MENTAL CASES.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16258, 8 July 1918, Page 4

MENTAL CASES.

treatment of hetubned SOLDIERS. At a general meeting of the Wellington Returned Soldiers' Association held on Thursday, the treatment of mental cases was discussed. It was asserted by one speaker that two soldiers, at least, had been sent out to Porirua, and discharged the next day because their condition did not warrant their detention. _ Mr J. I. Fox said he advocated the establishment of State farms for neurasthenic cases and for certain mental patients. If it was found necessary to put returned soldiers into the various asylums thero should at least be a separate ward. Mr C. Gough addressed the meeting in very heated terms, asserting that it was unfair to put returned soldiers in an institution with hereditary lunatics, or. lunatics who were such because of drunkenness or some carelessness of their own. Returned soldiers deserred special treatment in some separate institutions or on a fr.rm. He hoped that the Association would support him in his endeavours, and, in order to bring the matter emphatically before the public, ho would move: "That this meeting of the Wellington Returned Soldiers' Association view with alarm the increasing number of suicides, deaths, and Court cases dealing with returned soldiers, and it urges tne Government to establish a State farm where mental, neurasthenic, ond shcfl-shock soldiers tan be accommodated and cared for under healthy environment."

Mr Badger reminded the meeting that, there were s'even distinct forms of lunacy, and even if a separate institution were provided it would have to be cut up into seven distinct wards. It was not practicable to house different cases of lunacy in a single ward. Mr D. A. Higgie said he was given to understand definitely that no man was placed in a mental hospital unless the signs of mental disorder were very pronounced. The Karitano Home was open to reseivo all cases where there was a possible chonce of recovery. He moved: "That this meeting is in full accord with the decisions of the Auckland conference regarding the treatment of mental, neurasthenic, and shellshock cases."

The chairman (Mr J. D. Harper) stated that the conference had before it .the report of a medical man who had made a complete study of mental cases. He held that that decision of the conference was a wise one.

The amendment moved by Mr Higgie was carried by a largo majority.