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Here are five cases in five different private asylums near New York, all of which have a good reputation. In all the same abuse exists -- unintelligent care is the rule. In all these places the doctor in charge sees the patient once a day or every other day, as all have offices in New York. In all the food is plain but wholesome, and served unattractively and, usually, cold. In all prices from $50 to $100 a week are charged. Double the charge would have been cheerfully paid for skilful attendants in every case mentioned.

Secondly, as to the remedy:

It is well known that at Bloomingdale Asylum there is a good training school for nurses, from which graduates come out every year competent to take care of cases of mental disease. If it became imperative upon these asylum physicians to employ trained nurses of good capacity, they could be found and supplied. But since there is no demand made, excepting by patients whose statements are not accepted, or by relatives whose protests are disregarded, the present evils continue. Many physicians wash their hands of a patient as soon as he is consigned to an asylum, and if they do visit him, it is soon made clear that such visits are regarded as an interference by the doctor in charge. It seems evident, therefore, that public opinion should be aroused in this matter, and I hope this statement of facts of my personal knowledge may awaken such a demand for the reform of these abuses that good may come of this protest against an existing condition.

Yours respectfully,
M. ALLEN STARR, M.D.