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Page 12
The shaping of the policy of a semiprivate hospital is not quite as
simple as shaping that of a State Hospital with its well-defined
districts and geographically marked zones of responsibility.
Bloomingdale has its sphere of influence marked by qualitative selection
rather than by a formal consideration. It does not pose as an invidious
contrast to the State Hospital, and yet it is intended to solve in a
somewhat freer and more privileged manner the problem of providing for
the mentally sick of a more or less specific hospital constituency, the
constituency of the New York Hospital; and since it reaches the most
discriminating and thinking part of our population, it has the most
wonderful opportunity to shape public opinion. Like all psychiatrical
institutions, it has to live down the traditional notions of the
half-informed public; it has to make conspicuous the change of spirit
and the better light in which we see our field and responsibilities.
This organization can show that it is not mere insanity but the working
out of life problems that such a hospital as this is concerned with. The
conditions for which it cares are many. Some of them are all that which
tradition and law stamp as insanity. But see what a change.
Seventy-five per cent of the patients are voluntary admissions; and more
and more will be able to use the helps when they begin to feel the need,
not merely when it becomes an enforced necessity.
By creating for this Hospital a liberal foundation, by completing its
equipment so as to make possible a free exchange of patients and of
workers from the Hospital in the city and this place in the country,
much has been done and more will be done to set a living example of the
very spirit of modern psychopathology and psychiatry. We know now that
from 10 to 40 per cent of the patients of the gynecologist, the
gastroenterologist, and the internist generally would be better treated
if a study of the life problems were added to that of the special organs
and functions. To meet this need it should be possible to have enough
workers in this branch of the Hospital to take their share of the
consulting and co-operation work in the wards and dispensary of the
General Hospital, and perhaps even in the schools provided for the same
type of people from which you draw your patients. The grouping of the
patients can be such that the old prejudices need not reach far into the
second century of the life of the Hospital. With a man of the vision and
practical experience of Dr. Russell, there is no need for an outsider to
conjure up a picture of special practical achievements as I have done
of the more general principles to-day.
An institution is more than a human life. Many ambitions combine and
become part of a group spirit permeating the organization and reaching
their fulfilment in the succession of leaders. The life and growth and
happy self-realization of an institution is not the bricks and
mortar--it is a living and elastic entity--never too stable, never too
finished, a growing and plastic plant--to use a metaphor that has
slipped in perhaps without arousing all the implications the term plant
might carry and does carry.
Some years ago my wife celebrated her birthday and told her colored cook
jocosely: "Geneva, I am a hundred years old to-day." The cook's jaw
dropped and then she suddenly remarked: "Lord! you don't look dat ole."
That is the way I feel about Bloomingdale Hospital as we see it to-day
pulsating with ever-fresh life and ever-fresh problems! How different
from a simple human being, after all! The heart and wisdom of many a man
and woman has gone into the perpetuation of what a few thoughtful men
started in 1821 and the result is that it is ever renewing its youth.
Many a dream has been realized and many a dream has given way to
another. Here and there the past may make itself felt too much. But the
spirit and its growth show in recruiting ever-new lives to meet the
present day and the days to come, and this all the more so if we can
show the younger generation that every effort is likely to have its
reasonable direct support. We all want a man like Dr. William L. Russell
to have the fullest opportunity to bring to its best expression the rich
and well-tried wisdom of over twenty-five years of devoted work in the
field. This is no doubt a time of stress when many personal and general
sacrifices may be needed to bring about the fruition and culmination of
the labors of the present generation. Yet is it not a clear opportunity
and duty, so that those who are growing up in the ranks to-day may
really be encouraged to get a solid training, always animated by the
conviction that one can be sure of the practical reward for toiling
through the many years of preparation in a psychiatric career, whether
it be as a physician or as a nurse or as an administrator?
I cannot help feeling as I stand here that I am in a way representing
not only my own sentiments and convictions but those of our dear old
friend Hoch. We all wish that he might be with us to express himself the
warm feelings toward the Bloomingdale Hospital and its active
representatives, from the managers to the humblest workers. Hoch in his
modesty could probably not have been brought to state fully and frankly
his own share in the achievements of this Hospital. But I know how much
he would have liked to be here to express especially the warmth of
appreciation we all entertain of what our friend William L. Russell
means to us and has meant to us all through the nearly twenty-five years
of our friendship and of working together. We delight in seeing him
bring to further fruition the admirable work he did at Willard, and
later for all the State hospitals; and that which we see him do at all
times for sanity in the progress of practical psychiatry, and now
especially in the guidance of this institution. We delight in seeing his
master mind given more and more of a master's chance for the practical
expression of his ideals and convictions concerning the duties and
opportunities of such a hospital as Bloomingdale.
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