[70] Reform of this state of affairs is urgently needed. The matter is of such fundamental and far-reaching importance that we have devoted part of the next chapter to the further consideration of its bearings. [71] “Tough-minded,” “matter-mongers,” modern writers have called this type, contrasting it with that of the “tender-minded,” “reason-mongers.” [72] Of a brilliant teacher of physiology, one who was himself intensely interested in the sciences bordering on his own subject, it was related that when, in lecturing upon the functions of the nervous system in man, he approached difficult problems, he used to say, “But that is a matter for the psychologist.” Whereupon the class heaved a sigh of relief and prepared to take notes upon the next subject. [73] “... strong electric shocks, cold douches, and other decorous substitutes for a sound birching.” W. McDougall, _Psychology_, London, 1912. CHAPTER V. Some Lessons of the War. Are we, as a nation, doing all that we should for the mentally afflicted? This is the question—no less urgent and important now than it was a century ago—to which we call the serious attention of the reader. It is no new discovery to recognise the immediate importance of its proper consideration, of the honest facing of the present conditions, and of the urgency for such reform as shall lead to an affirmative answer to our question. Already it has been the subject of considerable discussion in recent medical literature, and in the medical press numerous efforts have been made to bring it to the attention of the general public. In July, 1914, the Medico-Psychological Association of Great Britain and Ireland, a body composed chiefly of the medical officers of our asylums, issued the report of a special committee which had been appointed, in November, 1911, to consider the “status of Psychiatry as a profession in Great Britain and Ireland, and the reforms necessary in the education and conditions of service of assistant medical officers.” Unfortunately, within a few weeks of its publication, the outbreak of war prevented that discussion of the question which would otherwise assuredly have followed the publication of so momentous a statement. For in the report stress was laid on the “absence of proper provision for the early treatment of incipient and undeveloped cases of mental disorder,” on the lack of adequate “facilities for the study of psychiatry and for research” and upon “the unsatisfactory position of assistant medical officers” in the asylum service. Clearly the stressing of such points by a committee, thoroughly competent to form a judgment in such matters, compels a negative answer to our leading question. The report makes it perfectly clear that this country has grievously lagged behind most of the civilised nations in the treatment of mental disease.