[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I too have read
Part II of the current Report of the (Lunacy and Mental Deficiency) Board of Control. It is sorry reading, both from the social and the medical points of view. One does not know whether to pity most staff or patients when one reads such passages as the following : " The problem of bowel infection requires attention to the condition of some of the ward floors and the removal of linoleum where there are cracks and indications that the undercanvas is con- taminated with the urine of faulty patients ; the odour in one of the day rooms of Ward F. 2 and 3 is more than suggestive of such mishaps. It is necessary to take some steps to avoid the confusion of brushes intended for scrubbing food tables with those used for the floors of wards and lavatories." (One is not surprised to find that this Mental Hospital had an out- break of dysentery, and earlier an outbreak of paratyphoid.)
The worst thing about this Report, however, is that so few people will read it. There is perhaps no worse example of our social obtuseness (call it laziness, or criminal hard- heartedness if you please) than the disregard of the problem of lunacy. Patients sidui have been in these institutions and have contrived to get out of them, blame the harshness and the negligence of the officials. Those whom good luck enables to take a rather broader and less personal point of view blame the inadequacy of the financial provisions, which in so many instances drives the staff to the harshness and negligence which develop from persistent overwork in discouraging conditions. But the real criminal is the general public, that persists in passing by on the other side, too lazy" to enquire into the facts, too stupid to surmise about them, and too anxious to keep the rates down to demand any amelioration of conditions which must debase both those who seek a cure and those who seek to cure them.—Yours faithfully,
SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER.
24 West Chaldon, Dorchester, Dorset.
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