Equally satisfactory results have been obtained in our own Asylum. A few years ago, a boy of eight was admitted into our Asylum, who was quite unmanageable at home, a terrible incubus in the household of which he formed part, and the constant subject of jeers and derisions on the part of the other juveniles of the village. After about six months' systematic training, one of the officials of the Asylum wrote to inform me that the boy had so much improved that he was afraid the Commissioners of Lunacy, at their next visit, would consider the boy no longer a fit subject for detention in the Asylum. Being on a short visit to his relatives, who reside near Norwich, he was brought to me for inspection, when I was struck with the miraculous transformation that had been effected; from a restless, destructive boy, he had been changed into a well-conducted lad, and he had actually been taught to write. At my request, he wrote very legibly his name and address, with the date, "James Smith, Colchester;" but he made a little mistake in the date, writing backwards, in the Chinese fashion--it being September 29th, he wrote "September 92nd!" This same boy was regularly employed as one of the gardeners to the institution, and has recently been discharged, and is now earning his own living as gardener in a private family. This case illustrates a peculiarity not infrequently remarked in the inmates of an idiot asylum, that is the remarkable propensity they have for imitation and shamming. This boy came to stay with his relatives in Norfolk for a few weeks, when every few days he would have an epileptic fit. When his holiday was over and he had returned to the Asylum, these fits recurred, and were, of course, reported to the medical attendant, who had a shrewd suspicion the boy was shamming. He thereupon said to the attendant: "The next time a fit comes on, I must apply a redhot iron to the soles of the feet, it will hurt him, but it will cure him." From that time the boy had no epileptic fits! _Thyroid Treatment of Idiocy._--My sketch of the treatment of Idiocy would be incomplete without an allusion to the injection or internal administration of a preparation of the thyroid gland of the sheep, a method of treatment brought into notoriety by Professors Kocher and Schiff, on the continent, and by Professor Victor Horsley, Dr. Murray, and others in this country. Numerous cases have been published claiming successful results, and the thyroid treatment has been spoken of as a cure for at least one of the forms of idiocy. Without quite endorsing this sweeping and enthusiastic statement, there cannot be a doubt that this method opens up a hopeful vista in the treatment of idiocy; in fact, Dr. Ireland has furnished me with the particulars of a girl, aged five years, treated by thyroid juice, in whom "the improvement was so decided that it seemed an escape from idiocy into normal intelligence."[42]