Mental diseases: a public health problemMay, James Vance
Science
Mental diseases: a public health problem
May, James Vance
Mental health services; Psychology, Pathological
At last there is some evidence of progress in the teaching of
psychiatry in medical schools, hospitals and clinics, although only
a beginning has been made as yet. More noteworthy advances have been
made in other countries. The appointment of Heinroth as a professor
of psychiatry at Leipsic in 1811 promised developments which did
not materialize to any great extent for many years. According to
Sibbald,[33] psychiatric wards or clinics were established at Würzburg
in 1833, Jena in 1848, Vienna in 1853, Berlin in 1865 and at Göttingen
in 1866. Scholz made provision for observation wards in a general
hospital in Bremen in 1875. Fürstner opened a psychiatric clinic at
Heidelberg in 1878. Hitzig accomplished the same thing at Halle in 1891
and Siemerling at Kiel in 1901. The inception of the modern psychiatric
clinic has generally been attributed to Griesinger.[34] In his preface
to volume one of the "Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten"
in 1868 he advocated the establishment of small hospitals in cities
for the intensive treatment of acute and recoverable mental cases. He
recommended a large staff of physicians and accommodation for from
sixty to eighty patients, according to the needs of the community, but
not to exceed one hundred and fifty under any circumstances. "In close
connection with the organization of such institutions there is a crying
need and a new, most important interest—the question of psychiatrical
instruction. This is absolutely indispensable." This he proposed to
accomplish by establishing a highly specialized clinic to be maintained
largely by the teaching staff of a university. Griesinger's ideas
were eventually carried out in full by Ziehen in Berlin, Sommer in
Giessen and Bleuler in Zurich. Perhaps nothing has had more to do with
the development of psychopathic hospitals in the United States than
the well-known clinic established by Kraepelin at Munich in 1905. It
occupies a three-story building accommodating one hundred patients and
cares for between fifteen hundred and two thousand cases annually.
Hydrotherapeutic and electrical treatments are used extensively.
A certain number of beds are reserved for research purposes.
Psychological studies receive a great deal of attention. The
out-patient department is a prominent feature. The teaching of
psychiatry is one of the important purposes of the clinic. Kraepelin's
methods have been followed rather closely here. The remarks made by
Pliny Earle[35] in 1867 were almost prophetic in character. "Carbon
agglomerated is charcoal, carbon crystallized is diamond. What charcoal
is to the diamond, such, I believe, is the psychopathic hospital of
the present compared with the psychopathic hospital of the future....
When the defects which I have mentioned shall have been thoroughly
remedied by a comprehensive curriculum, a complete organization, a
perfect systematization, an efficient administration, the charcoal now
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