The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1916-05-18
Women Play Important Part In
Police Dept. of Various Cities

of insanity are heredity, veneral dis
ease and alcoholism and other drug
habits.
Drug habits other than alcoholism
are responsible for some cases of in
sanity but they so often go hand in
hand with alcoholism that they may
be regarded as belonging to the same
group. Other disease, also, cause in
sanity. Any exhaustive, acute dis
ease. such as typhoid fever. measles
in early childhood, diptheria, tuber-
culosis, pellagra, cerebral-spinal Men,
nights. may produce a disease of the
mind. Fortunately, this group is
largely durable"
Dr. Phillip B. Newcomb, Clinical
Director of the State Hospital for the
7 Insane at Osawatomie, Kans., in the
/ first symposium the National Confer
ence of Charities and Correction has
! had on the temperance question in
its forty-three years of history, said
that statistics of insanity in Kansas
are often distorted by liquor interests
and others. No greater amount of
general insanity exists in Kansas than
in surrounding or distant wet" COM
monwealths, DR.. Newcomb said.
Probably greater frequency is
shown in Kansas state hospital fig.
= ures," he said "of type of insanity
known as degenerative and showing
defective heredity primarily as
basis. Yet Kansas has a very low
percentage of the psychoes in which
ntemperance is the prime causative
factor, viz delirium tremens, alco-
holic hallucinosis, alcoholic delusional
insanity Alcoholism and alcoholic in
sanity are greatest in border localities
of the state near wet" territory and
where law enforcement is less strin'
gent.
! while statewide prohibition may
not absolutely prohibit, especially
when non-prohibitive territory is con-
tiguous, yet it does. limit opportunity
for frequent or constant Indulgence
and the results which follow"
4 In a paper on Municipal Welfare
! Work, VIM A. Grassland, Executive
/ Secretary of the Social Welfare Board
of st. Joseph, Mo-, said in part:
est Josephs experience in charit-
liable work has been much the same
as of other cities. In the olden days
the Mayor was the only source of
public relief. He was the friend Of
the poor both worthy and unworth.
The fund was dispensed with no in
vestigation, with no attempt at con,
structive work; it was simply beans
and bacon bureau. 1t was a most adj
mirable way of gaining the patronage
and good will of the poor. The poll
ticians thought that the plan was the
best ever devised. This fund may
not have been flagrantly misappro
priated, but it must have been Of
some value or the politicians would
not have protested so bitterly wher
the relief fund was divorced from
politics.
Later experts were employed t.
make survey of public charitable
work A bill was passed by the legis
lature creating the Social Welfare
Board of st. Joseph.
"The Welfare Board is empowered
to care for all the sick poor and the
well poor in the city. The sick poo
through departments of home medi
cal service, dispensary service, visit
ing nurse service, obstitric service anC
hospital service, and the well poo
through bureaus of investigation, reg
istration. records of employment
legal aid, and clothing and woodward
departments, homeless men depart
ment. welfare board farms, depart
ments of relieg, volunteer service, do
nations and burials.