that purpose had made it a point to attend the anniversary in London last year. Had his life been spared, I have no doubt he would have taken an active part in our proceedings to-day. He was, if I mistake not, an original member of our Association, and had its interest very deeply at heart. That he was not more frequently present at the anniversary meetings arose, not from any fault of his, but from the pressure

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of official engagements at home. All through life the one object of his heart was to make the Asylum over which he presided a model of what such institutions ought to be, and he succeeded in winning for it a very high place in the estimation of the public. His attachment to his profession was extreme. Whatever affected its honour or advancement had his warmest sympathy, and he was ever ready to render any personal service in its behalf that circumstances might require. His untimely death was a proof of this. The illness which terminated so unexpectedly was brought on by exposure to cold in the benevolent effort to extend the usefulness of another society connected with the profession, of which he was honorary secretary. Decided in his opinions and firm in maintaining them, he was yet able, by his unassuming deportment, to conciliate the respect and esteem even of his opponents, and to secure the good opinion of all who were fortunate enough to make his acquaintance. He has left behind him a reputation which most of us may envy, and an example which all of us may copy.

Before proceeding to discuss the topics which I intend to bring under your notice in the course of this address, permit me to return my most grateful thanks for the high honour you have conferred on me in electing me President for the coming year. I feel it to be a compliment which any member of the profession might well be proud of, no matter how high his position otherwise might be. As for myself, when I call to mind the many distinguished men who have preceded me in this office, their literary labours, their high reputation as psychologists, and the able and effective addresses they have delivered from this chair, I confess that I feel unworthy of the honor, and that I owe it to the kindness of private friends rather than any merit of my own that I have been singled out for the post. I know that personally I have no claim to consideration at your hands beyond the mere fact that from the time when, in obedience to a call I could not disregard, I was induced to take the oversight of my late father's asylum I threw whatever energy I possessed into the task of winning for it a high place among the kindred institutions of this city, in the confidence of the profession and the public. That task is now accomplished, my connection with Farnham House having been recently severed; but I allude to the circumstance for the purpose of mentioning what it may be pleasant for you to hear, namely, that one of the strongest motives which prompted

me to enter on the task, and sustained me while prosecuting it, was the expectation that some time or other the members of this Association might again be induced to hold their annual meeting in this city, and that I might then have an opportunity of showing them the nature and extent of my labours. That expectation has, of course, been disappointed, but I set it before you as a proof of the good you are doing, silently, and perhaps unconsciously, by these periodical visits, and as a reason why the annual meeting should not be held constantly in one place, because the effect of such an arrangement must be to lessen the motive to exertion in those very institutions which, from their remoteness, might seem specially to need it.

I cannot, however, conceal from myself the feeling that one reason why I have been thus honoured arises from the office I am permitted to hold in this Hall; and this only makes me esteem it all the more highly as a delicate and welldeserved compliment to the College I so unworthily represent. I know not how it may be in the sister colleges of the empire, but I think it deserves to be put on record that the Irish College of Physicians has not made the cultivation of this branch a bar to the attainment of its highest offices. of my predecessors in the presidential chair, Drs. Mollan and Banks, were physicians to the Richmond District Asylum, and although the appointment they held was of a public nature, while that with which I was connected at the time of my election was not so, this only enhances the argument, and renders the action of the College more worthy of your regard.

Two

The time is not so very long gone by since everything connected with the management-I cannot say treatment-of the insane was a matter of general reproach, and every one who devoted himself to the pursuit was avoided as much as possible. They were looked on as left-handed neighbours, very useful in their way, because their assistance could not always be dispensed with, but whose acquaintance no respectable person was expected to acknowledge. Too often they were men of inferior social position, low-minded in their taste, imperfectly educated, and with nothing in their character to command respect, even from those who employed them. Sordid in disposition, their only object was to make money out of those entrusted to their charge, and that at the least expense and trouble to themselves. In the present day all this is changed. Devotion to this specialty no longer