In 1830 Conolly published his valuable work, “An Inquiry concerning the Indications of Insanity, with Suggestions for the better Protection and Care of the Insane.” His objects were to render the recognition of insanity less difficult, by showing in what it differed from those varieties of mind which approached nearest to it; and to point out those circumstances which, even in persons decidedly insane, could alone justify various degrees of restraint. He lamented that during a student’s career he only saw cases of insanity by some rare accident. Every lunatic asylum was closed to him, and yet when qualified he might any day have to decide on a patient’s insanity. In view of some recent revelations a quotation from the introduction to this work (p. 3) is not inappropriate. “The timidity or ignorance, or it may be, a dishonest motive, of relatives, leads to exaggerated representations; and the great profit accruing from a part of practice almost separated from general medicine, cannot but now and then operate against proper caution in admitting such representations. When men’s interests depend upon an opinion, it is too much to expect that opinion always to be cautiously formed, or even in all cases honestly given. The most respectable practitioners in this department openly justify the authorising of restraint before the patient is seen, and on the mere report of others; and it seems that depositions to the insanity of individuals have been received in courts of law, concerning persons with whom the deponents have never had an interview; and that on these depositions proceedings have been partly founded, of which the results were the imprisonment of lunatics, and restraint over their property. When the affair is conducted with more formality, and the suspected person is visited before being imprisoned, those who visit him are often very little acquainted with mental disorders, and come rather to find proofs of his insanity, which, to minds pre-possessed, are seldom wanting, than cautiously to examine the state of his mind.” “If a person of sound mind were so visited, and knew of the visit beforehand, it would not be quite easy for him to comport himself, so as to avoid _conviction_ that he was _not_ of sound mind. His indignation would pass for raving; his moderation for the proverbial cunning of a lunatic.”