Need of more state hospitals for the insane / by J. Allen Jackson.

  • Jackson, J. Allen.
Date:
[1914], ©1914
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Need of more state hospitals for the insane / by J. Allen Jackson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    Reprinted from the New York Medieql,JLam*tal' ful '^ ^ \ - No2-ember 21, 1914/ \ ^ 1^ 'r^\ ^' \ ;eed of more state the insane. By J. Alli-:n Jackson, M. D., Philadelphia, Chief Resident Physician, Philadelphia Hospital for the Insane. Critical periods in the care of the insane in Penn- sylvania are not uncommon in history. The old adage, history repeats itself, is shown in the study of the subject. Problems of overcrowding are as serious today, as was the inhuman treatment of the insane before the days of Dorothy Dix. Bru- tality, lack of food and clothing, are not tolerated in Pennsylvania; overcrowding and lack of accom- modations, however, have become within recent years, subjects of great gravity, most marked in the southeastern and southwestern hospital dis- tricts. A study of conditions in the southeastern dis- trict, shows that the State Hospital at Norristown and the Philadelphia.Hospital for the Insane care for the insane of five counties; moreover, these in- stitutions, although originally designed to house 3,900 inmates, now house 4,900. The annual in- crease in those institutions averages 300 patients and the annual admissions exceed 1,700 patients. This necessitates that fifty per cent, of these ad- missions must be actually under treatment in al- ready overcrowded institutions. As the result of the increase in admissions during the year 1913, conditions became so alarming in one of these in- stitutions, that for the safety of the inmates already confined, its doors were closed. The fact that the Philadelphia Hospital for the Insane is not fire- proof ; that hallways are used for bedrooms and dining rooms; that there is marked congestion in the refractory and unclean sections, with small Copyright, 1914, by A. R. Elliott Publishing Company.