PROVISION FOR THE INSANE iii 



after it was opened, when it was finished in nearly every detail, 

 inside and out, approximately two thousand dollars for each 

 bed. This institution is designed as two separate departments, 

 a hospital and an asylum. The hospital receives all the new 

 cases and in its wards are also treated the acute bodily sick and 

 the old and infirm cases. As patients are seen not to require 

 special observation or treatment they are sent to the asylum 

 wards and many cases of short duration are discharged after 

 hospital treatment only. Among the features is the arrange- 

 ment for the admission of patients. At the entrance of the 

 hospital building are suites of reception rooms for each sex. 

 First a small room furnished as a medical consulting room 

 where each patient on his arrival is received by a medical officer 

 and where every convenience is provided for taking notes of 

 such information as can be furnished by those who accompany 

 the patient as to the nature and history of the case. After the 

 interview with the medical officer the patient is taken into an 

 adjoining room to be bathed, and makes the acquaintance of the 

 nurses and attendants before seeing any of the other patients 

 or any thing especially of an asylum character. After the bath 

 the patient then goes to the next which is a bed room, is put 

 comfortably to bed and is given a careful examination by the 

 medical officer who gives such directions as to the future treat- 

 ment as seems most desirable. This arrangement has a double 

 object in that it gives opportunity to the medical officer to 

 make a complete examination of each patient immediately 

 after his arrival and it also impresses upon the patient from 

 the first a feeling that he will be kindly and skillfully treated ; 

 and it avoids the unfavorable impressions made by the en- 

 trance at once into a large ward. Consideration shown to the 

 patient in this first stage has its desirable effect upon the minds 

 of the nurses and attendants and helps to give a desirable tone 

 at all times to their mode of dealing with patients. Women 

 are employed as nurses in the wards for sick men. Each 

 ward is during the day under the charge of a specially trained 

 nurse and three women attendants, and the care of the sick 

 men is thus assimilated to that of a general hospital. The 

 presence of these nurses has a good and humanizing influence, 



