Eighth Annual Meeting of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene
NEWS AND COMMENT.
At the eighth Annual Meeting of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene held February 2d at the Hotel Biltmore in New York City, Mr. Otto T. Bannard, the Treasurer, announced that the Rockefeller Foundation had donated to the National Committee $22,800 for carrying on surveys of the care of the insane in sixteen states during the present year.
The report of Mr. Clifford W. Beers, the secretary, showed that the movement for conserving the mental health and for improving the care of the insane and feebleminded has grown in a remarkable way. Societies for mental hygiene are now at work in Connecticut, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, the District of Columbia, Alabama, Louisiana, and California. During the present year societies will be organized in Michigan, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Indiana, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. The financial resources of the National Committee and state agencies have also increased, until now about twenty-five times as much is being expended on this sort of mental hygiene work as was spent in 1908, when the first society was founded.
Dr Walter E. Fernald, Superintendent of the State School for Feebleminded at Waverley, Massachusetts, presented a plan which had been adopted by the Sub-committee on Mental Deficiency, of which he is chairman, for popular education, extensive surveys, and researches in this subject. Demands for advice regarding institutional provisions, special classes for backward children and psychological examinations in the children’s courts, Dr Fernald said, had been received from all parts of the country and it was felt that this movement to deal more adequately with the problem of the feebleminded could be greatly helped by the same kind of authoritative advice and aid which is being given on behalf of the insane. A strong appeal was made by Dr Fernald for special funds to meet the increased demands for this kind of work. Dr William L. Russell, Medical Superintendent of Bloomingdale Hospital, described how the work of the National Committee is conducted under the supervision of an Executive Committee, all experts in different fields of mental hygiene. Dr Thomas W. Salmon, the Medical Director of the Committee, gave an account of the surveys of the care of the insane which had been carried on during the year in South Carolina and in Texas and announced that similar studies, each conducted by expert alienists, are under way or about to be undertaken in California, Tennessee, Missouri, Illinois, North Dakota, Indiana, and the District of Columbia. Attention was called to the striking change of attitude on the part of those charged with the care of the insane who not only permitted but welcomed such expert studies of their facilities for dealing with mental diseases. In the course of a moving description of the sufferings of the insane confined in county almshouses, jails, and poor-farms, Dr Salmon expressed the belief that the surveys which have been made possible by the appropriation of the Rockefeller Founda(29) tion will result in the complete abandonment of this type of neglect within the next few years. The steady decline since 1880 in the number of persons in almshouses is due, he said, in large part to the increasing provision in hospitals for the insane. And with the acceleration of this movement and increased provision for the feebleminded, the end of the small town or county poor-farms is in sight. It was shown that 1668 such institutions, each with less than twenty-five inmates, existed in the United States, all serving no useful purpose but, on the contrary, inviting the improper detention of the insane and the feebleminded. The most encouraging feature of Dr Salmon’s report was an account of the increasing interest in securing psychopathic hospitals for all large cities in which the earliest and most efficient treatment can be provided for acute and recoverable cases of mental disease. Such hospitals, each with its out-patient departments and psychological clinics for children, exist in Boston, Baltimore, and Chicago, as well as in several smaller cities, while New York is still unprovided with such an institution. The following officers for the ensuing year were elected: Dr Lewellys F. Barker, President; Vice Presidents, Dr Charles W. Eliot and Dr William H. Welch; Treasurer, Otto T. Bannard; Medical Director, Dr Thomas W. Salmon; Secretary, Clifford W. Beers; Executive Committee, Dr August Hoch (chairman), Dr George Blumer, Prof. Stephen P. Duggan, Dr William Mabon, Dr William L. Russell and Dr Lewellys F. Barker; Finance Committee, Prof. Russell H. Chittenden (chairman), Otto T. Bannard, Dr Henry B. Favill, and William J. Hoggson; Committee on Mental Deficiency, Dr Walter E. Fernald (chairman), Dr L. Pierce Clark, Prof. E. R. Johnstone, Dr C. S. Little, Dr A. C. Rogers. Proper Food for Young Children.
Simple bills of fare, helpful recipes, and practical directions for the preparation of foods for children between three and six years of age are contained in Farmers’ Bulletin 717, “Food for Young Children,” just issued by the U. S. Department of Agriculture, and written by Caroline L. Hunt, under the direction of Dr C. F. Langworthy, Chief of the Office of Home Economics. It is issued at this time as a co-operative contribution to the “Baby Week” campaign conducted by the Children’s Bureau of the U. S. Department of Labor. The author has carefully avoided the use of all technical dietary terms or systems of grouping, and has so classified foods that any mother can meet the following definition of a satisfactory diet for a little child:
“A little child 3 to 6 years of age who is carefully fed in accordance with his bodily needs (as these are now understood) receives every day at least one food from each of the following groups:
“1. Milk and dishes made chiefly of milk (most important of the group as regards children’s diet); meat, fish, poultry, eggs, and meat substitutes. “2. Bread and other cereal foods. “3. Butter and other wholesome fats. “4. Vegetables and fruits. “5. Simple sweets.”
The relation of food to the condition of the bowels is an important matter. Grains, particularly those containing the outer or branny layers or coats, are laxative; so, too, are such mildly acid fruits as apples, oranges, and grapefruit. So far, therefore, as preventing constipation is concerned, coarse grains and mildly acid fruits serve the same purpose.
The basis of a child’s diet should be clean whole milk?at least a quart a day. Such milk, in addition to water contains about half a cupful of the very best food substances?butterfat, milk sugar, lime, and other materials needed by the child to make muscle, bones, and teeth. In addition milk contains a substance thought to promote growth by helping the body make good use of other foods. Where good whole milk is not obtainable, clean, fresh skim milk supplies these substances with the exception of the butterfat, and is, of course, preferable to dirty or questionable whole milk. Milk, however, contains very little iron, and therefore spinach and other green vegetables and egg yolks, which are rich in iron, combine well with milk.
The child should drink the milk with the chill taken off, or should consume his full quart a day with cereals and in milk toast, cocoa, milk soups and stews, in cereal puddings, egg-and-milk puddings, custards, junkets, or simple ice creams. Milk stews may be made with vegetables or fish, or to vary the diet these things can be combined with cream sauce and served on milk toast. The bulletin gives a large number of recipes for the preparation of various milk dishes which will help children consume the requisite amount of milk without growing tired of this valuable food.
Well-baked bread and thoroughly cooked breakfast cereals are both good lor children, and with milk should make up a large part of the diet. Bread and cereal mushes are to a certain extent interchangeable, but neither can take the place of milk, meat, eggs, fruits, and vegetables. The yeast-raised bread given to young children should be at least a day old or should be toasted or twice baked.
Under the heading “Meat, Fish, Poultry, Eggs, and Meat Substitutes,” the author says: “In some families children do not get enough meat and eggs; in others they get too much. A good general rule commonly followed is to give a child two years old or over an egg every other day and about the same amount (two ounces) of meat, fish, or poultry on the intervening days. Where meat is omitted, care must be taken to see that other suitable foods take its place? preferably an extra amount of milk and eggs.”
Fried meats should not be given to a child, because they are likely to be overcooked and tough and also because the fat may be scorched and thus changed in composition. Scorched fat is almost certain to be hurtful to children. Meat is best given as broiled chop meat or in simple meat stews combined with vegetables. Poultry may be boiled and served with rice. When roasted, only the tender portions should be fed. Highly seasoned stuffing or rich gravy should not be given to a young child.
Dried and other fish, and oysters, may be used in milk stews. Well-boiled fish is good for variety. Eggs must not be overcooked or they are likely to cause indigestion. The best way to cook eggs is to poach or coddle them.
Fat is an important part of the food of children. There is more than an ounce of fat (at least level tablespoonfuLs) in a quart of whole milk. If the healthy child is given a quart of milk, has butter on his bread, and meat or an egg once a day, he gets enough fat, and that which he receives is in wholesome form. It is well, therefore, not to give such fatty foods as pastry, fried meats and vegetables, and doughnuts or rich cakes.
Vegetables and fruits are grouped together because they are similar in that both supply iron, lime, and other mineral matters, and also mild acids. Vegetables are an important but often a neglected part of the child’s diet. They should be served at least once a day, as they help to keep the bowels in good condition. Fruits are important for their flavoring, for their laxative effects and doubtless for other reasons, and should be served in some form at least once a day. Fruit juices and the pulp of cooked fruit, baked apples and pears, and stewed prunes, are the safest. The child should not be allowed to eat the skins unless they have been made very tender by cooking.
Sugar is a desirable part of the diet, provided it is given in simple sweets and not allowed to take the place of other foods and spoil the child’s appetite. Simple sweets are such things as lump sugar, maple sugar, sirups, honey, and plain candy, and those foods in which sugar is combined in simple forms with fruit juices (in lemonade, water ice, jelly, etc.), with flour or starch as in plain cakes (cup cake, sponge cake, cookies), and with fruit as in jams, marmalades, and other preserves.
Harvard Teachers’ Association.
The twenty-fifth annual meeting of the Harvard Teachers’ Association was held in Jacob Sleeper Hall, Boston University, on Saturday, March 11, at 2:30 p. m., followed by the annual dinner at the Brunswick Hotel at 6:30. The topic for discussion at both the afternoon meeting and the dinner was “Education and National Life.” The dinner was given by the Association and the Overseers’ Committee for the Division of Education, in honor of Professor Paul H. Hanus. Professor Hanus began his teaching at Harvard University in 1891, and founded the Harvard Teachers’ Association in the same year. In recognition of his leadership and influence a number of local and national educational societies were represented at the dinner and participated in arranging it.
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