The Norfolk weekly news-journal. (Norfolk, Neb.) 1900-19??, 1907-07-26
THE CARE Of THE INSANE
IGNORANCE AND SUPERSTITION
ENsHRoup MIND ILLNESS.
NO DISGRACE ABOUT INSANITY

NO DISGRACE ABOUT INSANITY
Or. n. Douglas Singer Says Reforms
Should be Instituted In the Legal
Proceedings for the Mentally H.
Physicians Meet.
The ignorance and superstition
which ahvo shrouded the subject of
| insanity from earliest times explains
In large part the general attitude of
| the public toward the insane and
| those who care for them, according
to DR.. II. Douglas Singer, first assist.
ant physician at the Norfolk hospital,
who spoke yesterday afternoon at the
session of the Elkhorn Valley Medical
society held In Eagle hail in Norfolk
| Continuing Or. Singer said:
at Is not so many years since such
sufferers were burned at the stake or
chained to posts In filthy dungeons to
die of starvation and exposure. They
have been considered as outcasts and
possessed by devils. Even today It IL
considered disgraceful to a family for
one of its members to suffer from In.
sanity, so much so that the fact Is of
ten denied even to the physician who
asks the specific question, This idea
of sin and shame, Or. Singer said
was to some extent fostered by the
present form of commitment to the
hospital with its legal forms, enforced
| by sheriffs and often preceded by in.
generation in the common gaol among
criminals Here in the legal proceed
| ings necessary to safeguard the pa.
tent and the public, reform should be
instituted.
Patients Not Mistreated.
The deeply ingraned feeling that
patients in the state institutions are
grossly abused and iEtreated, DR.
Singer said was another feeling found
ed upon tradition The aim now in
all directions, he said, was to do away
with the old asylum and to replace
| it by a hospital in fact as in name
the patients being cared for by trained
nurses wherever possible and treated
along the same lines which obtain at
any general hospital with due allow
ance for the altered conditions.
OF the prejudice that sometimes at
taches to hospitals for the insane, DR.
Singer said: ut Is hardly necessary
to tell you that living among the in
sane does not make one either brutal
Int hot
against those who devote their lives
to this work. A physician at the larg.
est hospital for the insane in the Unit
ed States informed me that the mem
| bers of that staff were more or less
socially ostracised and despised in a
most enlightened on earth. However,
those are eastern ideas and | can
vOuch that they are not existant in
this liberal minded west"
On the problem of the marrying Of
the insane the speaker said: "The
etinology of insanity is still very OBJ.
scure and owing to its compleXity
must necessarily long remain so, but
there are certain factors which we
know as yet vaguely but which are
capable of modification. The question
as to who are to be permitted to mar
ry and perpetuate their kind Is one of
the serious problems humanity has yet
to face and it Is the physician who will
have most to say in this matter. The
doctor is gradually coming to replace
the priest as family friend and coun.
sellor, a function in questions of this
sort that he is eminently fitted to full
fill. No hard or fast lines can be laid
down and each case must be more or
| less judged on its merits. 1t may be
stated that marriage should be abso-
lutely forbidden to those to whom in.
sanity is now or has been present, es-
pecially where there are signs of a
psychic degeneration. A faint of in
sanity or neurosis in a family does not
necessarily forbid marriage"
1t was an important point, DR.. Sing
er said, that the general physician
should familiarize himself with the
subject of insanity that he might rec
ognize its early stages, especially
those forms of depression which so
commonly precede acute insanity. Pa
tients should be placed under proper
treatment at once rather than have
action delayed until the case is so far
advanced that the results of the treat
ment must be poor. The after-care of
patients following their discharge was
field of action that called for the
cooperation of the medical profession
and the state and offered a special
field of work for a we'll organized so,
ciety.
Boyd County Witches.
Insane ideas, but not insanity, are
| cnntapinns DR. SINGER eNnlained 10