GARDEN CITY FOR THE INSANE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 124, 12 October 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

GARDEN CITY FOR THE INSANE

GERMANY'S NEW TREATMENT OF LUNACY PROBLEM.

July 3 marked another epoch in the history of social work in Germany. For some years past experiments have been made in the hope of breaking with the system of incarcerating lunatics in asylums, and the result is that a town has been built for the sole object of caring for and treating all who are mentally deranged. This step has been taken by the Rhine province, which up to the present has possessed a number of institutions, in each of which, at the most, 800 patients could be received. A consequence of the present, strenuous life is that the increase in the number of mentally deranged is greater proportionately than the growth of the population. The provincial administration resolved not only to provide adequately for the steadily-increasing number of patients, but to adopt a system which has proved effectual. It erected, at a cost of £550,000, an establishment at Bedburg, iu the neighborhood of Cleves, which was officially opened on July 3. The pavilion system has been improved upon, and in the midst of gardens and woods 3ti houses have been built to take each from 80 to 100 patients. There is not one straight jacket in the whole establishment. There is nothing to denote compulsion; no high walls, no iron gratings to windows, no dark cells; and the few isolation cells provided are not expected to be much used, if at all. Individual attention is to be paid to the patients, and the means to be employed iu the hope of curing the patients consist of bed treatment, baths and medicine. A total of 2200 patients, all of the impecunious class, can be' taken in. The quiet one can wander practically where • they will, while a lire fence marks the boundary for others. The institution has its own farms, disposes of its own sewage, and furnishes almost all its own household requisites. There are stalls for 100 milch cows, and on the farms cattle, sheep and pigs are bred and fattened for the institution's own slaughter-houses. A large proportion of the patients of both sexes will be employed in agricultural work, in kitchens, washhouses, bakeries and workshops of all kinds, so that the expense of maintaining the institution will be very considerably reduced. Tlio institution has also its own ice factory, its waterworks (which supply a million litres daily), a narrowgauge railway, and a church to seat 720. It is warmed from a central point, from which hot water is pumped to 4(3 separate buildings, a distance of 875 yards. Every arrangement is made for the entertainment of the patients. There is a hall for 000 persons, with a stage, where concerts and theatrical performances will be given periodically, and dances are also permitted. The institution has already its own band. There are now 1400 patients in the establishment, nearly all belonging to the working class, about 70 per cent, from the factory population. Doubt is already expressed whether so many patients can have individual attention, but the provincial authorities have adopted every possible measure, by decentralisation of medical and administrative services, to attain that end.