Mental Illness
The evidence so far placed before the Royal Commi,,sion on the Law relating to Mental Illness includes a proposal from the Ministry of Health to reduce the responsibility of Justices of the Peace for making orders based on a medical certificate for committal to mental hospitals. The new procedure would be for committal by a ' duly authorised officer' of a local health authority, to be extended on medical recommendation for periods of six or twelve months (whereas up till now the maximum period was fourteen days). The reason given for the proposed change is that it would abolish the stigma attaching to committal by magistrate's order. But surely this is rather an academic question. The stigma. unfortunately attaches to insanity in itself, not to the various formulae adopted for dealing with it, and no amount of changes in terminology will alter this. Moreover, there are dangers both to doctor and patient involved in increasing the medical responsibility. The extension of a kind of droit administratif in a matter so closely connected with the liberty of the subject is a dangerous precedent, and there is much to be said for an outside opinion being given at some stage in the proceedings. As to the ques- tion of stigma, it will not be removed until the public realises that, as was made clear in articles recently published in the Spectator by a distinguished psychiatrist, mental diseases often have physical causes, and that many of them can be cured like other types of illness. It is with this rather than with empty phrases that the Royal Commission should concern itself. It makes no difference whether an asylum is called a ' mental hospital ' or a ' madhouse.' The important thing is to empty it.
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