MENTAL PATIENTS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16869, 5 February 1929, Page 8

MENTAL PATIENTS

CARE IN AMERICA VISITING SPECIALIST'S WORK "In America we do not say 'asylum' when referring to places for meiitnl patients. They arc known now as 'hospitals for the insane.' It helps to remove much of the stigma that ust'd to be associated with such institut ions." The speaker was Dr. Frederick Peterson,Of New York, a noted American medical specialist who is visiting New Zealand on a. holiday trip, with which he is incorporating a Study of New Zealand's system of social wlfare, particularly as it "Applies to child welfare and mental defed ives. Dr. Peterson was for many years a member of the Faculty of the Columbia ('Diversity, and is a recognised authority on mental diseases and their treatment. lie was also president of the New Fork State Commission on Lunacy and had, at one time, no fewer than '■'>'> mental hospitals under his immediate authority. lie is accompanied by his wife, who is also keenly interested in the .study of mental I refitments and social conditions generally. She is looking forward with the .same eagerness as her husband to un investigation of New Zealand conditions. . "We know New Zealand best as the liome of Sir Truby King, who is thought very highly of in New York," said Dr, Peterson to an Auckland Hun reporter. "I have heard him speak, and I consider lie is one of the finest men the world has produced. .1 am in deed anxious to study his child welfare methods at close hand. CHILD WELFARE ''l am a specialist in nervous and mental diseases, but, like Sir Truby King, I am fuming my attention to child welfare. The care of the child is the best prevention of such ailments, so one turns naturally to that." Discussing the systems now in operation in the United States, lie said that tremendous interest was being focussed on the work. There were many schools for retarded children, but special classes were also being arranged. These were regarded as being of the utmost importance. After paying a compliment to New Zealand's handling of her mental diseases problem as he knew it. Dr. Peterson observed that sterilisation had been tried in one Stale of America, bu; had been dropped. The proportion of insane and menially defective persons in the United States was about one in 300, but the figures were difficult to determine accurately, /because many old people who were 'not in the least insane preferred to go in Hie evening of Ijfe to the mental hospitals rather than in i! !( . .almshouses. "At one period it was estimated that there were 3000 such people ill the mental hospitals of New York," he said. "They went to the mental hospitals because the treatment there was belter and (hey were better cared for in every way. All the large mental hospitals were tinder the control of the State, he added. Official supervision was exercised also over the private hospitals. Forty years ago the big "asylums" were uninviting barracks, with no books or tlowers for the patients. Today all that was chaiiged,/.'ind much better results were being secured. Dr. and .Mrs. Peterson intend to travel through the North and South islands, afterwards leaving for Sydney from Wellington.