make the medical staff narrow if they are appointed to their duties without previous broad training and experience or for political reasons, is a self-evident proposition; and yet there are manifest objections to just such a visiting staff as is customary in general hospitals. As Maudsley says, squalor in an attic with liberty is better than being locked up in a palace with luxury. Many of the insane share that feeling with their sane brothers. To not a few it makes the difference between recovering their mental health and lapsing into incurable dementia. Many would voluntarily consent to remain in places less distasteful to them. If we could separate them into classes, as Mr. Mould[10] has done in England by buying or hiring ordinary dwellings one or two miles even from his asylum, we could have separate houses with open doors or shut, as the case demands, for those who require them, and reserve the {133} associated halls and large buildings for a different class. Mr. Mould has not applied his own system to those cases which need it the most, the curable insane, except to a very moderate degree. [Footnote 10: _Presidential Address at the Annual Meeting of the British Medico-Psychological Society_, October, 1880.] It is not often that the physician is called, or his advice heeded if given, in the early stages of mental disease, and the first symptoms are by no means easy to differentiate from the less harmful results of mental strain. If there be, however, sufficient loss of equilibrium to suggest the question of beginning insanity, it is of course better to take the safer way and recommend removal of all sources of irritation, and to advise rest, sleep, simple food, attention to the general laws of health, outdoor life, and change of scene for a sufficient length of time to restore the mental poise, avoiding narcotics and sedatives as far as possible, and keeping the patient with a safe adviser or within easy reach of one. In many cases, especially of young persons, this may involve a radical change in their choice of a profession and whole plans of life. If the question of marriage comes up in these cases before the physician as to preventing further developments of threatened disorder, it can only be said that what may be well for the individual is not always best for society. A few years' delay will usually give time for the question to settle itself.