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The same remark holds good of the department for the insane connected with the Commercial Hospital in Cincinnati.

Well organized hospitals are the only fit places of residence for the insane of all classes; ill-conducted institutions are worse than none at all. The New York City Hospital for the insane, and the State hospitals of Georgia and Tennessee, cannot take respectable rank as curative or comfortable hospitals.

Tennessee State Hospital, at Nashville, was opened in 1839. According to an act of the legislature, in 1848, this hospital is to be replaced by one of the capacity to receive 250 patients. In the old hospital are 64 patients. Boston City Hospital for the indigent, which has 150 patients, and Ohio State Hospital at Columbus, were severally opened in 1839. The latter has been considerably enlarged, and has now 329 patients. Maine State Hospital, at Augusta, 1840; patients 130. New Hampshire State Hospital, at Concord, was opened in 1842 and has 100 patients. New York State Hospital, at Utica, was established in 1843, and has since been largely extended, and has 400 patients. Mount Hope Hospital, near Baltimore, 1844-'45, has 54 insane patients. Georgia has an institution for the insane at Milledgeville, and 128 patients. Rhode Island State Hospital was opened, under the able direction of Dr. Ray, early in 1848. New Jersey State Hospital at Trenton, 1848. Indiana State Hospital at Indianapolis, will be opened in 1848. State Hospital of Illinois, at Jacksonville, will be occupied before 1849. The Louisiana State Hospital will be occupied perhaps within a year.

I repeat that these institutions, liberally sustained, as are most of them, cannot accommodate the insane population of the United States who require prompt remedial care.

It may be suggested that though hospital treatment is expedient, perhaps it may not be absolutely necessary, especially for vast numbers whose condition may be considered irrecoverable, and in whom the right exercise of the reasoning faculties may be looked upon as past hope. Rather than enter upon a philosophical and abstract argument to prove the contrary to be the facts, I will ask permission to spread before you a few statements gathered without special selection, from a mass of records made from existing cases, sought out and noted during eight years of sad, patient, deliberate investigation. To assure accuracy, establish facts beyond controversy, and procure, so far as possible, temporary or permanent relief, more than sixty thousand miles have been traversed, and no time or labor spared which fidelity to this imperative and grievous vocation demanded. The only States as yet unvisited are North Carolina, Florida, and Texas. From each of these, however, I have had communications which clearly prove that the conditions of the indigent insane differ in no essential degree from those of other States.

I have myself seen more than nine thousand idiots, epileptics, and insane, in these United States, destitute of appropriate care and protection; and of this vast and most miserable company sought out in jails, in poor-houses, and in private dwellings, there have been hundreds, nay, rather thousands, bound with galling chains, bowed beneath fetters and heavy iron balls, attached to drag-chains, lacerated with ropes, scourged with rods, and terrified beneath storms of profane execrations and cruel blows; now subject to gibes, and scorn, and torturing tricks-now abandoned to the most loathsome necessities, or subject to the vilest and most outrageous violations. These are strong terms, but language fails to convey the astounding truths. I proceed to verify this assertion, commencing with the State of Maine. I will be ready to specify the towns and districts where each example quoted did exist, or exist still.

In B., a furious maniac confined in the jail; case doubtful from long delay in removing to an hospital; a heap of filthy straw in one corner served for a bed; food was introduced through a small aperture, called a slit in the wall, through which also was the sole source of ventilation and avenue for light.

Near C., a man for several years in a narrow filthy pen, chained; condition loathsome in the extreme.

In A., insane man in a small damp room in the jail; greatly excited; had been confined many years; during his paroxysms, which were aggravated by every manner of neglect, except want of food, he had torn out his eye, lacerated his face, chest, and arms, seriously injured his limbs, and was in a state most shocking to behold. In P., nine very insane men and woman in the poor-house, all exposed to neglect and every species of injudicious, treatment; several chained, some in pens or stalls in the barn, and treated less kindly than the brute beasts in their vicinity. At C., four furiously crazy; ill-treated, through the ignorance of those who held them in charge. Forty-seven cases in the middle district, either scattered in poor-houses, jails, or in private families, and all inappropriately treated in every respect; many chained, some bearing the marks of injuries self-inflicted, and many of injuries received from others. In New Hampshire, on the opening of the hospital for the reception of patients, in 1842, many were removed from cages, small unventilated cells in poor-houses, private houses, and from the dungeons of county jails. Many of these were bound with cords, or confined with chains; some bore the marks of severe usage by blows and stripes. They were neglected and filthy, and some who yet remain in remote parts of the State, through exposure to cold in inclement seasons, have been badly frozen, so as to be maimed for life. Details in many cases will not bear recital.