Among not a few less agreeable influences pervading lunatic asylums, there is one under whose effect every person concerned in the general management of those institutions is sure to come, viz., the architectural. No asylum superintendent is to be found, who has not various plans of renovation and improvement for his own institution, who does not see precisely the constructional arrangements which the insane require, and who has not, very generally, floating before his mental vision, asleep or awake, some grand scheme for a model asylum. Nor is this to be wondered at, when it is considered that the asylum building is the machine through and by which the superintendent is to work out and develope his system of moral management; that, in short, it is an instrument of cure, of the adequacy, utility, and perfectness of which he must be the best judge.

In the former part of this essay, I have dwelt at some length on the various causes that may induce a patient suffering under mental derangement to refuse food; and I imagine it is not difficult to gather, from what I have already said as to the treatment of such a case, that my opinion is strongly in favor of “Forced Alimentation.” As a general rule I consider that less harm can accrue from even too early mechanical interference, than must happen if the patient be left unaided till the vital powers have become enfeebled, and symptoms of dangerous exhaustion have set in. At the same time, I trust I have made it clear that I look upon the forcible administration of food to be the last resource, and only to be used when all persuasion has failed, and everything that experienced tact can suggest has been tried in vain.

Before proceeding to give a slight description of a most interesting visit which I paid last September to the Asylum for the Insane, on the Isola di S. Servolo, Venice, conducted by the Padri Ospitalieri di san Giovanni di Dio, I am tempted to extract, from Dickens' Pictures from Italy, an account of his arrival by night at Venice, as it so prettily tells the story of my first impressions there, as leaving the railway station I embarked on board one of the black gondolas,* just as the bright harvest moon rose in all its glory on the broad waters of the Grand Canal.

The object of the present paper is to illustrate some of the forms of Epilepsy met with in Asylums, and to point out their characteristics.