268 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTIONS. 
inmates. To restrict the signature of certificates to an official 
class is to take diseases of the brain out of the ordinary category 
of human ailments, and, as it seems to me, to move altogether ina 
backward direction. 
A large number of lunacy certificates—those dealing with per- 
sons wandering at large, and not under proper care and control— 
must,.as a matter of necessity, be signed by practitioners hold- 
ing official positions as Surgeons to the Police or Gaols, an 
Government Medical Officers for the district ; and this is especially 
the case in this Colony, wherea considerable part of the population 
have no settled homes. As a matter of fact, out of the 944 
medical certificates which passed through my hand in 1882, con- 
siderably more than one half were signed by officials ; but the 
ordinary medical attendant, where there is one, is most undoubtedly 
ys ae 
simplest form, he says “if a man states that he is worth a large 
sum of money, and talks of his mansions and gardens, we ©? . 
d this as evidence of insanity until we have discovered 
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