inal founder of the medieval hospitals, or even
the conscious plan of those who were in charge. They had to take the
mentally infirm because there was nowhere else for them to go at that
time. As a matter of fact, however, their simple method of procedure
was better in the end for the patient than is our more complex method
of admission to insane asylums, with its disturbing necessity for
formal examination of the patient under circumstances that are likely
to increase any excitement that he may be laboring under. And the
transfer to an institution bearing the dreaded name of asylum, or even
sanitarium (for that term has taken quite as ominous a meaning in
recent years) is sure to aggravate the patient's irritated state, and
to exaggerate symptoms which might otherwise be relieved by prompt,
soothing care, and by the consciousness that his ailment is being
treated rather than that he himself is being placed in durance.

An examination of the methods for the care of the insane in the Middle
Ages brings out clearly the fact, that the modern generation may learn
from those old Catholic humanitarians, whose hearts and whose charity
served so well to make up for any deficiencies of intellect or of
science the moderns would presume them to have labored under. There
are said to be three great desiderata for the intelligent care for the
insane:

First: The open door system, permitting patients who are not violent,
and who can be trusted even though they have many queer notions, to
come and go at will.

Second: The after care treatment of those who have been insane, to the
end that they may not be compelled to go back to strenuous lives of
toil; and above all, that they {372} may not be forced into the too
harrassing conditions of which their mental breakdown originally was
born.

Third: A colony system by which patients of lowered intelligence may
be cared for in the country, far away from the stress of city life,
and where, without the cares of existence pressing upon them, they may
be surrounded by gentle, patient, kindly friends who will make every
allowance for their peculiarities and strive to help them in their
up-hill struggles.

These desiderata are so absolutely modern that they have only been
formulated definitely with the beginning of the twentieth century.
Notwithstanding this apparent newness, I think that it will not be
difficult to show that the old-time methods of caring for the insane
partook, to a great