Deception has very often been made use of in the management of the insane, though recently not to the same extent that it once was. The consideration which I have been illustrating and enforcing lies against the practice of it in our intercourse with this unfortunate class of patients, with the greater force, because in their case the mind is diseased, and any bad mental influence has therefore a worse effect than it would have upon a case of mere bodily disease. The reason is obvious—it acts directly upon the seat of the disease in the former case, but indirectly in the latter. Besides, let the insane man once see that you have deceived him, and you lose the principal, perhaps we may say the only, moral means that you have for curing his malady. Confidence is essential to any good moral influence that you may exert upon him. I might cite many facts to prove this, but will advert to only one. The wife of an insane man was the only person among all his friends that had any control over him, and she could manage him with perfect ease. After his recovery she asked him the reason of this fact, and his reply was, ‘You was the only one that uniformly told me the truth? The bad influence of deception upon the insane man is rendered the more certain and effectual from the fact that his insanity incapacitates him for appreciating the kind motives which may have prompted the deception. You cannot convince him as you can the sane sick man, that you have deceived him for his own good. His suspicious eye sees nothing but a sinister purpose in the cheat which you have practised upon him.