A Detention Ward

A Detention Ward

Might Be Added to the University Hospital.

For the Care of Insane

The Asylum Superintendents Would Oppose This.

Fos Fear It Might Lessen the Number of Their Cures. - They Suggested a New Insane Asylum at Ann Arbor.

The question of the care of the insane of Washtenaw county by the county was recently brought out in an interview which followed by a very practical letter from Judge of Probate Newkirk published in the Daily Argus. It is a most important subject, and the financial side of it is the least important. The humane side, that patients be at once properly cared for, is the most pressing. The over crowded condition of the state asylums will grow worse instead of better. At a meeting of the state superintendents of asylums held some time ago the project of a detention ward at the University hospital was broached. It was not received kindly for the reason that the superintendents feared that all incurable patients would be transferred to the state asylums, and those that could be speedily helped, would be retained, thus injuring the record of the state institutions. The other proposition that the state build a regular asylum at Ann Arbor in conjunction with the University hospital was more favorably looked upon. This latter of course would mean a large expenditure, possibly $800,000, because the state would insist on having a farm of 600 to 800 acres of land. This project, said an Ann Arbor physician to the Argus, may eventually mature, as the people of the state cannot allow the present condition of affairs to continue. This physician suggested that the county out not build an addition to the county house for the county patients, as its location was so far away from the university that the patients could not receive the attention they should receive. What would be better, would be the erection of a wing on the east side of the present office of the University hospital. Here patients could be take as soon as mentally sick and treated. In this detention ward the patients would receive the careful nursing and medical attention that they deserve. This ward would be also a great benefit to medical students as they would be able to more thoroughly study mental diseases. And the ward would be mutually beneficial to the county and state.