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1. American Retrospect

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2018

Abstract

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Type
Part III.—Psychological Retrospect
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1885 

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References

* Paper read at the Quarterly Meeting of the Medico-Psychological Association, held at Bethlem Hospital, Feb. 13, 1885.Google Scholar

It was stated by an American physician, Dr. Dana, two years ago, that the condition of the insane in some of the Southern States “is particularly distressing; “ and that in South Carolina hardly one-third can be cared for in the single State Hospital there. The asylum in Texas holds only one-fifth of the State insane. “The importunities of the few Medical Superintendents in the South show how negligent these States are.” He asserts that the condition of the non-asylum insane in the Southern and Western Sates has little altered from what it was 10 years ago. “They are miserably kept in jails, almshouses, and on poor farms, &c.” Google Scholar

* Also restraint by “personal attendance only,” 1444. Google Scholar

Or as the immoral Scotch proverb expresses it, “A travelled man hath leave to lie.” Google Scholar

* Dr. Baker and myself visited ten of the United States asylums together. Including those in Canada I inspected forty. Google Scholar

* Vol. ix, No. 2, April, 1852. Google Scholar

* It is said that 90 per cent, of the insane in this category are incurable. Google Scholar

So called from Dr. Willard. It is at Ovid, N.Y. Google Scholar

* Last year it cost the counties lld. more a week per head than they received from the State, without allowing for the investment in buildings and land. It is stated that the salaries of attendants are much the same in County and in State asylums. The totul cost of chronic insane per head per week in the latter is exactly 3.89½ dollars, while in the County asylums it is only 172. Google Scholar

* It was originally intended to build the now Worcester Asylum (Mass.) in detached buildings, to the same extent as at Whittinghain (Lancashire), but the intention was abandoned. Google Scholar

* Including the coloured population, among whom the ratio of insane is as 1 to 1,097. As is well known, idiocy rather than insanity occurs among the negroes. Google Scholar

* These figures are given by Dr. Foster Pratt in a Paper read before the American Public Health Association in 1883, and are based on the last Census. Of the 91,959 insane, no less than 88,665 are paupers, of whom 22,901 are foreign-born. Google Scholar

At the present time all aliens arriving at any port in the United States must pay a tax of 50 cents, which goes towards the expenses incurred on the arrival of distressed immigrants, but does not help the interior States to care for them when they become insane. Google Scholar

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