t the time of making his will was in
sufficient possession of his mental powers to perform an act of so much
consequence.

At another time, interested parties may plead for or against the
validity of a sale or other bargain made by a person of doubtful
competency of mind; or a life-insurance company may be interested in
ascertaining the mental condition of an applicant for membership; or it
may be questioned whether the payment of an insurance policy is due to
the family of a suicide, the doubt depending for solution on the sound
or unsound condition of his mind at the moment of the fatal act. Again,
there may be a real or pretended doubt whether a certain property-owner
is so far demented as to be unfit to manage his estate; or whether he
needs a guardian to take care of his person; or it may even seem
necessary to confine him in a lunatic asylum. There may be objections
raised to the mental soundness of a witness in a civil or a criminal
suit; or, finally, a criminal prosecution will depend mainly on the
sanity or insanity of the culprit at the moment when the crime was
committed; as was the case with a Prendergast and a Guiteau.

You see, then, gentlemen, that important interests are dependent on the
thorough and correct understanding of this matter; and therefore much
responsibility rests upon the experts consulted in such cases: property,
honor, liberty, nay, even life itself may be at stake.

That cases involving an insane condition of mind must be of frequent
occurrence, both in the medical and in the legal professions, is
apparent from the large and rapidly increasing amount of lunacy in our
modern civilization. Wharton and Stille's "Medical Jurisprudence" states
(sec. 770, note) that in 1850 there was in Great Britain one lunatic to
about one thousand persons; only thirty years later the Lunacy
Commission of Great Britain reported one lunatic to 357 persons in
England and Wales, that is, nearly three times as many. In New York
there is one to 384 persons. It appears certain that its increase of
late is out of all proportion to the increase of population; and even
though I see reasons to distrust somewhat the figures quoted for
England, enough is known to create serious alarm regarding the fruits of
modern manners and customs on the minds of thousands. This fact makes
the matter of insanity very important for the medical and the legal
student.

II. Still it must be noted that the responsibility of deciding c