Denmark’s Care of Mental Defectives
96 MENTAL WELFARE CORRESPONDENCE My dear Editor,
I have known Dr Wildenskov for many years, and I have read the article on his magnificent Institution in Denmark with the greatest benefit and interest. In all essentials I agree with nearly everything he says. I have the highest admiration for his work and congratulate him very sincerely on his achievement, but there are two quite small points in the article which seem to me give a somewhat incorrect interpretation of my views and our work in this Institution.
One is in the paragraph on Sterilisation, where Dr Wildenskov quotes from a report of an ” English Institution.” The name of this is not mentioned, but from the figures, it is clear to me that the quotation is from my last Annual Report.
I am afraid I must plead guilty to the fact which Dr Wildenskov states, that it was with a certain degree of pride I wrote that “in the 17 years the Institution has employed discharge on licence, only three patients have returned on account of pregnancy.” Dr Wildenskov then proceeds to compare these three pregnancies with the total number of patients discharged on licence, which he gives as a net figure of 135. This implies that the three pregnancies occurred amongst 135 patients only. This is not the case. The number of 135 patients given in my report was the number of patients who were, on the 1st January, 1936, actually at that time on licence out in the world. It was not the number of patients who have been out on licence during the last 17 years out of which three patients became pregnant, but the number for one year only, and on one day in that year.
Without a great deal of work, I cannot calculate the number of patients we have had out on licence during the 17 years to which I referred, but it is, I believe, well over 1,000. This gives a different picture to that implied in the article.
The other point is a matter of emphasis rather than anything else. Dr Wildenskov quotes a paragraph from one of my reports about a Mental Deficiency Institution being a ” flowing lake,” and seems to imply that I thought all patients should come in only for a time, and then be returned to the world. If my Annual Reports are read more fully, I think it will be quite clear that 1 have said many times, that a large number of patients will always have to remain in the Institution, especially the low grade custodial cases.
] entirely agree with Dr Wildenskov, that because of this it is getting more and more difficult to find enough patients to do the regular work of the Institution.
I again express my admiration for Dr Wildenskov’s work, and I trust he will not think that my letter on these two quite minor points in any way detracts from that. Yours sincerely, F. DOUGLAS TURNER, Royal Eastern Counties Institution, Colchester. Medical Superintendent.
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