RETURNED SOLDIERS.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16143, 22 February 1918, Page 7

RETURNED SOLDIERS.

TREATMENT OF MENTAL CASES. The treatment of mental casus amongst returned soldiers has proved a difficult problem for medical authorities in this and other countries. Tho Mental Hospital Department report as follows in respect to tho treatment of these cases in New Zealand: From the beginning of the war until January 31st, 1918, there have been received from the Expeditionary Force 44 patients requiring treatment in mental hospitals. Of this number 15 been discharged, and 29 aro in the institutions at present. As a matter of fact, all these men have not been sent direct to the mental hospitals. For the past eighteen months +he policy has been to send returned soldiers suffering from shell shock to special homes —the Ivaritane Home in tne South Island, and the Wolfe Home near Auckland. No neurasthenic or shell-shock cases are sent to the mental hospitals. The cases are selected with the utmost care by an expert who meets every transport bringing men back to this country. There ore cases which do not come within the category of neurasthenia or shell shock, and which would not benefit from tho treatment which could be given them at the homes—men who would be a danger to themselves if sent there, and a source of irritation to the oth«r patients. In the interests of tho men themselves, and in accordance with the law, they are forwarded to the mental hospitals for treatment. There they are not subject to unnecessary restraint, not even so much restraint as would be necessary if they were in rest homes. On the contrary, in the larger homes it is possible to give them a degree of freedom that would be impossible in institutions of another character. Such patients, when they are placed in mental hospitals, are treated-in the best parts of the institution, and they receive the greatest amount of care compatible with their safety. It will, of course, be understood_ that many of these cases are insanity cases pure and simple, bearing no relation to shell shock, and they are cases which in the natural course of events would have come into the mental hospitals. It is possible that the stress of war and the change of environment have been accelerating causes. From year to year there are a certain number of cases of insanity occurring in men of military age, who, a's far as general health is* concerned, would easily pass the medical test required for military service. It is worth remark (says the Wellington "Post") that since the war began 45 soldiers have been received into the mental hospitals from the camps, as against 44 returned soldiers. There are at present remaining in the institutions 23 soldiers from the camps, and 27 returned soldiers. There is a law of averages for the occurrences of cases of insanit3*, and this law operates whether the country is at war or not. In accordance with the law there will be the usual percentage Qf cases among the soldiers going on active service.