The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1942-12-18

petizing food, personal interest is
taken in those who are indisposed.
Compared with conditions prevail
ing eighteen months earlier, the gains
in patient welfare are immense. The
patients then were moping, and list
less or grumbling, their hunger and
despair evident. Today. there is con-
tentment and far more cheerfulness.
An approach to normal life and vigor
begins to be manifest, and one finds
it difficult to believe that these pa
tents with few exceptions are the
same persons seen here at that time.
Already the dairy is producing more
butter, and by next spring the milk
supply will be very appreciably in
creased by fifty young milk cows that
have been added to the herd. Plans
are being carried forward which prom
Use very substantial increase in the
supply of eggs that the farm produces.
One hopeful aspect of the situation is
that better-fed patients are able Ito do
more work; no less important is the
fact that patients well-fed and work
ing normally tend to get well of their
mental ailments. Two, for instance,
found working so happily in the clean
kitchen last August, have been re-
leased, and more and more this is
going to happen. A type of manage
ment is evolving at Warm Springs
that is wise enough to be both eff
cient and generous, and favorable re-
suits are being attained both in self
maintenance and in healing.
Citizens shocked by a mid-Victor
ian Bedlam," is the way a current
news items refers to conditions in the
insane asylum at Salem, Oregon.
Montana differs, in that there has
been a steady upgrade ever since pub
lie attention was focused on Warm
Springs two years ago. Appointment
by the governor of a business man
ager and a dietician were fundamen-
tai reforms. The changes that were
made by the Board of Examiners last
September are working well.
Much remains to be done. The
frightful over-crowding at Warm
Springs is right now in the same
ratio as that existing in the asylum
at Salem, Oregon 1t cannot be rem
edied by new buildings because of
priorities connected with the war. 1t
can be remedied, however, if the state
legislature will provide for transfer
of some three hundred old people who
are not insane, to wholesome quarters
elsewhere. 1t is a disgrace to let
these old people linger in their pres
ent state of extreme discomfort. Sew
enty feeble-mined children, reckoned
unteachable, also ought to be trans
ferred.
Standing empty at Boulder is the
splendidly-built unit of three large
buildings which were left vacant when
the school for the deaf and blind was
moved to Great Falls. These idle
buildings are ample to house COM
fortably the hundreds of patients at
Warm Springs who are not insane.
Comfort and wholesome care is a debt
Montana owes to these unfortunate
old folks and children, and the trans
fer will bring about more humane
housing for the insane at Warm
Springs.
Mention should be made of the prof.
ect for student nurses. War condi-
tons have drawn away available
trained nurses until the need is very
great. However, the superintendent,
DR.. Pampel and the psychiatrist, DR..
Holmes, began to use student nurses
more than two years ago. Their mi
Liative not only has helped the pa
tents, but now promises to be useful
IN larger way. Psychiatric training
has become a pressing need for the
war effort. 1t seems likely that the
FEDERAL government will cooperate by
erecting and furnishing at Warm
Spring a room where fifty or more
student nurses may reside, to receive
)sychiatric training while assisting
With patients at the asylum. From
such project, patients at the asylum
will benefit immensely, but the fed
sral government by training nurses
or the rehabilitation of it's manpower,
will benefit still more.
By his firm insistence that attend
nts at the asylum shall not be ad-
icted to the use of intoxicants, and
" the work he has done to secure
rained nurses, let it be said that the
sylum's superintendent has rendered
very real service. 1t is no more
han right that thoughtful citizens
ally behind him in steps to secure an
dequate supply of student nurses,
Tho, after they are fully trained, will
o of great value to the federal gov
Observations dealt with in this arti-
lie, were made during the last half
November 1912.
DANIEL S. McCORKLE,
Member, State Board of