The subject of insanity, in its relation to both individuals and society, is becoming of greater importance every year. A larger measure of interest in relation to it has been manifest, not only in the writings of specialists, who have made it a study, and the care of its subjects a profession, but also in those of general practitioners of medicine and philanthropists, who are ever seeking to improve the conditions of society. This results from two causes: 1, the change which has taken place in the public mind in relation to the nature of the disease, it no longer being regarded as something for which an individual is responsible in a larger measure than for other diseases, or as entailing a stigma upon those who are so unfortunate as to have experienced it, but rather a disease which invades the brain in the same way that diseases of another character affect other portions of the system, bearing with it neither more nor less of responsibility or disgrace; 2, and, as a result in part from this change, a more clear realization on the part of the public, that there exists an obligation to make provision for care and treatment of those who are deprived of reason, and consequently unable to care for themselves, to a larger extent than for any other unfortunate class in the community. The obligation resting upon the strong to provide for those who become helpless from the effects of other forms of disease has long been acknowledged, but it is only within recent times that this obligation concerning those who become helpless from the effects of insanity has come into general recognition. Now, however, it is readily conceded that this unfortunate class appeals even more strongly for sympathy and aid than any other, more especially by reason of the consequences which result to the individual himself, as well as to his family, and the community in which he resides. The lower we descend in the scale of existence, the less importance does the nervous system sustain in its relation to other systems of the entire body; and conversely, the higher we rise in the scale, the larger importance does it hold, until, in man, it reaches its highest relation, crowning all the others, and making its possessor supreme in the world of animal-life. When, however, disease invades the brain, and the individual no longer holds sway over the purposes evolved from his mental operations, he becomes the most helpless of creatures. Thought no longer follows the dictation of the will; designs or plans, for the present and future, are no longer possible. That intellectual power on which he so much prided himself, and on which his highest happiness and usefulness depended, has passed into darkness and confusion. Henceforth, if he is to be cared for at all, or treated for the amelioration of disease, or for recovery, it must be by friends on the ground of obligation, or by the public, in virtue of that charity which is the growth of civilization and religion.