DR. CHARLES FOLLEN FOLSOM. 759 



other trip to Europe on Dr. Folsom's part (in 1875), during which the 

 material was collected which was published as an appendix to the 

 report of the commission. The plan recommended in this report was, 

 as is well known, the building of the great system of the Metropolitan 

 intercepting-sewer for that portion of the city lying on the south side 

 of the Charles River, with pumping stations at Moon Island, discharg- 

 ing on ebb-tide into the bay. Dr. Folsom afterwards appeared before 

 the Joint Committee on Improved Sewerage and presented an elab- 

 orate defence and explanation of this plan, contrasting it with that 

 offered by the Superintendent of Sewers, which he admitted to be 

 cheaper but believed to represent a false economy. The plan advised 

 by the commission was finally adopted, and was carried out, and has 

 proved, in many ways, remarkably successful. The same principle was 

 applied later to the north side. The preliminary investigation had 

 been thorough, the reasoning based on it was convincing, and the con- 

 clusions were conservative and sound. Besides contributing to the 

 able and impressive reports made by this commission and by the State 

 Board of Health, with all their many maps and tables, Dr. Folsom read 

 a paper before the American Statistical Association, in April, 1877, in 

 which the sewage-farm question in particular was discussed, on the 

 basis of a remarkable amount of knowledge and of judgment. Other 

 communications on this and kindred subjects had appeared in the 

 Boston Medical and Surgical Journal in the form of letters written 

 during his trip abroad. 



As soon as the work of the board with reference to water-supply and 

 drainage began to relax, Dr. Folsom turned his attention again to the 

 duties of the State with relation to insanity and to the general question 

 of the treatment of the insane. In 1877 he published the long article on 

 this subject entitled Diseases of the Mind, which was republished in 

 book form. This excellent monograph reviews the history of the treat- 

 ment of insane patients from the earliest times, and describes with 

 accuracy what was being done and what was being planned in all the 

 great institutions of Europe and America. It tells a striking and 

 highly interesting story. The materials for this work had been collected 

 partly during his visit to Europe in 1875, when he had industriously 

 visited asylums and formed the acquaintance of several prominent 

 alienists, especially in England. With him acquaintance was more 

 than apt to ripen into friendship, and such was the case as regards his 

 relationship to Dr. T. S. Clouston of Edinburgh, perhaps the leading 

 alienist of Great Britain at that day, and a man of warm and fine per- 

 sonal qualities which attracted Dr. Folsom strongly. The friendship 

 between them was strengthened by subsequent visits to Edinburgh on 



