The evening times., 1900-01-18

| hospitals as well as from Columbia and
| Freedmen'S. which, although considered as
public institutions are not subject to the
/ control of District officers who are charged
| Win the duty OF providing charitable hos
| pital care for those in need.
Mr. Lewis Suggestions.
| If This condition were SO modified that
/ any sort of case could be sent to any hos
| pital in which there might be a vacancy,
probably g sound and reasonable distri-
button OF admissions. in view of the in
terests of the hospitals and all their in
mates would leave the condition much as
| il is now and the chronic and incurable
charity cases. and many others for whose
care the expensive wards of hospital
equipped for the care of acute and surgi-
cal cases would be Inappropriate. would
still have 10 be provided for.
Under the present arrangement and dis
tribution of appropriations in lump sums
to q number of small hospitals the Dis
trct does not receive an adequate return
in service for the expenditure This is
true because the small number of pa
tients i'm each hospital calls for an expen-
diture per capita nearly double that which
would be found necessary could ali be
brought together and classified under a
smaller number of officers and employees.
The administrative expenses of an in
stitution for 900 patients would be pro-
portionately very much less than one for
fifty patients. It would certainly be most
unlikely that per capita expenditures even
apprOXimating the experience of the small
hospitals during the past year, would ever
be necessary.
There is a strong and growing sentl-
ment in this community favorable TO the
creation Of an institution for the scientific
treatment Of inebriety. This sentiment
will call for recognition in no uncertain
voice in the near future. Our present at
tempts to deal with it are primitive and
exceedingly unsatisfactory. 1t is within
the memory of men now living that in
sanity and imbecility were treated as de-
moniacal possession. 10 be cured by ridi-
cule and torture. or eXterminated by cruel
neglect. If we would vindicate our claim
to a place in the foremost rank of ciyili-
Zation we must cease to treat the inebri-
ate and dipsomaniac as criminal and
give him the benefit of the resources of
modern science. as has been done in the
case of the insane and the imbecile That
his disease begins in a vice and may be
said to be self-inlicted cannot change the
matter at all Many forms of insanity are
of the same quality.
Men taken in charge by the police for
the protection of themselves or the COM
munity from the effect of the excessive
use of alcoholic liquors or narcotic drugs
are usually sent TO the Washington Asy-
lum, either as hospital patients or work
house convicts. In either case they rot
infrequently develop violent symptoms,
and sometimes clearly defined delirium
tremens. Under such circumstances they
are placed in little room adjoining and
opening OF from one of the wards of this
hospital. and it may and does sometimes
happen that the dying hours of broken
down but altogether respectable citizens
are made hideously awful by the ravng OF
a fellow-creature, himself not far from the
door of death. Such scenes are not pleas
ant in contemplation. We must take
away the necessity for the enactment OF
them in real life by providing other and
inebriates
Provisions for the Insane.
There are persons before the courts
occasionally whose actions indicate that
they are mentally irresponsible. 1t is diff
cult for the judges to determine whether
they should be sent to prison as punish
ment for their misdemeanors or to a hos
pital for treatment Such cases are sent
TO the Washington Asylum for observa-
tion, or to be held for further hearing
There they are confined in a basement
room having a single barred window high
above their reach. a barred door. concrete
floor, and without furniture.
At night they are given a ,natf-eSs