CLAMANT NEED

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 200, 14 July 1936, Page 9

CLAMANT NEED

SANITY—NOT GENIUS

VIEWS OF MENTAL EXPERT.

“I believe that the clamant need of this age is not genius, but sanity. Sanity depends upon health, and health depends upon getting back to Nature. For us that means the advantages of fresh air, sunshine, a healthy diet, exercise and recreation—a full enjoyment of the daytime, followed by sound, refreshing sleep at night.” Tin's was the opinion expressed by Dr. T. Gray. (Director of Alental Hospitals) in an address to the Palmerston North Rotary Club yesterday, when he gave the impressions he had formed through thirty years of work in mental hospitals. He commented that it was a sphere of activity a little off the usual lines, but he never regretted the time given to it, as the years had been full of experience. They had had a good deal of tragedy, quite a lot of humour, and had been highly educative regarding the motives underlying human conduct. FEAR OF UNKNOWN.

Although the incidence of mental disorders or deficiences was important to the community, said Dr. Gray, the average man had a very vague idea of what actually constituted mental deficiency, or how mental hospitals were conducted. The human brain had been well described as the driving wheel of history, and the apex of evolution. ' The perplexity with which man viewed mental disorder was due to misunderstanding. Because of that he feared it, and was conscious of a very unpleasant reaction. His picture of mental hospitals was mainly based on tiie descriptions given of the dismal madhouses of England 100 years ago. The influence of that was felt in legislation, and in the average view that the mentally afflicted were very funny, very foolish or very dangerous, there being an extraordinary idea that these unfortunate. people were placed in institutions ’ for the safety of the remainder of the community. A r isitors to asylums were amazed to find that the patients, were not much different from themselves, although, of course, there were other tilings to be found in such institutions if they were searched for.

Many asylum patients could converse rationally on a variety of topics, and some had a superior intelligence, the speaker added. They enjoyed music and sports. Insanity was merely a term for a set of bodily conditions which impaired the functions of the mind. There was not insanity unless there was a marked deviation from normal standards of conduct. The first thing to do in dealing with mental disorders was to look for the causes, through the agency of illhealtli, child-birth, and the critical periods of life like adolescence. Emotional stress was a,, common-place. Some passed through harrowing experiences without any upsetting of their equilibrium. Others became mentally unbalanced on the slightest provocation. ORIGINS OF TROUBLE.

Without going into the complicated question of eugenical sterilisation, Dr. Gray said heredity had done its part before the child was born. Sprung from a virile, hardy and independent race, enjoying tho benefits of infant welfare measures, aiid excellent social conditions, New Zealand nevertheless had 7290 patients in its mental asylums last year, and 1927 of these were suffering from some form .of congenital mental trouble. The remaining 5303 were born normal, but had broken down under the stress of life. Last year there were 1210 admissions to the asylums, and 53 per cent, of these patients would remain there all their lives.

People in the mental hospitals did not come from some other world. They came from this country and its population, said Dr Gray. Demented incurables were not born for the destiny of the mental hospital, but mental disease was the fate of all who lived long enough for their arteries to become hardened and twisted, with the outwearing of the human nervous system. It was a marvellous piece of machinery designed for the stress of life, but began to “knock” under undue. strains such as were imposed in childhood and adolescence. Some children became solitary and fond of seclusion; and others precocious. Alost of those who suffered these disorders were of the low-pressure type, and with proper safeguarding in the critical period much subsequent, misery might be saved. Were they dealing with the human machine on sound principles ? Dr Gray said he could not help but think that these became less sound when children reached the school age. Examinations dominated their lives far too much. The i)resent system of putting all youngsters “through the mill” was as harmful as it was unscientific.

Not only was the normal and the dull boy placed in appreciable danger, but also the brilliant one. Sometimes a term of a glorious life in the classroom had been followed by years of seclusion in a mental hospital. Alost great ‘ reasoners and thinkers had become such because they understood the principle “give space, give time, give rest ” Intelligence could not be packed into a child. Cramming the pupil did not get very far, and really amounted to a form of sabotage of its most priceless inheritance. It would perhaps not he fantastic to read in the future of positions being offered to boys with the tag “No one with matriculation need apply.” That might sound rank heresy, but it was founded on a clue.

Air AV. E. Winks presided, and tbe speaker was accorded a hearty vote of thanks on the motion of Air T. W. Henderson.

Guests welcomed were Dr. Helen Gray (Scotland), a sister of tlio speaker, Alas J. Murray, Alessrs J. K. Hornblow (chairman of the Palmerston North Hospital Board), and All - J. F. Donovan.