News and Comment
Nursing in Psychotherapy.
The Nurses’ Journal of the Pacific Coast is an admirable little magazine. For several months we have been reading it with genuine satisfaction, and watching an opportunity to introduce it to our subscribers. In the November number is a fine article on “Nursing in Psychotherapy” by Miss M. Grace O’Bryan. This paper was read by its author at the Eleventh Annual Convention of the Nurses’ Associated Alumnse in San Francisco, in May of this year. Miss O’Bryan asks her colleagues at the outset, “What do we know of the principles of mortem psychotherapy, and how adequately are we fitted to nurse with intelligent understanding the neurasthenic, psychasthenic, or hysterical patient?” She refers to the rapidly growing literature on the subject of psychotherapy, and to the beginnings that have been made at a few training schools,?at Johns Hopkins, for example,?to give instruction to nurses in psychology and psychiatry. “Psychology must be included as one of the definite subjects in the training school curriculum,” says Miss O’Bryan, “if the students are to be considered in any way capable of recognizing the deviations from the normal in their patients and undertaking later the very grave responsibility of the care of the mentally disturbed.”
This declaration of principle is heartily seconded by The Psychological Clinic. We confidently expect in the near future to see courses in psychology included in the training, not only of every nurse, but also of every competent teacher, physician, and clergyman in the land.
An Ophthalmological Department for a City School System. Dr Joseph S. Neff, Director of the Department of Public Health and Charities of the city of Philadelphia, reports the result of three months’ work by the division of ophthalmology established at his suggestion for the examination and treatment of the visual defects of backward school children.
The chief of the division, Dr L. C. Wessels, during the three months ending April 1st, received 1267 visits. “There were 345 pairs of glasses prescribed for children too poor to buy them. The vision ranged from 15/200 to 15/20; that is, figures or letters that should be distinguished at 200 feet with the normal eye were only visible at 15 feet, and 3/4 vision, where letters that should be seen at 20 feet were seen at 15, With glasses properly adjusted this vision was brought up to about 15/15, or normal.”
“These pupils, as evidenced by letters from the teachers, showed an absolute absence of progress in many cases, some of them having spent their entire school life in the first grade; and, of course, many of these so-called ‘mentally deficient’ children interfered with the progress of their fellow pupils. Often their tendency was towards truancy and incorrigibleness. After treatment, almost all of these children began to improve at once. Many were removed from special schools to regular schools, and the inclination towards truancy passed away. The majority have made rapid strides since.”
The importance of this work, in Dr Neff’s judgment, cannot be overestimated. Many of these cases will, in his opinion, prove useful citizens in the future, instead of deteriorating and in all probability becoming charges upon the city, living useless, immoral or criminal lives. Dr Neff, therefore, invites the assistance of the Superintendent of Schools to obtain from the City Councils an additional salaried assistant and clerk for the ophthalmological division, with increased appropriations for supplies and glasses, as the work can thereby be doubled or tripled.
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