Page:The Modern Treatment of Mental and Nervous Disorders.djvu/29

— 27 — Moreover, the psychological methods of treatment whose suitability for these cases we have sought to demonstrate have been eminently successful, and have amply vindicated both their practicability and utility.

Lastly, in what directions may we reasonably expect the present facilities for treating mental and nervous disorders to be improved? In the first place, so far as actual insanity is concerned, it may be agreed that confirmed cases are already adequately provided for. But it is surely imperative that provision should be made for early cases, for patients in those incipient phases of mental disorder when treatment naturally promises the best results. There are difficulties in the way of this simple measure, difficulties of legal and other kinds, but there are none that are incapable of being surmounted. Institutions must be established in which such cases may be received, where efficient treatment is available, and where also will be found organised investigation and teaching. For there is no department of medicine where organised investigation is so urgently required. Isolated workers there have always been, and they have accomplished much, but their labours have been continually hampered by the lack of organised institutions, where physiologist, chemist and psychologist can attack the many problems that await solution, together and from every side.

In the case of nervous disorders a less revolutionary change is required, but there is much room for a great extension and reorganisation of the existing facilities. The accommodation for these patients