The retreat wards, with accommodations in each wing for eighteen patients, show in this particular how little the old method of strict confinement is to be employed in the new institution. That proportion of the total insane population of 1,500 is regarded as all that it is necessary to sequester to prevent the disturbance of the rest. Hollow walls, sleeping room windows opening into small areas, and corridor space between the several divisions are features which make the per capita cost of the construction comparatively large for these two cottages, but which, it is believed, will prove to be wise ones.
All of these buildings are as complete from a hospital standpoint as can possibly be devised. Outer walls wind and moisture proof, and inner walls of brick, with an absolutely protected air space between, insure strength and warmth. An interior wall finish of the hardest and most non-absorbent materials known for such uses is a valuable hygienic provision, and both safety and salubrity are further conserved by an absence of any hollow spaces between floors and ceilings, or in stud partitions. No vermin retreats, no harbors for rodents, no channels for flame exist. Heating is accomplished by indirect radiation with the steam supply from the power house, but there are many open fireplaces to add to the complete stack and flue system of ventilation.
Attached to the central group and completed are the kitchen building, the laundry building and a dwelling house for employes, which are so disposed in the rear of the group as to make a courtyard of value for the resort of patients, as the main buildings protect and shelter it. These buildings are ample for their work when the institution's full capacity is attained. The kitchen building is a particularly interesting one. All of the cooking is to be done there, and a system of subways, with tracks on which food cars are run, connects it with all of the groups. An idea of the magnitude of kitchen plans for such an institution may be got from one single fact. The pantry is a lofty room, 20x32 feet.
The calculation that 80 per cent. of the insane of the district would be in the chronic stages of the disease explains the provision in detached cottage groups for this proportion of the patients. A great proportion of these are feeble and helpless, requiring constant attendance night and day, but attendance that can be given cheaply and efficiently in associate day rooms, dining rooms and large dormitories. Detached group No. 1, which is completed, is an infirmary group for patients of both sexes of this class. It is chiefly one story in height, and the plan permits an abundance of sunlight and air for every room.
Detached group No. 2 is intended for 185 men of the chronic insane class, who require more than ordinary care and observation. Detached group No. 3 is composed of two-story buildings for 322 women. It has several large work-shops. Occupation is one of the main reliances of the planners of the institution as a part of the treatment there.
Detached group No. 4 is designed for both men and women, and will accommodate 150. A wholly different classification is here provided for, the actively industrious classes being intended for this group. Those who are able to do outdoor work, and for whom some diverting employment will be beneficial in making them contented and physically healthy, will live here. There is complete separation of day rooms, but the two sexes will dine together in an associate hall.
An amusement hall to harmonize with the central group, and to be built adjacent to it, is planned, and will be built this year if the appropriation will permit. It is a valuable and necessary adjunct to the other provisions for the care of a population of 1,500. Accommodations for entertainments, chapel exercises, dancing and a bathing establishment are included in the plans in a way that gives great results with great economy of construction.
Probably the feature in the scheme of the St. Lawrence State Hospital of the greatest popular and professional interest is Dr. Wise's plan to have there an Americanized and improved Gheel. The original Gheel in Belgium is a colony where for many years lunatics have been sent for domiciliary care. Its inhabitants, mostly of the peasant class, have grown accustomed to the presence and care of patients with disordered minds. The system is the outgrowth of a superstition founded in the presumed miraculous cure of a lunatic whose reason was restored by the shock of the sight of the killing of a beautiful girl by her pursuing father, whose fury had been roused by her choice of a husband. A monument to this unfortunate graces Gheel, and as St. Dymphna she is supposed to be in benign control of the lunatic-sheltering colony. Some of the features of the Gheel system of care are also distinctively known as the Scotch system. There the placing of patients in family care is common. Massachusetts has also adopted it to a considerable extent. But there are many objections to family care in isolated domiciles, as practiced in Massachusetts. Special medical attention and official visits are made expensive and inconvenient. Dr. Wise plans to get all the advantages of such a mode of life for patients whose condition retrogrades under institutional influence. Not the least of these advantages is that of economy in relieving the State from the per capita cost of construction for at least one-fourth of the insane of the district. He would utilize the families in the settlement which always grows up in the vicinity of a large hospital. It is composed of the households of employes, many of which are the result of marriages among the attendants and employes. On Point Airy, by the use of the buildings that were on the different plots bought by the State to make up the hospital farm, such a settlement can be easily made up. Its inhabitants would pay rent to the State. They would be particularly fit and proper persons to board and care for patients whose condition was suitable for that sort of a life, and the patients could have many privileges and benefits not possible in the hospital. Point Airy's little Gheel on such a plan would be a most interesting and valuable extension of the beneficent rule of St. Dymphna.
The St. Lawrence State Hospital was built and is operated under the supervision of a board of managers, whose fidelity to it is described as phenomenal by the people of Ogdensburg. The members of the executive committee, Chairman William L. Proctor, Secretary A.E. Smith, John Hannan and George Hall, especially Mr. Proctor and Mr. Smith, have given as much time and attention to it as most men would to a matter in which they had a business interest. The result has been a performance of contract obligations in which the State got its money's worth. The people of Ogdensburg, too, have taken a great interest in the institution. Such men as Mayor Edgar A. Newell, ex-Collector of the Port of New York Daniel Magone, Postmaster A.A. Smith, Assemblyman George R. Malby, and his predecessor, Gen. N.M. Curtis, who was the legislative father of the hospital scheme; Frank Tallman and Amasa Thornton take as much pride in the institution that the State has set down at the gates of their city as they do in their cherished and admired city hall, which combines a tidy little opera house with the quarters necessary for all public and department uses.
The executive staff of the hospital consists of Dr. P.M. Wise, medical superintendent; Dr. J. Montgomery Mosher, assistant: Dr. J.A. Barnette and Steward W.C. Hall.—N.Y. Sun.