By P. Bryce, M. D., LL. D., Superintendent.

This hospital, which is located at Tuskaloosa, was established by an act of the Legislature approved February 6, 1852, and completed and opened to the public April 5, 1861. It is constructed on what is known as the Kirkbride, or linear plan, and was at first intended to accommodate about 300 patients. Additions have since been made to the main building, and several detached buildings have been erected, exclusively for the colored insane. The capacity of the hospital has thus been very largely increased, and the buildings at present accommodate between 1,100 and 1,200 patients. There were, in October, 1891, 1,128 patients under treatment. The entire cost of the building, from first to last, including furniture, etc., is half million dollars.

The institution is controlled by a board, composed of seven trustees, appointed by the Governor. It is supported by the State, a per capita of $2.25 a week, or $117.00 a year, being the cost of each indigent patient under treatment in the hospital. Private patients, or those who pay their own expenses, are also received, the charge for this class being $25.00 per month.

The receipts from the State for the indigent and the charges for the paying patients constitute the entire income of the hospital. Out of this income are paid all the salaries of the officers and employes and all the expenses incident to the care of the patients, including their board and clothing, as well as repairs and improvements on the buildings and grounds of the hospital.

The buildings of this mammoth institution are perfect in all their appointments. Connected therewith are a complete system of waterworks; fire service; apparatus for making coal gas; carpenter shops, supplied with every kind of machinery for making doors, sashes and furniture; blacksmith shops; tinshops, and a large and well-appointed steam laundry, furnished with drying closets and other approved apparatus; a new and complete steam bakery, furnished with the latest approved machinery, including a Vale rotary oven, a mixer, cracker machine and other apparatus. A small steam engine rotates the oven and drives the other machinery. The bakery was planned and furnished by A. J. Fish & Co., of Chicago, Illinois, at a cost, including the two story building, of about $3,000.00.

The system of waterworks, as a protection against fire, is as complete, perhaps, as any in the world, and merits a more minute description. The old reservoir, holding 50,000 gallons of water, into which the water from two large and unfailing springs is collected, has been supplemented by a larger reservoir, holding 1,000,000 gallons, and located immediately in its rear. The overflow from the small reservoir passes into the larger one, and is retained there for use only in case of fire. The bottoms of the two reservoirs, which are on the same level, are connected by an eighteen-inch water pipe, controlled by a water gate. Connected with the small reservoir are two Worthington steam pumps, made expressly for this work, and which are capable of forcing 1,000 gallons of water per minute through an eight-inch cast-iron pipe, which entirely surrounds the building. On this pipe, hydrants, with two openings each, are placed every 100 feet, and it is estimated that the pumps will throw six streams, through 14 inch nozzles, 125 feet high. On the line of the main pipe has been erected a brick tower, and placed upon its top is an iron tank holding 55,000 gallons

of water. This serves as a water supply for daily consumption and for immediate use in case of fire, until the pumps can be started. Nothing could be more complete than our present water-works, and they leave nothing to be desired in the way of a fire service.

Another feature worthy of special mention, and distinctive of this hospital, is the substitution, for the original system of separate dining rooms for each ward, of a common or congregate dining room, in which all the patients, of each sex and color, take their meals. These buildings, two in number-one for the men and one for the women-are 150 feet long by 50 wide, are built of brick and covered with a metal roof. They each afford comfortable seating room for 500 patients, with their nurses and others employed about the hospital. Each ward has its separate table, in order that a proper classification may be preserved. The patients are conducted to their meals in regular order, at the ringing of the bell, and, after the meal, return, in the same orderly manner, to their wards or to the adjoining court yards. The advantages of this system are very pronounced, both in the saving of labor and provisions. It also enables the supervisors to exercise a stricter oversight of the distribution of food and the feeding of the feeble and more delicate patients.

The hospital is furnished with coal obtained from mines on its own grounds, which costs, when delivered on the premises, about one dollar per ton. This coal is of very superior quality for making both steam and illuminating gas. The hospital building and its various annexes are heated throughout by steam radiators placed in the cellars, and lighted by the gas manufactured from its own coal.

An additional tract of land, containing about 800 acres, lying on the Warrior river, two miles north of the present hospital site, has recently been purchased and supplied with all the appurtenances and implements necessary to a model farm. This large tract of land affords ample pasture for the great number of milch cows and other stock belonging to the institution. The land lying on the river affords fine facilities for farming. The original 100 acres. connected with the institution is conducted on what is called the intensive system of farming-that is to say manures, and fertilizers suitable to the

several crops are used without stint, and the ground is forced by skillful culture to its utmost capacity, thus yielding an abundant supply of vegetables for table use and also for feeding stock.

The lawn in front of the building contains about forty acres, and is beautifully laid out and adorned with grass, shrubbery and trees.

The management of this hospital is conducted on the most approved modern principles. Its distinctive features are the absence of all mechanical restraint, and the employment of a large per cent. of its patients in useful and congenial occupations. We clip the following touching these important points from a late report of the superintendent:

"TREATMENT OF PATIENTS.

"There has been little, if any, change in the treatment of patients since the abolition of all mechanical restraint, ten years ago. Every year's experience since that notable event has impressed us more and more forcibly with its extreme wisdom and efficacy. Our hospital wards have now the appearance of a large but well conducted family circle, in which all the members are actively engaged in some useful work or pleasant pastime. The effect of this rational and home-like treatment of the patients is simply marvelous. We can now open our ward doors and allow a large number of our patients to go in and out at pleasure, without the least apprehension that such a privilege will be abused. Our wards are as quiet under this system, and their inmates as pleasant, peaceable and friendly, as those of any well ordered private family. It is rarely the case, as our neighbors can testify, that unusual noises of any kind are heard to emanate from our wards, even where the most disturbed and excitable classes are kept.

"Under this system the abuse or rough treatment of patients by nurses, of which we used to hear so much, has almost ceased to occur. Nurses are still occasionally dismissed for dictatorial or discourteous treatment of their patients, but these offenses are seldom, or never, of an aggravated character, and under the old system of restraint would never have been noticed. Patients are never, or very rarely, confined to their