Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/76

60 expense of caring for them in the hospital. The state board is to visit all persons so boarded out at least once in three months, and to remove them if not well cared for. In 1889 Michigan authorized the overseers and the superintendents of the poor to board out idiots and the harmless insane. Minnesota has made provision for boarding those who cannot be cared for in their homes, with families, the expense of so doing not to exceed $3 per week.

Insane criminals are sometimes cared for in the prisons, sometimes in the hospitals for the insane. When transferred to the hospitals, they are usually confined in a special ward. Four states (Massachusetts, New York, Michigan, and Illinois) have established special hospitals for them. When cured, they are transferred to the prison, or, if the sentence has expired, discharged.

From the condition of the inmates more abuses are likely to arise in connection with the hospitals for the insane than in connection with other institutions. To prevent these abuses many of the states have made it incumbent upon the boards of directors to visit and inspect their hospitals frequently. As will be seen in a subsequent paper, where state boards of charities have been created, the hospitals for the insane are to receive their special attention.

We have thus far been concerned almost exclusively with the state hospitals. The state system of care has prevailed. Yet a word should be said concerning the "Wisconsin plan," a compromise between the state and the county systems.

In Wisconsin the counties are authorized, with the consent of the State Board of Control, to establish county asylums for the insane. These are designed primarily for the care of the chronic cases, yet they are also used to some extent for the treatment of the acute insane. When approved by the state board, the state pays them $1. 50 per week for each chronic, and $2.75 per week for each acute case, cared for. When the county does not care for its own insane, but sends them to the state hospital, it must pay the state $1. 50 per week for each indigent so sent.