To the Editor of the '"Nonm-Cinva Dany News"
Sim—In view of Shanghai's recent interest in Mental Hygiene, your readers might like to haves few notes on its history.
'Mental Hygiene began dramatically. In 1908, Clifford Beers, a Yale University ' graduate, who' had been a patient in both public and private hospitals for the insane in America, published is experiences in these institutions ina book entitled "A Mind. that Found Itself," and when he had fully recovered his health, he determined to devote the rest'of his life arousing public interest in the prevention and care of mental diseases.
He succeeded in organizing the Connecticut Stale Committee for Mental Hygiene in the same year, and. 1009 "the "National Committee for Mental "Hygiene was formally ganized.
The Committee was convinced that all was not well in the State mental institutions, and surveys were made order to raise the standards for the care' of mental patients; surveys that yielded much valuable data and re-[sulted in many improvements, Although this was only a beginning, Tour the public conscience was aroused, Jand surveys were then made. of penal institutions, reformatories, and. prisons. Investigations showed that many delinquents and criminals were mentally deflelent or insane, and therefore in need of custodial care'
proper institutions.
From that time onwards, the move~ ment spread rapidly, first in the: United "States, and Jater to Canada (where they did 1918) France, Belgium, Britain, Brazil, South Africa, Spain, Holy, Switzerland, Germany, Hung: ary, New Zealand, Bulgaria, Holland, Australia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Russia, India, Japan and Czechoslovakia, and recently to China. Thus, In the thirty years since Its incepton, the movement has become worldwide, and there is now an International Committee for Mental Hygiene, all these countries Mental Hygiene and Child Guidance Clinics have been established, methods of caring for the insane and mentally defective have been improved, and [general educational activities carried fon by icans of lectures, pamphlets, te, until today there is scarcely a Single country where this important work Is not in progress, Of necessity, the movement frst concentrated upon the urgent public health problems of mental disease and delinquency, but the leaders learly visualized it as being concerned with the whole life adjust. a ment of the human individual, Thus education, marriage, parenthood, industry, and all the relationships of {individuals to each other and to their Lord environment have their mental hygiene aspects, Psychiatric and psychological examinations are_now held for school children, employees, and enquiries conducted into domestic dimeulties, marriage maladjustments, and parenthood.
Perhaps the greatest sphere of Mental Hygiene "is among problem and backward children and maladjusted adolescents and adults (they exist in all too many families), who though welledeveloped physically and even intellectually, present characteristics of personality and behaviour, which may handicap them in the economic and social life normal individuals. Another very important sphere of its activities is, of course, the proper care and treat= ment of the insane.
In brief, Mental Hygiene ix the scientific study of the mind and the practical application of the science of psychology.
Shanghai now has its own Mental Hygiene Association, and a Mental Hygiene and a Child Guidance Clinic:
at present operating in connection with the neuropsychiatric service at St. Luke's Hospital, Kiukiang Road, In a short while, Shanghai will "also have its own Mental Hygione Hospital, With thanks. anticipation for your kindness in publishing this Tetter, MIN. Jean Brown (us. Joseew), Publicity Committee The Mental Hygiene Association of Shanghai, Shanghai, Feb. 28.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.