NOVEL EXPERIMENT IN DENMARK.

Northern Advocate, 11 January 1912, Page 3

NOVEL EXPERIMENT IN DENMARK.

Considerable, interest attaches to the experiment regarding the treatment of the mentally afflicted which is being carried out by the Danish Government, under the superintendence of Professor Kellers, the well-known psychological expert. About eighteen months ago the Government acquired the island of Llyoe, which is situated in Limfiorden, and is about a thousand acres in extent, of which about a hundred acre? are well wooded, the oak tree predominating. Professor Kellers has for some time been a persistent advocate of the out-of-door treatment of lunacy. His chief contention is that fresh air tones up the nervous system, while the varied natural objects are calculated to arrest the attention of the patients and dissipate the more distressing symptoms of monomania oft-times prevalent. The authorities, however, preferred to effect a compromise, relegating to the new sanatorium many of the criminal lunatics hitherto held in practically solitary durance. A peculiarity of the system is that under vie comprehensive classification adopted t-y the authorities men of the more degenerate class, both as regards crime and vice, are regarded as 'mentally unfit, and are removed to Llyoe for treatment. The method of "cure" of confirmed laziness is somewhat Spartuj. Either the mer. must settle down to regular habits of work—chiefly of a rural character—or the "resc-cure" is pushed home to its logical result— they are forced to lie in bed for terms varying from a day to three or four days. By that time the anuui becomes simply unbearable, and the men tare glad to escape from the torture of sheer inactivity.