asked in 1911 to be relieved from active duty and became our first Medical Superintendent Emeritus, we were most fortunate in securing as his successor Dr. Russell.  Coming to this institution after a broad psychiatric and administrative experience, he has taken up our special problems with deep insight and gratifying success.  He has selected for his subject this afternoon “THE MEDICAL DEVELOPMENT OF BLOOMINGDALE HOSPITAL.”  No one can speak with greater authority on a theme of which it may be said quorum magna pars—­fortunately not only fuit—­but est and erit as well.

DR. RUSSELL

The object of this celebration is not merely to glorify the past and least of all is it to laud the present.  What we hope from it is that it will establish a milestone, not only to mark the progress thus far made but to point the way to a path of greater usefulness.  The advances in medical science and practice and in the specialty of psychiatry during the past hundred years fill one with wonder and hope.  It is worth while to review them merely to obtain this help.  The outlook for the century to come is, however, so far as can be anticipated, still brighter.

To review the past is, at a time like this, not unprofitable.  It may prevent us, in our zeal for the new, from discarding what is valuable in the old, and from overvaluing some things which may have outlived their usefulness.  We must be careful that we do not fall into errors similar to those from which the medical profession was rescued by the movement of which Bloomingdale Asylum was an offspring.  It should be recalled that the establishment of the asylum was due to the initiative of the Governors of the New York Hospital, especially Mr. Eddy, rather than to the active interest and direction of physicians.  The object of the establishment was, according to Mr. Eddy, to afford an opportunity of ascertaining how far insanity may be relieved by moral treatment alone, which, he says, “it is believed, will, in many instances, be more effective in controlling the maniacs than medical treatment.”  The moral management he referred to, though advocated by Pinel and a few others, some of whom were benevolent and intelligent laymen, had not been accepted by physicians as a distinct form of medical treatment.  Few physicians of the period had accepted management of the mind as described and practised by Pinel as being a distinct medical procedure, as having the same value in overcoming mental disorders as the drastic medical remedies which they were accustomed to employ, or as having any exclusive healing power.  This is clearly shown by the case records of the mental department of the New York Hospital which have been preserved since 1817, and of those of Bloomingdale Asylum for some years after its opening in 1821.  It is plainly set forth in Dr. Rush’s book on diseases of the mind, which was first published in