Arizona republican., 1899-06-01
COLONY LIFE FOR THE INSANE.
A Successful Experiment at New
 York State Asylum

may be made useful citizens under cer-
 tain conditions was explained to the
 American Med:coLPsychol2gic as
 sociation yesterday by Dr. G. Alder
 Burner of the Utica state hospital,
 who gave some facts about the farm
 worked by the insane in that asylum.
 The question to be solved was, he
 said: How shall the average man $
 social condition be made to approx
 mate, in safety and with the maximum
 of benefit to himself, that of his sane
 brother who is self-supporting and at large n the community
 50 long as the family Is recos-
 nized," said Dr. Blumer. ''as the unit of social life, so long must approxima-
 ton to that ideal be the goal to which
 we should strive n our care Of the
 chronic insane Permission was obz
 tained at Utica to lease for three
 years, with an. Cp::cn to purchase, a
 farm Of 160 acres within 9 mile from
 the main building. The farm had
 upon t an old frame dwelling carable,
 with some repairs, of accommodating
 twenty three male patients It had
 barns, such as they were But it was
 9, sorry affair on the whole, though obviously full of cheering possibilities. Here was taken, over two years ago, with Gcd-speed from the state com mission in lunacy, our first resolute step from the close asylum to do- nestle freedom.
 "A young farmer and his w:fs, both having had previous experience with the insane, were readily found. Very soon WE had there happy colony of twenty-thTee patients leading a sim pie. natural farm life as different from that lived in the main building as possible. In selecting attendants to work with these patients the mistake of hiring men who had previous asy- Ium experience was carefully avoided. Two young men ard 2 young woman of rural reauing and rural instincts en- tered the colony as workers. IL helped matters to have enc of the yorrS men marry the young woman somewhat lateT. These hired people knew noth- ing of the unfarmerlifc farming Of the average asylum, and had not been contaminated in any way by the en- ervatfrg influences Of a big establish mert. They were Cp at cock crow and abed long before the urban atten- dant is won't to wepd his way home from the City. Farmers and farmer patients seemed to juggIa with the old farm, so quickly did the results Of their steady labor appear. Roads were good fences replaced bad ones, ditches were dug, fields were ploughed and cultivated, and, presto, | the whole farm smiled hack approval l on it's makers And what of the pa tients themselves? They were nearly i all chronic cases, tt is true, but the i that occurred in their ! condition, physical and mental, ex- ceeGed the most sanguine expectation ! The well known institution look and i began to disappear as the men l responded promptly to the freer life | and became bronzed by the sun and | these col01ists were manifestly better 1 off than they had previously been h i the more or less artificial lif3 of the | nein building. By and by ample crops furnished undeaiable proof of the ex- 1 pertinent on the economical side
 Dr. Blumer went on to tell how two i small farms were added to the large | 1ae, on ore of which women were set D do the work with equally beneficial results. In all the hospital has now 40 acres, and the value of the last years crops, in spite of ttae exhausted :olti tion of the land, was at least 5000. Besides this 600 rods of fence were built, two miles of tile drain laid, ;;x acres of fruit set cut, and in winter, the ice crop harvested. The ,ost of the patients keep was not nore, and probably less. than in the ,ospital building. But it is in the ,ffect On the patients that the true ralue of the experiment lay. Dr. 3lumer sad:
 Of the ninety-two patients unde" reatment during the two years tRe .verage duration Of previous custody vas three and half years and their -verage age was 431a years. Of the number discharged thirteen had re- overed and five had improved. In wo years twenty-nine cases were re- unred to the hospital for van,ous req ons- attempts to escape, insu'bordin- ticn, recurring mental disturbance, ickness, injury or request. It is fair 0 add n parenthesis that il was in many cases more 2 matter Of exPed- ency than necessity to remove thsse at.ents to the main building, where here is at no tinis lack of ideal eases or colony life. and nearness makes he transfer easy. That only two pa tents were returned at their own re- uest IS a fact oD great significi2 nee |
 Tn conclusion, the speaker said that bout 9 per cent Of the insane are th:sI-iseyz z-~r~nlIe or Uo