MENTAL CASES.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 242, 12 October 1929, Page 18

MENTAL CASES.

NEW IDEAS \H TREATMENT. SOME SOUTHERN INSTITUTIONS PLEASANT SURROUNDINGS. (By EDITH SEARLE GROSSMANN, M.A.) It is encouraging to learn of the important reforms that are being made in New Zealand mental institutions and in the general treatment of mental patients. In the South Island there sire Otekaike and Templeton for adult defectives, the model private home at Ashburton Hall, and the "half-way houee" at Hornby. The work of Sir Iruby King at Seacliffe, in Otago, was begun 1011"° ago. Sunnyside, the big mental hospital which is' only a few miles out of Christehurch, dates back to the 'seventies of last century, yet one of its earliest (if not the first) superintendents introduced into it many improvements and reforms in accordance with the new principles and ideas of treatment Dickens did so much to introduce from America. This superintendent was a brother of Mr. S. Huret Scager. New Zealand's most distiii'Hiished architect. Among other improvements ho fitted up a large hall in the old asylum as a place of entertainment, with a theatre stage at one end and dressing rooms, and he got it supplied with theatrical scenery and dresses. It was this last circumstance which .occasioned my. first visit to Sunnysido when I was a young. girl e.tudent in the early 'eighties. The students of Canterbury College produced the play of "Much Ado About Nothing" before the public of Christchureh, and the Prince's part was allotted to Mr. Hurst Seager, who borrowed all our theatre costumes and scenes from Sunnyside. In return for this loan the student.actors went jn a trottpe to Sunnyside and there repeated the performance of the play for .the benefit of the patients. Mr. Seager also got up dances, to which the patients and also their friends were invited. At the opposite end to the hall stage he had a good organ set up arid ,, had concert performances as well as plays given in the hall—as they are still given to this day.

Improvement in Surroundings. The Suiinyside of that time was a collection of low turrets and towers, picturesque enough among the groups of trees. But the interior consisted of narrow passages, dormitories and cells, either stuffy or draughty. This old part was undergoing a process of renovating and alterations, when, through the'eourteey of the present superintendent, I was shown all over it. A considerable part of the building is new and is built in accordance with the latest ideas of architecture suitable for such institutions. In the old building, the long, straight, narrow passages, badly lighted, led into dining rooms as bare as empty shearing sheds. The new halls ' are pleasant places, large, light and airy, and of various shapes, round, oval or square. Besides the dining halls there are sitting rooms, simply furnished, but with comfortable armchairs or lounges, or with cushioned benches. (We must remember how many mental patients are enfeebled in body, how many are old.) The bare aspect of the room is relieved by a large hanging vase or bowl of ferns, and the pretty windows open on to views of trees, hedges and lawnS; • The dormitories, if bare and of necessity monotonous with their long •row of. white beds, have nothing .repulsive about them to the eyes, of the poor suffering mortals who must sleep there. '»There is also a small number of separate rooms, each furnished as an ordinary comfortable bedroom.. The enclosed courtyard, in which are to be found some .of the "worst cases," is grass grown and surrounds a rock grotto. Near the gate- of the Is "The Receiving House,". where milder 'cases are put, enjoying a considerable share of liberty, visits and excursions outside, etc. The influence of pleasant and healthy 'surroundings is never felt more-keenly than when one is .isolated, and. to a large extent, unoccupied,' and in turning the old asylum into a real "mental hospital" the environment comes next to the personal influence of doctor and nurse. ;

Once a -year a number of patients'are taken to the seaside. I found Sunnyside in general very busy with preparations for a week or fortnight's holichiy in South Brighton—cook ing and cut : ting up loaves and provisions were going on cheerfully. Of course, there are patients who cannot take part in these trips,;-, but a considerable number were goiiig- . . , ;.; ' ~.;;.; Farm Institution and Half-way Hduse." .■Further out from the-city than Sunny-. side is the Vfarm institution of Templetori... .This is meant for feeble-minded men who-afe neither imbecile nor insane. All the cultivation is done by patients, most of whom spend the whole day in the open air. A few, however, were busy indoors with the cooking and' other work. Altogether there are 48 patients here. The building is very plain, but pleasant enough. In tho dining room, instead of one long table, there are a number of hiriged tables of polished rimu or of oak, as in a restaurant pr pension, and there are horse-hair ; paddtd benches or lounges. of light and air makes this'room.'ch'eerful; indeed, the larger part of;the sides , is\of- ; slidjng glass panels. There are four dormitories, each with twelve beds. TheEev. Jasper Calder.has by now,:so well accustomed us to the project of < a house for curable and doubtful^cases of mental affliction, that a special interest attaches to , the experiment at Hornby, where an institution is established,for. curable patients or , thoje persons who, are temporarily unfit to* cope with the world, but'.who ar& neither insane n6r defective. Curing is actually carried out at Hornby, where a number of patients recover and' are sent back to their homes. ■' ' ::

The situation lias been admirably chosen, though Auckland could easily supply one yet more beautiful somewhere on one of its many shores and islands. The Hornby Home . stands healthy and fresh ,on the great expanse ofthe Canterbury Plains, with the horizon bounded only by the Alps. Only those who know these plains.can q.uite appreciate the pure air, the exhilaration, the soothing charm, the "homeliness" of home in that -wide solitude; swept by great winds and lit by sunshine from' , unclouded skies. Both women and men are received here in a beautiful modernI house that might be a first-class pen l sion or a pleasant country house.' The building stands in a garden with full-, grown trees, whose widespread branches sl' ow they date back to,old colonial ' ™ f m TV Aml tl,ere are garden beds full ' ore]-mlT S a \ Kl J saw (in January) orchard trees laden with peaches and

early apples. Amidst trees and grass arc cool gleaming jyaters, the swim,'ming pool and a pond with water lilies on its surface and rushes standing round I the sides. There is a great : variety of flowering shrubs and plants, many of them natives of New Zealand. On the lawn under the shade of a widespreading pinus insignia 1 saw a group of six women . patients .sitting Avitli a nurse among tliem near a tea table. They had just finished afternoon tea and now were knitting or reading. The building is full of light and air and spotlessly clean, with tiled floors at the entrance and carpeted staircase, with a drawing room and with bedrooms such as one finds in a comfortable country home. Many long windows stood open on to views of masses of flowers and foliage —and in the far distance the overtopping blue ranges. In the gardens the patients are free, except that a nurse accompanies them and that they walk about' in groups. Every morning they take a walk and on Sundays each may go to her own church. [We think it only fair to add that the general policy of making surroundings more pleasant and cheerful for patients, which Mrs. Grossmann describes, has been put in operation at the Auckland Mental Hospital. There are attached to this institution an observation home and a convalescent home for women. —Ed.] ■ .'■