ABSTRACT
No point is more clearly established in the history of insanity than this, that the facility of cure and the proportion of recoveries bear a distinct ratio to the shortness of time that has elapsed from the origin of the complaint to the commencement of treatment. If the interval be brief, the probability of cure is great. 12
The early hours, almost minutes, of an attack of mental disease are often of the highest moment to the issue. While friends are faltering in their resolution to take so grave a step as placing a man or woman under certificate, the chances of cure are slipping away. The first effort should be to treat the case, not to talk and write about it. Imagine the consequences of waiting to obtain a parcel of legal documents before you began to treat a man for apoplexy. At such a moment it is impossible to introduce practitioners even singly, into the presence of a patient and expose him to their interrogatories without the danger of irritation, and perhaps permanent injury.16
