"My proposition, then, is this-that we ought to classify all the varieties of Insanity to use a botanical term, in their natural orders or families; or, to use a phrase more familiar to the Physician’s er, that we should group them in accordance with the “natural history” or each. Now, I observe, in starting, that wherever we have a very “distinct” natural history of any form of Insanity, we at present always refer it to its natural order, without reference to the character of the mental disorder. All our Epileptics are classified “as such”, whether they are demented or Monomaniacs, or subject to paroroxyms of Acute Mania. It is Insanity with epilepsy. “Puerperal Mania” forms a distinct group whether the patient is maniacal, suicidal, or melancholic. “General Paralysis” afford another group, and none of us ever think of referring a General Paralytic to any other group than that of the natural family to which he belongs, whether is maniacal a man of exalted wealth and rank, a melancholic, or a dement. Is it not possible to extend the same rational and practical method of classification to all the other varieties of Insanity? I do think it can be done, at least to a very great extent; and I do think that this is, in the present state of our knowledge, the only rational and really practical basis of classification."