HOSPITAL FOR INSANE FEMALES.
The SPEAKER announced the special order being the consideraton of Mr. Meredith's bill [H. R. 189] to establish a Female Hospital, and providing for the organization and government thereof, which was read the second time.
Mr. MEREDITH said this bill is to reform the present system of caring for the female insane by taking them out of the control men and putting them into the hands of women. This principle has been adopted in Pennsylvania, Iowa and Massachusetts, and it has worked well. In all these Institutions they have female physicians to treat the insane. Women are a great deal better adapted to treat and care for women--women being more sympathetic and peculiarly adapted to take care of the sick, and better informed as to the peculiar diseases with which her sex is afflicted. The inmates fare much better and are more successfully treated.
Mr. HAMILTON favored a measure of this kind, and thought the department ought to be under the care of women so far as possible.
The bill was ordered engrossed.
