The plan of bringing all lunatics and all so-called 'nervous' patients, whether placed out singly or detained in asylums of any sort under the cognizance and care of the Commission, as enlarged upon in previous pages, would materially augment the labours of the central office; and, in our humble opinion, a greater division of labour than has hitherto marked the proceedings of the Commission would greatly facilitate the work to be done. At present, the members of the Commission perform a threefold function; viz. of inspectors, reporters, and judges. The task of inspecting asylums and their insane inmates, of ascertaining the treatment pursued and examining the hygienic measures provided, is peculiarly one falling within the province of medical men, and should be chiefly performed by medical Commissioners. On the other hand, the business of the Board, in its corporate capacity, is only indirectly and partially medical. Lord Shaftesbury, indeed, goes so far as to say (query 14, Evid. Com.) "that the business transacted at the Board is entirely civil in ninety-nine cases out of one hundred. A purely medical case does not come before us once in twenty Boards." These considerations certainly appear to indicate a natural and necessary division of the Board into a deliberative central body, sitting _en permanence_, once, twice, or oftener in the week, if necessary, and a corps of visitors and reporters to examine the state of asylums and the insane throughout the country. This division of the Commission would obviate the chief objection to an increase of the number of members; viz. that a larger number of Commissioners than at present would render the Board unwieldy, and rather impede than facilitate its business as a deliberative assembly. We entertain, moreover, the opinion that it would be more satisfactory to those who sought instructions, or whose affairs or conduct were in any way the subject of investigation, to have to deal with such a permanent deliberative or judicial body as proposed, than with one combining, like the members of the present Board, the various functions of inspectors, reporters, and judges; a condition, whereby any question agitated must, to a certain extent, be prejudged by the official reports of the very same persons called upon to examine it.