This study deals with civil aspects of legislation for the mentally ill, and particularly with the historically changing form of civil commitment procedures. Its main theme is the role of the broad political shift towards social interventionism in the early and mid-twentieth century in undermining formal legal safeguards designed to protect patients' civil liberties. The work is not narrowly legal in character; rather, it treats historical material on the emergence of legislation from a sociological perspective. The book spans the period from 1877 to 1983.