114 WILLIAM M. EDWARDS 



applied to take the place of more active physical exercises in 

 those who arc frail physically. The patients who can do so 

 are allowed to be up a part of each day and are given exercise 

 in the open air whenever the weather will permit. Provision is 

 made for the special treatment of those diseases incident to 

 women alone and for surgical interference in all cases where it 

 seems to be required. Surgical operations are not done to cure 

 insanity but to relieve conditions of the female generative ap- 

 paratus that may be sources of annoyance, irritation or dis- 

 tress to the patient, and such conditions as would be relieved by 

 an operation in the surgical division of an ordinary hospital 

 for women who are not insane. The use of water in various 

 forms is largely employed to tranquilize excited conditions, 

 secure rest and sleep, as it is found by experience that this is 

 in many cases equally or more effective than drugs and cer- 

 tainly less objectionable in its after effects. The wet sheet 

 pack, properly applied under the supervision of a physician 

 and in the hands of a skilled nurse, is useful in restraining rest- 

 less, uneasy patients who might otherwise exhaust themselves. 

 Electricity is employed to a considerable extent, the static 

 form having preference. In some cases it undoubtedly does 

 good and in others it is valuable as a means of suggestion. 

 Food is prepared in a special diet kitchen, and there is not the 

 slightest restraint upon the physician in charge in the matter 

 of supplying any article of diet prepared in any way that in his 

 judgment may contribute to the comfort or welfare of his 

 patients. The hospitals are used by the physicans and super- 

 intendent of nurses as placed for demonstration to the mem- 

 bers of the training school of the methods of care and treat- 

 ment of cases. Many patients recover after a residence in the 

 hospital building only, and go home without having resided at 

 all upon a general ward of the institution. Others, as their 

 cases are shown to be of the chronic or incurable type, are 

 transferred to the wards or colony and placed among patients 

 whose conditions are similar to their own. At rare intervals, a 

 periodical case of the maniacal type becomes so violent and 

 noisy at this hospital building that she is transferred to a ward 

 intended in the original construction of the institution for the 

 care of this type. 



