The Institutional Care of the Insane in the United States and Canada

Book excerpt: General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1917 Original Publisher: Johns Hopkins Press Subjects: Psychiatric hospitals Medical / Mental Health Medical / Psychiatry / General Psychology / Mental Illness Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: Winter Fair building was at once placed at the disposal of the government by its directors, and the patients temporarily but comfortably housed therein, while plans were immediately got under way for a new hospital, to be of fireproof construction throughout, with pressed brick and cut-stone walls, metal roof, iron stairways, elevators, and fully equipped for hospital purposes with the most modern plumbing, ventilating and heating, the last to be supplied from a power plant apart from the hospital buildings, pipes passing thereto through a tunnel. It was designed to have a frontage of 425 feet with two additional wings, and to be three stories high with basement. Accommodation was to be provided for 1000 patients at an estimated cost of $1,000.000. The work of erection was begun early in the spring of 1911, and on December 2, 1912, the patients were moved from the Winter Fair building to their new quarters. The formal opening was held in February, 1913.1 The present population is 485. HOME FOR INCURABLES. Portage La Prairie. This institution, located at Portage la Prairie, a town some 50 miles west of Winnipeg, was opened in June, 1890. It was not really intended for mental cases, but owing to the lack of room in the Selkirk Asylum, there were transferred to it therefrom, on its opening, some 17 quiet patients of the idiotic type. This action, combined with the fact that imbeciles and idiots are by law non-admissible to the insane hospitals, ...