H.—23

6

as possible, been attended to in this Asylum. The Eevs. Dr. Maunsell, David Jones, and David Hamilton of the Whau Presbyterian Church, as also the Eev. ~W. Macdonnell, have officiated on Sundays, and occasionally during the week, and their ministrations were seriously attended to by their respective hearers. As a general rule, the inmates seemed to like sacred music, and Mr. Culpan has presided at the harmonium on most occasions during divine services, and also attended on Thursdays to give musical instruction to such as were capable of receiving it. Attendants. —So much depends upon the education, temper, intelligence, and general good character of those intrusted with the care of the insane, that it has become the usual practice in the best asylums to engage both male and female attendants, in the first instance, upon one month's probation, at the expiration of which, if proved to be suitable, they are recommended to the Government as eligible for the situation. The attendants at present employed have been selected with care, and their duties, as a whole, have been efficiently discharged. No serious accident or injury has occurred amongst IG9 patients during the past year. The inmates of both sexes are carefully washed every morning, and bathed either in hot, cold, or shower baths, at stated intervals, or according to the peculiar requisites of individual cases. Treatment. —The treatment of the patients hitherto admitted into this Asylum has not been based upon any purely routine or empirical system. The indications for any line of treatment adopted in individual cases are selected from such physical and psychological signs and symptoms as the case presents. It is a simple fact that derangement, general, special, or local, of the bodily health, almost invariably precedes, accompanies, or follows mental derangement; hence the absurdity of the assertion that medicine is ineffectual against "a mind diseased." Nothing can bo clearer than the marked influence of the bodily health over that of the mind. A loaded liver induces a state of hypochondria bordering upon melancholia; it is relieved by aperients having a special action upon the biliary secretion. Some of the worst and apparently most hopeless cases of melancholia have succumbed to the steady and properly graduated administration of opiates ; and the unbridled fury of acute mania has softened down into quiet sleep under the influence of the warm bath and a stream of cold water directed upon the head. State on Admission. —Most patients admitted into this Asylum during the past and preceding years presented unequivocal evidence of derangement of the digestive organs, as foul tongue, foetid breath, want of appetite, emaciation, &c, &c. This state, connected as it usually was with a skin the reverse of the " benecute curata," demanded a system of external and internal cleansing, after which, as a rule, some mitigation of the symptoms was observable. The brain, through and by which the mental functions are manifested, controlled, and regulated, is itself almost as incomprehensible in its structure and material organization as mind itself, abstractedly considered ; hence the difficulty of inferring the origin of any particular form of insanity from any given form of the many pathological changes in the brain, and its immediate surroundings of whatever tissues; and yet we are assured that such changes in structure more or less influence the action of the mind. Post-mortem revelations tell most clearly of the organic change which, in most severe cases, has progressed part passu with the degradation of mind. To meet cerebral disease in its earliest stage should, therefore, constitute the great object of the alienist physician ; and, indeed, were it not for the necessity of imposing physical restraint or seclusion in many cases of insanity, there is no reason why it should be separated, as it is, from the category of the usual diseases to which the animal organization is subjected. It happens, most unfortunately, that an individual afflicted with acute irritation or inflammation of the brain or its membranes is almost necessarily committed to an asylum, in which it too frequently happens that the clearest indications for a course of treatment cannot be properly carried out. A purely physical cause demands a physical remedy; but a disease upon the origin of which no one can clearly determine, demands a continuation of treatment which, it is to bo feared, has not yet been discovered by the ablest psychological physicians. I have, &c, Thomas Aickik, M.D., His Honor the Superintendent. Resident Surgeon.

TABLE NO. 1. GENERAL STATEMENT of the Admissions, Discharges, and Deaths during the Year 1872.

Remained in Asylum on 1st January, 1872 aboriginals Males. 80 3 Females. 33 2 Total 83 35 118 admitted new cases ... Aboriginals le-admitted 27 1 4 19 0 0 Total 32 19 51 'otal number under treatment during the year iboriginals 111 4 52 2 Total treated ... 115 54 169