Code of rules and regulations for the government of those employed in the care of the patients of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane : at Philadelphia / by Thomas S. Kirkbride.

  • Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane.
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Code of rules and regulations for the government of those employed in the care of the patients of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane : at Philadelphia / by Thomas S. Kirkbride. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    To perform properly the duties of any station con- nected with the insane, requires high moral feelings, great self-denial, and a severe schooling of the tem- per and disposition. If this is thoroughly done, every one is enabled to become highly useful in one of the most exalted fields of benevolence. Simply to perform special duties is not all that is required ; there must both be felt and shown an active interest in all the patients—a desire to add to their comfort in every way, and to advance their cure, steady efforts to interest or amuse them, a watchful care over their conduct and conversation, and a constant sympathizing intercourse, calculated to win their attachment, and command their respect and confi- dence. All situations about the insane are well known to be arduous and responsible, but a faithful perform- ance of duty in any one of them cannot fail to give a kind of character that must prove useful in other walks of life; and it is sincerely hoped that many who may be employed hereafter in this institution, like not a few who have left it, will in after years look back with satisfaction, not only upon the good they have been instrumental in conferring upon their suffering fellow-beings, but upon the direct benefits they have themselves derived from a resi- dence in the institution. While we are employed here, we must not allow ourselves to forget for a moment, that this noble in- stitution was prepared for the benefit and happiness of its patients, and not for our convenience or ad- vantage, and that to promote the former, we must