There can be no doubt that medical men are constantly making mistakes in regard to the period for which the documents required to admit a patient to an asylum hold good. This partly arises from the carelessness of members of the medical profession, and partly from the same quality in the draughtsman of the last Lunacy Act—one which is credited with having caused more mistakes and confusion than perhaps any other Act of Parliament. In fact, it is found that two men of equal knowledge and capacity read clauses of this mischievous Act in precisely opposite senses in consequence of the blundering way in which they are worded.
