Show Big Increase Seen in Mental Cases e Hospitalization Gains Gain Per Cent in 25 Years New York A A per cent Increase In the number of ot mental cases brought under hospital care In the United States during the last twenty five years Is reported by the National Committee for Mental Hygiene In a review re of ot its activities made public in connection with Its twenty fifth anniversary cele cell bration According to the report there were wen patients In state hospitals In 1910 or per of the general population as against or 2 1 per as shown by the latest census figures During this period the population of ot the country has bas Increased bout about a third Thus It Is pointed out while the ratio of patients to population population population tion Is CO ro per cent higher their total number Dumber has bas doubled increasing three times as fast as the general tion Uon This increase the report explains is chiefly due to the Intensive develop development ment meat of ot treatment facilities which followed followed fol fol- fol lowed the campaign of Institutional reform reform reform re re- form launched by the committee ty five years ago It does not mean that the actual rate of ot mental diseases has Increased in that proportion Public More Alert AlertA AlertA A MA seeming paradox at once confronts confronts con con- fronts us In any attempt to audit the effects of ot the mental hygiene movement movement movement move move- ment upon the nations nation's mental health the report states After twenty five years of Increasingly widespread activity ity Sty in this field of ot public health wo actually find an Increase of per percent percent percent cent in mental cases as measured by bythe bythe bythe the number of persons under treatment In n mental hospitals As a matter of ot fact fact the report continues this Increase is due la In large part port to the results of ot organized mental hygiene work during this pe pe- rind Chief among these Is the enor enor- Increase In the provision of ot hospital hospital hos hos- I hos-I pital facilities and a corresponding Increase increase In in- crease crEse In the r readiness s of ot the public to take taka advantage of these facilities Thanks to the stimulus of the mental mental men men- tal hygiene movement and Its educational educational Influence many thousands of hitherto d cases were brought to Unlit lIht more and more of which were brought under treatment as union Improved ed and the public attitude attl- attl tude lude toward the subject changed from the hopelessness of the past to the confidence of the present HumanIzation Program When the national committee was wal organized In ll 1909 shortly after the publication of Clifford Beers Beer's autobiography autobiography A Mind That Found Itself Its chief concern was to humanize the care of the Insane to eradicate the abuses brutalities and neglect from which this class has traditionally suffered suf sut to focus public on the need for reform to hospitalize asylums asylums lums and to raise the standards of care In general There followed a general improvement Improvement Improvement Improve Improve- ment and expression of Institutional facilities throughout the tile country New hospitals and new additions to existing exist exist- lag ing hospitals were built In state after state until today the number of hospital hospital hospital hos hos- pital beds a available for mental and nervous cases is equal to those of ot aU all other types of sickness combined In the process the report says the committee strove to remove tho stigma associated with diseases of the mind from time Immemorial to spread newer and more hopeful con con- conceptions conceptions conceptions of the tile nature of ot mental diseases diseases diseases dis dis- eases and their curability and to breakdown break brenk breakdown down the Isolation of ot state hospitals from the general stream of community comma comma- life We Thanks to the work of mental mental men men- tal hygiene agencies public confidence In these Institutions has greatly increased Increased increased In in- creased and with It public willingness to use them |