Woukesha, Wisconsin,

Dr. Thomas W. Salmon, Medical Director ,
National Committee for Mental Hygiene,
370 « Tthe Ave», New York City, N. Y.

Deer Doctor Salmon:

Allow me to thank you for your letter of July 14th. A word of
appreciation from one who is competent to speak on the subject is especially
welcome at this time.

At the risk of boring you I em going to give some inside facts about the
charges that have been made and some phases of our policy in running the
hospital. On May 14th. a man, named from Fond du Lac, Wis.,
came to the hospital and without my knowledge worked among the patients in order
to secure signers to affidavits charging mistreatment and neglect. He managed
to secure two affidavits with eight signers. The affidavits charged that we
were severe in discipline, illiberal with our passes, that we did not diagnose
and treat cases correctly, etc., and one affidavit charged that a dector had
kicked a patient. You, of course, know that among patients such as we treat
there are always bound to be a few who are discontented and who would sign most
anything. I, however, am absolutely sure that without this outside interference
no affidavits would ever have been made. The leader of this situation in the
hospital was a chopath named Moberg. He seemed to have been here for the

purpose of ating other patients, but even with him nothing would have been
done without After HE left. several patients came to me and told
me of the incident and said that it was their opinion that motive was to

pose as a friend of the soldiers in order to seoure this vote for State Senator
from the Fond du lac District and I have been told by people,who claim to know,
that the whole thing is a deep-laid acheme of a certain political faction of
Wisconsin to rehabilitate themselves with the soldier vote. Whether or not
there is any truth in this I do not know, but I do know that this faction, by
its attitude during the war, lost the support of a number of patriotic are

- The Wisconsin Newa, a yellow newapaper said to be controlled by Hearst, :
and the organ of this faction in Wisconsin, has taken up the charges and has been
running large head lines and printing false statements about the hospital. I
am sending you a sample of the Wisconsin News Campaigné. You will observe that
they speak of the "Plight of a Sick Vet' and if you read the article you will
see that is mentioned. The aignificant fact about this article
is that although the patient went to Hartford, Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Journal
and Wisconsin News received a telegram fron song du Lac, the home of [I
telling them that this man had run away of abuse. The News’ reporter
came here afterwards and in my presence Sr “told him abeut having been locked
up in insane wards seven months during his army service, about heving been treated
in numerous hospitals and sanitariume since his discharge, in four of which he
was locked in ingane wards,and about having deserted from four different hospitals.
He also told this reporter "that he did not leave here because of _— that he
&

“was treated kindly and well at Waukesha and liked it better than any hospitel
he had ever seen. You will observe the distortion that the News has made of
this story. It is characteristic of everything they have printed and shows

oe wlearly thet there must be some ulterior motive in what they are doing.

: Now, about our severe discipline and illiberality of passes, I hesitate
often to tell medical men about this because we have so offten been told that
we are too easy and our discipline is lax. This oritioism has come from some
of our personnel as well as from others, but oritiolem, tradition and the
regulations have not deterred me from the policy decided upon in the beginning.
This policy is based on the belief that every restriction placed on a nervous
patient's liberty that dees no good is positively harmful and that punishment
of minor delinquencies is harmful not only to the individual but to the general
well being of the patients in general because of the bad morale and the sullen
discontent, which is liable tobe caused by what might seem unnecessary severity.
In the pursuit of this policy we have not lost sight of the fact that certain |
neurotics are benefited by severity, but it seems that any rational person would
 Pealize that without army authority, the attempt to put over army discipline
and army methods in handling these cases would be absurd. We had a special con-
dition to meet. It had to be met with special methods and those officers and
. others of the personnel who would not take our word for it and have attempted
anything rough have been promptly armubbed by me. The only punishment we have
ever meted out has been to deprive a patient of his clothing for a period of a
week or ten days or to deprive him of passes for a similar period and thie, if
I remember correctly, haa been done less than one-half dosen times. Our method
ig simply this. When a patient is continually delinquent, as many of them |
from the nature of their disorder are bound to be, either Dr. Heldt or I send
for him and give him 4 kindly talk in which he ie shown that his course is harm-
' ful to himself and distasteful to us bacause of the example it sete for other
patients. This measure in nearly all cases succeeds and patients who have been
unruly and abusive calm down and give no more trouble. We have had psychopaths
sent us from eleewhere merely to get rid of them. A mumber of these, after a
few weeke of our treatment, have calmed down and been perfectly orderly in every
way, proving, I think, that our method must be the beat for this special situation.
_ The spirit of this hospital hes alwaye been high. Our patients as a rule swear
by us and we have little disorder simply because we have treated them ae human
beings. :

. Afternoon and night passes are given to all patients and for therapeutic
effect wo give passes allowing patients to visit theiy homes. Our Medical
Officers are interested in their work and at the present time four papers, dealing
with the different features of it, are in the course of preparation. You
probably know thet some of our clinical histories comprise 20 typewritten paces.
Our attending specialists see all doubtful cases and yet these affidavite charge
that patients ere not diagnosed properly. yas !

About the patient who was alleged to have been kicked by Dr. EE this
incident happened in January. The patient attacked Dr. but instead of
punishing him by dismissal from the hospital, as we had a perfect right to do, we
gave him one of our talks. He apologised and admitted that he had been in the
wrong and we allowed him to stay. More than three months later —
to sign the affidavit saying thet he had been kicked and injured. Dre
is, however, an untaoctful officer and in my opinion proper handling of this case
would heve aveided an attack by him. a still continues to be somewhat
unteactful. I have, therefore, asked the Bureau to separate him from this station
and they will, no doubt, do so. : :
moo

You eS remember Drs — He is one of our very bent Peyches
Therapists and has always been well liked by the patients. [x together
with has worked up considerable opposition to him and has, I believe,
seoured some affidavits about his eruelty to patients. Dr. EE once pre-
vented I from taking a couple of girls up to his room and from this a
mountain has grown. 1 have to admit, horever, that [ie not like Heldt.
While Heldt was eway EMM acted as Clinical Director and it seews that hie -
manner toward certain patients in the eteff showed irritation and this hahaa
the ball of opposition to him to grows

In con@lusion, I wish to thank the Natdonad Committes for the help they
have at different times been to us and I am going to express the hope thet
you will aid us in any suggestions or adviée concerning our work that in your -
opinion will give better reaults in the treatment of these men or would make
an advance in Medical knowledge,concerning the special disorders we treats

Very truly yours,

Lowrrence Kolb,
Surgeon in Charge.