314 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXII. No. 558. 



clinic has been given in a consular report by 

 Mr, Mason/ the American consul general in 

 Berlin, and as a book containing detailed 

 plans is soon to be issued by Earth, of Leipzig, 

 only a few points of general interest will be 

 referred to, here and now. The plot of ground 

 on which the clinic stands was given by the 

 city of Munich and is within a stone's throw 

 of the other buildings which form the medical 

 department of the university. The hospital 

 building, which has accommodations for one 

 hundred and ten bed patients, affords no evi- 

 dence of money wasted in unnecessary archi- 

 tectural adornment, and yet is in excellent 

 taste. The ground plan exhibits a central 

 building and two L-shaped wings enclosing a 

 small garden, at the back of which are the 

 kitchens and laundries. In the central build- 

 ing are rooms for the examination of new 

 patients; the out-patient department, or dis- 

 pensary; an amphitheater with seating ca- 

 pacity for two hundred and forty students; 

 a library, where the daily conferences of the 

 staff are held ; rooms for anatomical, patholog- 

 ical and psychological investigations; clinical 

 and chemical laboratories ; a brilliantly lighted 

 room, where patients and specimens may be 

 photographed — a room for photomicrography 

 and apartments for the use of the six resident 

 and two non-resident members of the medical 

 staff. 



In visiting the wards one is impressed with 

 the fact that neither in the general plan, nor 

 in the furnishing, is there anything which 

 serves to recall the old asylum methods of 

 treating patients. 'No form of mechanical 

 restraint is used; even 'canvas jackets' and 

 ' restraint sheets ' are to be found only in the 

 collection of articles which serve to illustrate 

 the old-fashioned methods of treatment and 

 nursing. The remarkable quiet of the pa- 

 tients, in spite of the fact that most of these 

 are in the acute stages of their alienation, is 

 due in large measure to opportunities afforded 

 for keeping them in continuous baths, a form 

 of treatment rendered possible only by the 

 use of specially constructed baths and bath 



^ Daily Consular Reports, No. 2264, May 22, 

 1905, Department of Commerce and Labor, Wash- 

 ino'ton. 



rooms. What follows will give an idea of 

 the care and ingenuity shown in planning 

 the .details of the hospital. The night-nurses 

 in each ward, when not attending patients, sit 

 at a small table at which the light is so 

 shaded that it can not possibly disturb any of 

 the patients. Should the nurse desire, she 

 can at any moment, without moving from her 

 position, turn on one or all of the lights in 

 the ward suddenly, or by means of a current 

 controller, slowly; she can telephone to any 

 member of the medical staff, and can, without 

 leaving her seat, heat water or milk on a 

 small electric stove. The keys to the light, 

 the telephone, the stove, the register, which 

 the nurse touches every half hour, the record- 

 ing dial of which is in the room of the chief 

 physician, are all concealed in niches in the 

 wall, closed by small doors which can be 

 opened only by the nurse's key. 



An important preliminary to the actual 

 treatment of patients is the ease with which 

 new cases are admitted to the institution. In 

 many instances patients are brought at their 

 own request to the clinic or are sent to the 

 wards directly froin the out-patient depart- 

 ment. Those who are dangerous either to 

 themselves or the community and refuse to 

 be detained may be held by the director of 

 the clinic until sufficient time has elapsed to 

 observe the case carefully, and then, if the 

 patients still demurs to confinement, an appeal 

 may be made to a justice, who at once appoints 

 a committee of three to report upon the condi- 

 tion of the patient and the validity of the 

 demurer. 



Ample provision has been made for the 

 teaching of students. In the out-patient de- 

 partment there are abundant facilities for the 

 demonstration of the cases to small classes of 

 students, while in the amphitheater every pos- 

 sible opportunity is afforded for the substitu- 

 tion of demonstration and object lessons for 

 didactic lectures. Should it be necessary 

 during a lecture to use the magic lantern, 

 projection apparatus, epidiascope, or even the 

 kinematograph, the brilliantly lighted room 

 may be darkened by pressing a button, which 

 starts an electric apparatus that lowers and 

 raises heavy black curtains. The space de- 



