The after care of the insane : a history of its development and a discussion of its nature and value as an agency in the prevention of mental disorders, together with a plan for its practical application in Connnecticut and other chosen fields / by Clifford W. Beers.

  • Beers, Clifford Whittingham, 1876-1943.
Date:
[1909], ©1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The after care of the insane : a history of its development and a discussion of its nature and value as an agency in the prevention of mental disorders, together with a plan for its practical application in Connnecticut and other chosen fields / by Clifford W. Beers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    guests a certain number of mental convalescents, who may desire to spend some pleasant hours in the institution where they lived for a season. Their children are welcomed, husbands often accompanying their wives. They are hospitably entertained and attend chapel service, walk in the grounds, etc. In the year 1891, fifteen hundred and four persons, men, women and children, were received as Sunday guests into the home. Third. Assistance is also rendered to mental convalescents by visits to them in their own homes, especially in cases where occupation, illness, or other causes prevent them from coming to headquarters. The number of such domiciliary visits paid in that year was 646. It is interesting to note that as a result of the aforementioned private demonstration of the value of After-Care, the French Government in 1892 undertook the task of forming societies de patronage (aid societies) for the discharged recovered insane throughout the country. The office of these Societies is to aid convalescent or recov- ered patients by the following means: Gifts of money, clothing, and tools (this assistance to be given weekly, monthly, or quarterly) ; re- demption of articles in pawn; payment of rent; admission to conva- lescent homes in cottages intermediate between confinement and com- plete freedom, or in hospitals or homes of refuge; finding situations for them in workshops, business houses, on farms, etc.; and, finally, their temporary supervision in whatever place they are employed. The After-Care society formed in England in 1871 was called the Guild of Friends of the Infirm in Mind, and had for its objects: 1. Intercessory prayer. 2. Visits to friendless patients in asylums in conformity with the regulations of the establishment. 3. Correspondence by post. 4. Seeking situations for convalescents. 5. Promoting convalescent homes for temporary rest after mental illness. 6. Maintaining friendly intercourse with discharged patients. 7. Recommending efficient attendants. 8. Furthering in any other way the interests of the infirm in mind. No practical work in After Care, however, was done in England until 1886. Working associates were then appointed, of whom there are twenty, for the purpose of finding suitable homes for con- valescents and visiting and reporting upon their temporary inmates. They also follow them up either to the poorhouses to which they have been discharged or to their own homes. Homes have been found where convalescents have been boarded out, the patients' oversight being entrusted to some lady in the neighborhood, and the homes are inspected before any case is sent, and afterwards by a voluntary in-