DR. CHARLES FOLLEN FOLSOM. 7G3 



and Dr. S. G. Webber had been the first physicians. This ward 

 had been devoted partly to nervous and partly to renal diseases, but 

 even thus it was the first neurological ward to be established in Boston, 

 and would stand, if it still existed, as the only department in a public 

 institution of this city, with the exception of the Long Island Hospital, 

 where disorders of the nervous system could be systematically and 

 adequately taught and studied under expert supervision. In the year 

 following Dr. Folsom's appointment this ward was given over, to the 

 great sorrow of onlooking neurologists, to the general purposes of 

 the hospital. At the same time Dr. Folsom became a member of the 

 regular visiting staff, and at about the same period made a strong and 

 indeed successful effort to change the character of his private and 

 consulting practice to that of an "internist" or general practitioner. 



In 1882 Dr. Folsom was appointed consulting physician to the 

 Adams Nervine Asylum. 



In 1886, while still especially interested in nervous diseases, he 

 delivered six lectures on school hygiene,* one of which, "On the Rela- 

 tion of our Public Schools to the Disorders of the Nervous System," 

 was reprinted for distribution. This sort of task, in which his two- 

 fold instincts and training, as a hygienist and as a neurologist, were to 

 be enlisted in the practical service of a concrete set of public needs, 

 was a congenial one to him and was always well performed. 



In the next year (1887) he took part in the discussion of another 

 topic of public interest, namely, whether the State should establish a 

 hospital for dipsomaniacs. To this plan he was opposed. 



This is perhaps the proper place to mention that Dr. Folsom had 

 been warmly interested for many years in the question of the proper 

 treatment of prostitution. He studied this subject diligently, at home 

 and abroad, and wrote his views upon it at length to Mr. Gannett. 

 Unfortunately he did not publish them, and it would perhaps be unjust 

 to consider them as final. They are, however, of interest as an ex- 

 ample of his habitual generosity of sentiment. Like the majority of 

 cultivated men, and especially those who have labored practically in 

 the harness of organized progress, Dr. Folsom was conservative and 

 inclined to see two sides to every proposition. On the other hand, he 

 was by inheritance and by temperament a reformer, a hater of injustice, 

 of oppression, and of immorality. These sometimes conflicting tend- 

 encies were all drawn upon in his studies into the question of prosti- 

 tution. Whatever is to be said of the varied influences and motives 



* Given before the teachers in the public schools, under the auspices of 

 the Massachusetts Emergency and Hygiene Association. 



