50 THE CARE AND TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 



tilic and inhumane legal distinction between acute and 

 chronic insanity. It also provided for building a suf- 

 ficient number of small detached buildings, in connection 

 with existing institutions, to accommodate all of the 

 insane then in the poor houses of the State. The cost of 

 these buildings was limited to $550 per capita, including 

 furniture. Strange as it may seem, these features of the 

 bill were the ones which received the most criticism and 

 arguments were advanced on every side to show the sup- 

 posed injurious effect of "herding," as it was called, 

 the acute and chronic insane in the same institutions. 

 These arguments appealed to many, for it is a common 

 belief that association with the insane acts unfavorably 

 upon recent cases and especially upon those who are 

 just on the border line. This supposition, however, is 

 entirely unwarranted, for experience teaches that the 

 contrary is true and that the jadicioas mingling of the 

 curable and incurable may even be beneficial if we have 

 facilities for proper classification and are able to separate 

 the excited and untidy from those who are quiet and 

 neat in their habits. New patients frequently become 

 interested in the delusions of their fellow patients and in 

 that way take the first step towards forgetting their own. 

 The chronic patients are helpful in assisting the newly 

 admitted ones in becoming acquainted with their new 

 surroundings, and teaching them by the force of example 

 that they must be guided by " the strict, though sympa- 

 thetic spirit of order" which pervades all well-managed 

 institutions, rather than by the dictates of their own 

 morbid wills. The chronic cases are also benefited in 

 turn by the presence of the newly admitted ones fresh 

 from the bustle of the outside world, and the frequent 

 discharge of those who have been cared keeps hope alive 

 in the breasts of those who remain. Until advanced 

 dementia supervenes nearly every patient believes that 

 his chances for recovery are good, and he never grows 



