Mr. President and Gentlemen,—You will, I know, agree with me that there is no doctor who has not frequently been at a loss to know what treatment to adopt in a case which, although apparently simple and straightforward, continued to show no signs of improvement, and when we are dealing with mental cases this is, I think, especially noticeable. But, after all, we must admit that the means at our disposal for the treatment of mental diseases are very inadequate—differing widely from many medical and surgical conditions in which the only and proper treatment is invariably followed by recovery. In most mental diseases I am afraid we must acknowledge that there is still no specific treatment guaranteed to cure any given case: recoveries frequently occur when least we expect them, cases which we deem recoverable frequently disappoint us.