The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-11-11
CARING FOR INSANE
CHAIRMAN OF BOARD OF CONTROL
SAYS COUNTIES SHOULD
BEAR EXPENSE
PLAN WOULD SAVE MONEY
If County oficiaIs Knew Their
Treasury Was Responsible, They
would Exercise Discretion in
Making Commitments.

oEach of the counties of the state
should be compelled to pay for the sup
port of it's own insane said Chairman
Leavitt, of the state board OF control,
in conversation with T h e G o b in re-
gard to tht present efforts of his board
to rid the insane hospitals of the state
of a number Of patients who are not
considered to properly belong to such m
situations. BY way of explanation of his
views on that point, Mr.. Leavitt cont1n-
ued: ''The relatives of, the patients
should be required to pay for their sup
port if they are able to do so, and when
the relatives are manifestly unable, the
individual counties and not the state at
large should bear the burden of main
tenance
Some of those persons who have made
a careful study of the care of the in
sane even favor separate county hospi-
tails, but I should not advocate so radi-
cal departure from our present method
I do believe, however, that great i'm
provement upon our system as it is now
conducted would be to require each coun-
ty to pay a per capita charge for the
maintenance of every one of its own
insane patients sent to our hospitals. If
that were done greater care and discrim-
ination would be exercised in the COM
mittment of prisoners In the first place,
it would be readily apparent to the coun-
ty officers that each commitment would
entail direct additional expense upon
the county treasury, and they would ex-
erciSe greater care that persons whose
mental condition was not such as to
positively REQUIRE restraint in hospital
or asylum were not permitted to be in
discriminatory committed to such institu-
tons. Then too, the county officers would
interest themselves in requiring the rela-
tives of patients to pay for their main
tenance, if they knew the only other
alternative was that the expense should
fall upon the county,
Diverging somewhat from the original
question, Mr. Leavitt said:
Il think that a mistake was made In
locating the detention hospitals, for sup
posed cases of insanity, at st. Paul, Min
neapolis and Duluth. In my opinion, they
should have been established in connec-
ton with the insane hospitals. They
might, and L think should have been
entirely distinct branches of those in
Stitutions, but still under the same gov
eminent and superintendent The ply
sicians under whose charge those hospi-
tails have been placed are all men of ac-
knowledged ability in their profession,
but none of them are or assume to be
specialists in insanity and mental disease,
while the superintendent of our insane
hospitals are of necessity eminently DUAL
flied in that particular way.
Then, too, the matter of convenience
of location is worthy of consideration.
In case a person living in some distant
part Of the state is believed to be insane
and sent to one of the detention hospt-
tails, he must be taken from his home
to either ST. Paul, Minneapolis or Du-
luth, and if after the probationary pc
Rod he is adjudged insane he must be
taken for another trip to the insane nos
pital. In many Of those instances the
second trip could be done away with