FIFTH BIENNIAL REPORT

OF THE

VISITING COMMITTEE

TO VISIT THE

HOSPITALS FOR THE INSANE.

1883.

[PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.]

DES MOINES:

GEO. E. ROBERTS, STATE PRINTER.

BIENNIAL REPORT.

HON. BUREN R. SHERMAN, Governor of Iowa:

THE visiting committee for Iowa Hospitals for Insane beg leave to submit this, their fifth biennial report, for the year ending June 30,

1883:

The usual monthly visits, provided for by law, have been regularly made, and a thorough inspection of the wards has been made at these visits, as also at the regular meetings of the full committee, and their condition closely observed. The wards, as a general rule, are . kept clean and in good order, taking the class of patients into account; beds are clean and comfortable, and their quality is improved from year to year, as the appropriations render possible an increase in the stock of woven wire and hair mattresses and other first class bedding. The food furnished has been of good quality and abundant in quantity, and very little complaint has been made by the patients in either Hospital concerning it. Your committee have, at nearly every visit, been careful to observe the patients at their meals, and the condition of the dining-room and tables, and find the latter uniformly clean, and furnished with a fair variety and excellent quality of food; it could not be made better upon the present allowance per month.

The members of the committee have, as far as practicable, cultivated a personal acquaintance with patients, and talked freely with them about their condition and prospects; most of them are satisfied with the life they are leading, others are persistently dissatisfied and declare that they never ought to have been brought there, and regard their detention as imprisonment, and that they are not now and never have been insane; and there are all grades of feeling and opinion among them, as there are among sane people. No general charge of bad management in either Hospital has been made to the committee during the last biennial period.