The comparison just drawn tells in favour of the system of separation. Recent cases would not, in the primary institution or hospital, find themselves an insignificant few surrounded by a host of chronic patients, and they would accordingly escape the evils of such a position; on the contrary, they would be placed under the most favourable conditions for recovery, be individually and efficiently attended to, and encouraged by the many convalescents around them to hope and strive after their own restoration to health and liberty.
The sketch presented of the evils of the companionship of long-disordered inmates with new-comers, especially when those are melancholic, is not an imaginary one, but drawn from experience. Often will a desponding patient observe, 'I shall become like such or such moping, demented lunatic'; and superintendents, if they would, might often record the ill-effects of example of older inmates upon those newly admitted.
Attempts by means of classification somewhat mitigate, where made, the evils of large asylums for recent cases, by keeping these to a certain measure apart from most of the other lunatics; but nothing can do away with the injurious impression on a mind sufficiently awake to receive it (on such a one, in short, as the question of the place of treatment can alone concern),--of being one member of many hundreds who have for years and years known no other residence than the huge house of detention they are in: and there is no compensation to be had for the loss of those special appliances, and that individual treatment, which only a properly-organized hospital can supply.
The last clause suggests another important argument for the treatment of recent cases in a distinct establishment or in separate sections. It is, that they require a peculiar provision made for them, involving greater expense, a more complete medical staff, a physician accustomed to their supervision and management, unfettered by that host of general duties which the presence of a multitude of chronic patients entails, and a staff of attendants disciplined to their care, and possessing many of the qualifications of nurses. Moreover, the building itself for this class of patients need be more expensively constructed and fitted than one for chronic inmates.