The operation of the Mental Deficiency Act, 1913, and the discharge from Naval and Military Hospitals of numbers of men suffering from mental and physical disabilities arising out of the war, have accentuated the already growing interest shown by Justices, and others engaged in the administration of the Criminal Law, as to whether the means hitherto taken for dealing with persons committing offences are the best and most humane which could be adopted. The opinion has been growing in intensity for some years that mental and physical disabilities may largely contribute to the commission of crime, and that it is the duty of the community to investigate thoroughly such causes, when they exist, to determine whether they are beyond the ability of the individual to control, whether they do not limit wholly, or in part, the responsibility for the commission of the offence, and to what extent they should be taken into account in determining the question of punishment: and whether some form of _treatment_, rather than _punishment_, by imprisonment, cannot be devised, which shall be more scientific, efficacious and humane. The Justices of the City of Birmingham, early in 1919, took action and approached the Prison Commissioners in the matter and asked that a whole-time Medical Officer might be appointed to the Prison, and that portions of the hospitals, on both the male and female side, might be entirely partitioned off from the rest of the Prison and adapted for the reception of persons on remand whose mental condition appeared such as to require investigation. Effect has been given to the recommendations of the Justices and, at the time of writing, the scheme has been in operation for some 12 months with valuable results. The Medical Officer of the Prison works in the closest co-operation with the Justices and no person, in whose case there is any suspected mental element, is sentenced to imprisonment until after full investigation of his condition of mind and all other avenues of dealing with the case have been exploited. The "Birmingham" experiment, as it is termed, has aroused great interest throughout the country and an extention to other centres, in a modified form, has already resulted. The institution of the Borstal System has given a new and additional importance to the rôle of the Medical Officer, who plays an important part in the daily administration of these Institutions. From the medical point of view, the system commends itself more particularly by its insistence on the influences which promote sound physical development. Special inquiries made by the Medical Staff in 1903 and 1907 furnish positive proof of the physical inferiority of the adolescent criminal, 16-21, relatively to the free population, notably in height and weight. These inquiries furnish a striking argument in favour of the soundness of the principles on which the Borstal System, as explained in a previous chapter, has been established.