“... we shall no doubt be met with the objection that the provision of such institutions will involve the expenditure of such an immense sum of money. I believe we spend in Great Britain about £3,000,000 a year on those suffering from various forms of mental affliction. That, certainly, is an immense sum to spend while getting so little in return. A large proportion of this money is spent in housing, feeding, clothing, and taking care of the 97,000 inmates of the county and borough asylums of England and Wales. We learn from the commissioners’ report, published in 1910, that 20,000 patients were admitted into these asylums during the previous year, and of these, over 30 per cent. were discharged after a longer or shorter detention. Now it may safely be said that very few of these 20,000 fresh admissions did obtain, or could have obtained, any advice for their mental illness at the hands of anyone who had had experience of mental disorders, before they reached the stage when certification and seclusion in an asylum became necessary. When we visited Giessen we were informed by Professor Sommer that in the province of Hesse, by reason of suitable treatment during the early stages of mental illness they had been enabled to postpone for some years the erection of a new asylum in the province. Is it not therefore fair to assume that, if facilities were provided whereby expert advice and treatment in a well-organised psychiatric clinic could be obtained by those threatened with a mental breakdown, we should save enough of the £3,000,000 to justify the expenditure involved in the establishment of such clinics? Further benefits would be derived from them in that we should be able to avoid the breaking-up of the home, which now, in so many instances, follows the removal of the bread-winner of the family to an asylum and his long detention there.” And