Female Nursing of Male Patients in Asylums

Abstract

The question of utilising female nursing to a greater extent than formerly in the care of male patients in asylums has roused much interest of late years, and has been brought under the consideration of the Association on several occasions. In advocating the adoption of this form of nursing one is apt to give the impression that the method is something entirely new as applied to asylum patients. But that is not intended, for in reality the system has existed to some degree for a long time; and it is only the question of the advantages of extending it, and making it much more systematic and complete, that is now raised. In some places on the Continent it has been in use for a number of years, and is developed to a greater extent than is usual in this country. In April last I had an opportunity, in company with Sir John Sibbald, formerly Commissioner in Lunacy for Scotland, Dr. Fraser, Commissioner in Lunacy for Scotland, and Dr. Robertson, medical superintendent of the Stirling District Asylum, of visiting two institutions in Holland and seeing the method in practice; and I now venture to submit some notes, not by any means exhaustive, of what was observed there, and to make these, and my own further experience of the system at the Fife Asylum since 1896, when I had the privilege of reading a paper descriptive of it at the annual meeting of the Association, the basis of my remarks at this time.