Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/520

Rh physician for the female insane, but she is subordinate to the male physician. She has a female physician to assist her. Dr. Bennett was appointed and took charge in July, 1880, with Dr. Anna Kingler as her assistant. Dr. Kingler resigned, and went to India as medical missionary; was succeeded by Dr. Rebecca S. Hunt, who, after more than a year's service, also resigned to go to India as medical missionary. Dr. Bennett has now two women physicians to assist her in the care of more than six hundred patients, nearly as many as, if not more than, are in the female departments of the Harrisburg, Danville, and Warren hospitals all combined.

Dr. Bennett's hospital is a model one. There is a total absence of physical restraint, as used formerly under male superintendents, and, I may say, as still used in other hospitals than that of Norristown. Her skill in providing amusement, instruction and employment of various kinds, for the comfort and restoration of her patients to sanity and physical health, I feel sure has never been equaled in any hospital for the treatment of insane women. It is exceedingly interesting to see the school which she has established, and in which a large number of the insane are daily instructed, amused and interested. It is well known, now, that when the mind of the insane can be drawn away from their delusions by employment, or whatever else may interest them and absorb their attention, they are on the road to health. The public are not yet fully awake to the great reform effected in having women physicians for the women insane. Insane women have been treated as though there were no diseases peculiar to the sex. Never, so far as I have been able to learn, have they been treated by the means used for the relief of women in their homes. An eminent surgeon of Philadelphia informed me a few days since, that thirty years ago he was an assistant to Dr. Kirkbride, and desired to treat a patient for uterine troubles, but was rebuked by Dr. K., and told never to attempt to use the appliances relied on in private practice. My informant added that he believed not a single insane woman had ever received special treatment for affections in any of the hospitals under the care of male physicians. While we realize that great advantages would have come to these poor unfortunates by proper treatment, we feel that no male physician having due regard for his own reputation, should attempt to treat an insane woman for uterine diseases by means used in private practice, or even in hospitals with sane women. And this shows the importance of women physicians for women insane. One of the most intellectual and prominent women of this State was, 30 years ago, on account of domestic application, an inmate of our then champion hospital for the insane, for several months, during all of which time her sufferings were, to use her own words, indescribable, and yet she was not once asked in relation to her physical condition. Let us turn aside from this, and glance at the last annual report of Dr. Alice Bennett. She reports 180 patients examined for uterine diseases; 125 were placed under treatment; 67 treated for a length of time; 60 benefited by treatment. While Dr. Bennett does not say that their insanity was caused by the uterine disease, or that they were cured by curing that affection, she observes that in some cases the relief of the mind kept pace with the prog-