Some Reflections on the Report of the Royal Commission on Lunacy and Mental Disorder

Dealing with a subject surrounded by much ignorance and more misapprehension, tne Commissioners Have produced an admirable Report reflecting the niodern and more enlightened views on mental disease, keeping a sane and balanced judgment between the claims of the individual and the rights of the community, inspired by real feeling for the sultering of the individual and of his relations, yet lull 01 practical suggestions which can be put into operation with comparative ease. Above all they nave emphasised, and in their 'Recommendations acted on, the basic principle that " there is no clear line of demarcation between mental illness and physical illness, ihe distinction as commonly diawn is based on a 'difference in symptoms. In ordinary parlance a disease is described as mental ii its symptoms manifest themselves predominantly in derangement of conduct, and as physical if its symptoms manliest themselves predominantly in derangement of bodily function, inis classitication is manifestly imperfect. A dental illness may have physical concomitants; probably it always has, though they may be difficult of detection. A physical illness, on the other hand, may have, and probably always has, mental concomitants. And there are many cases in which it is a question whether the physical or the mental symptoms predominate " (p. 15).