Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891
Various
Science -- Periodicals
Detached group No. 2 is intended for 185 men of the chronic insane
class, who require more than ordinary care and observation. Detached
group No. 3 is composed of two-story buildings for 322 women. It has
several large work-shops. Occupation is one of the main reliances of the
planners of the institution as a part of the treatment there.
Detached group No. 4 is designed for both men and women, and will
accommodate 150. A wholly different classification is here provided for,
the actively industrious classes being intended for this group. Those
who are able to do outdoor work, and for whom some diverting employment
will be beneficial in making them contented and physically healthy, will
live here. There is complete separation of day rooms, but the two sexes
will dine together in an associate hall.
An amusement hall to harmonize with the central group, and to be built
adjacent to it, is planned, and will be built this year if the
appropriation will permit. It is a valuable and necessary adjunct to the
other provisions for the care of a population of 1,500. Accommodations
for entertainments, chapel exercises, dancing and a bathing
establishment are included in the plans in a way that gives great
results with great economy of construction.
Probably the feature in the scheme of the St. Lawrence State Hospital of
the greatest popular and professional interest is Dr. Wise's plan to
have there an Americanized and improved Gheel. The original Gheel in
Belgium is a colony where for many years lunatics have been sent for
domiciliary care. Its inhabitants, mostly of the peasant class, have
grown accustomed to the presence and care of patients with disordered
minds. The system is the outgrowth of a superstition founded in the
presumed miraculous cure of a lunatic whose reason was restored by the
shock of the sight of the killing of a beautiful girl by her pursuing
father, whose fury had been roused by her choice of a husband. A
monument to this unfortunate graces Gheel, and as St. Dymphna she is
supposed to be in benign control of the lunatic-sheltering colony. Some
of the features of the Gheel system of care are also distinctively known
as the Scotch system. There the placing of patients in family care is
common. Massachusetts has also adopted it to a considerable extent. But
there are many objections to family care in isolated domiciles, as
practiced in Massachusetts. Special medical attention and official
visits are made expensive and inconvenient. Dr. Wise plans to get all
the advantages of such a mode of life for patients whose condition
retrogrades under institutional influence. Not the least of these
advantages is that of economy in relieving the State from the per capita
cost of construction for at least one-fourth of the insane of the
district. He would utilize the families in the settlement which always
grows up in the vicinity of a large hospital. It is composed of the
households of employes, many of which are the result of marriages among
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