The Democratic Advocate

Springfield Hospital for the Insane.
Annual Report of the Board of Managers
To The Governor.
From the annual report of the Board of Managers of the Springfield Asylum, at Sykesville, this county, we take the following:
The report shows that during the past year to September 30 the total number of patients under treatment was 327. During the year 15 male patients were discharged as cured, 3 were paroled and 11 died. One female patient was removed by friends. The total number remaining was 297, of whom 223 were males and 69 were females.
Dr. J. Clement Clark, superintendent of the hospital, says:
The discharges as cured in the male department, as compared with the number of admissions, as is usually done, is 28.07 per cent., which is about the average in other State hospitals. The female department has been in operation for so short a time, and the cases being nearly all of the chronic and incurable class, no percentage of recoveries could be expected. With the admission, however, of acute cases, which we are now receiving, a good percentage can be expected for next year.
The percentage of deaths on the whole number under treatment in the male department is 4.24 per cent. This is low, and below the average, and is due in great part to the excellent sanitary condition of the hospital. Of those who died 2 were over 80 years of age, two between 60 and 70, 3 between 50 and 60, 1 between 40 and 50, 3 between 30 and 40. General paresis, organic heart disease and senile degeneration were the principal causes of death. There have been no epidemics of contagious diseases. The general health of our people has been good during the year, as evidenced by the above death rate; in fact, it may be doubted if an equal number of a general population has been as free from intercurrent diseases or accidents. Tuberculosis is still unknown in our death rate this year. The case mentioned in my last report is still doing well. There has been but one death from this disease since the opening of the hospital.
The escapes have been fewer in number than last year, and all the patients were returned to the hospital in a few hours with two exceptions. These were located in a short time, but being improved and harmless, were, at the request of friends, allowed to remain at home. One of them has since died and the other has recovered and is following his usual occupation. One patient who escaped walked to his home, about 20 miles distant, and returned on the third day of his own volition.
An analysis of ascertained causes among the patients admitted gives a high percentage to heredity. Each year brings fresh facts and further proofs of the widespread influence of heredity as a predisposing cause of insanity. About 50 per cent. is attributed to this cause. The law that 'like begets like,' even though one or two generations intervene, seems fully verified by our statistics. The transmission of defects, both moral and mental, may not show itself until some adverse circumstance, mental anxiety or severe mental strain arises. A large per cent. [nearly one-third] of our population is of foreign birth. This is not only the case in our hospital, but in other State or charitable institutions. Had our immigration law been revised earlier and those immigrants of low mentality or hereditary taint of insanity been excluded, our hospitals would not be so full of this element and our people taxed for their support. Coming to this country, as many of them do, with the inherent predisposition to mental disease, and engaging in the battle for bread, many of them cannot stand the strain and finally become inmates of our hospitals for the insane.
The open-door treatment has been strictly carried out at both male and female groups to an extent, I am sure, in no other hospital. While other hospitals have open-door cottages, they all have at least one cottage with locked doors and barred windows, but at Springfield all cottages are constructed alike, with absolutely no barred window or shuttered room, and consequently seclusion and mechanical restraint are unknown quantities here.