"For ourselves," they observe, "we have long been convinced, and have steadily acted on the conviction, that the possibility of dispensing with mechanical coercion in the management of the insane is, in a vast majority of cases, a mere question of expense, and that its continued, or systematic use in the asylums and licensed houses where it still prevails must in a great measure be ascribed to their want of suitable space and accommodations, their defective structural arrangements, or their not possessing an adequate staff of properly qualified attendants, and frequently to all these causes combined. "Our matured views upon the subject will be best understood by stating the course we have followed in the discharge of our functions as visitors. In that capacity we have made it a principle to discourage, to the utmost, the employment of instrumental restraint in any form. Wherever we have found it in use, our uniform practice has been to inquire minutely into the circumstances and reasons alleged for its necessity, and to insist on recourse being had to those various other means which experience has proved in other houses to be effective substitutes for it.... "As respects the question of _seclusion_, its occasional use for short periods, chiefly during paroxysms of epilepsy or violent mania, is generally considered beneficial. At the same time, we would observe that the facilities which seclusion holds out to harsh or indolent attendants for getting rid of and neglecting troublesome patients under violent attacks of mania, instead of taking pains to soothe their irritated feelings, and work off their excitement by exercise and change of scene, render it liable to considerable abuse; and that, as a practice, it is open, though in a minor degree, to nearly the same objections which apply to the more stringent forms of mechanical restraint. We are therefore strongly of opinion that, when even seclusion is resorted to as a means of tranquillizing the patient, it should only be employed with the knowledge and direct sanction of the medical officer, and even then be of very limited duration. "Further experience, we think, has shown that, except for the reception of epileptic patients during the continuance of their paroxysms, and in a few cases where there is a determined propensity to suicide, the utility of padded rooms is not so great as was at one time supposed; and that, for cases of ordinary maniacal excitement, seclusion in a common day-room or sleeping-room of moderate size, from which all articles that might furnish instruments of violence or destruction have been removed, and which is capable of being readily darkened, when required, by a locked shutter, will, in general, be found to answer every useful purpose."[186]