Miscellaneous Notes and Recommendations. A CENTRAL PLANT FOR HEATING. At our request Mr. George L. Heins, State Architect, considered at length the advisability of heating the Villa Flora group, the East group and the Village Green group, in all of which 1,500 to 1,800 patients will eventually live, from the main power plant, but thought it would not be a matter of economy at this time. Fuel and light cost $19.76 per patient in the total per capita cost of $164.42 during the past year, and we are confident that the time will soon come when it will be more economical to heat all groups from one central plant. LOCAL TRANSPORTATION. A year ago we spoke of the problem of local transportation. We thought a system of electrical roads would be a good thing to have. We need a better and cheaper system than doing it by teams. If we could build good roads, it would enable us to do it by teams better than it is done now. The present cost of the service is close to $3,000 a year. ECONOMY AND COMFORT IN HOUSES OF WOOD. We have again to recommend the building of some houses of wood for patients. We illustrated this point last year with a picture of Tallchief Cottage, a wooden building forty years old, still good, and of excellent design and arrangement for epileptics. Such a building is as little exposed to fire, and, with our facilities for fire protection, would not be destroyed by fire any quicker than one of the new non-fireproof brick cottages on the Village Green or in the women's group. Homes like Tallchief Cottage could be built for $200 a bed, and judging by similar buildings now on the place they would be good for seventy-five years. CHANGES IN LAW GOVERNING THE ADMISSION OF PATIENTS. We feel that it would put the Colony on a broader basis to do good if that part of its organic law governing the admission of patients could be amended to provide simply for the admission of epileptics without class distinction. Once here, if they have no means, accept them as indigents and do not require them to pay; if they have means, then let them pay. This provision would not abridge in the slightest the consideration the present law evidently intended to bestow upon the indigents, while it would deny admission to many as indigents who now enter as such but who can afford and would like to pay. NERVE NOSTRUMS. Many epileptics in their eagerness to find relief from the disease, try all sorts of patent and quack nostrums, and in doing. so run great risk of suffering evils more destructive than epilepsy. True, many of these quack remedies, so glowingly set forth in the public prints, do possess the power of suppressing the attacks for a time; but it is suppression only, not cure, and from repeated observations on the effects of such nostrums we have noted that the patients are always worse afterwards. Some of them are poisonous in unskilled hands and I have known death to result from their use. Others, though they temporarily suppress the fits, destroy the mind. TRAINED NURSES. Two candidates graduated from the Colony Training School for Nurses in June last. We have found the service of nurses especially trained in our school invaluable in the care of epilep tics. BISHOP MCQUAID'S GIFT. The very generous and noble action on the part of the Rt. Rev. B. J. McQuaid, Bishop of Rochester, in donating funds was noted in our last annual report, and the report of the Resident Catholic Chaplain shows that the Church of the Divine Compas sion and priest's residence in connection with same are nearing completion. MORE INDUSTRIES. We are constantly training more patients to work and we need more industries. In summer we can find employment for all, but we have not enough shops and indoor forms of work to keep them busy during the long months of winter. The women, especially, need a building in which all the creative work by them could be carried on: a sort of useful arts building. PRESERVATION OF SCIENTIFIC DATA. After six months study and trial we determined upon a card index system to supplant the present system of keeping medical, surgical and scientific data, and hope to see the system in use at an early date. We are in a position to collect and preserve vast quantities of valuable data about epilepsy, and we would be at fault if we did not do so. Our records are now quite elaborate and complete, but the card index system would make them more so. VISITORS. Governor B. B. Odell and party, consisting of Congressmen James W. Wadsworth and Lucius M. Litthauer, State Senators Frank W. Higgins and T. E. Ellsworth, Hon. S. Fred Nixon, Speaker, Hon. Otto Kelsey and Hon. J. P. Allds, Assemblymen, visited and inspected the Colony August 29. The President, Hon. Wm. R. Stewart, the Vice-President, Dr. E. V. Stoddard, Dr. Stephen Smith, Mr. Peter Walrath and Mr. D. McCarthy, Commissioners of the State Board of Charities, and Mr. Hebberd, Secretary, also made visits during the year. We also had many visitors from this and foreign countries who came to see and study the Colony system; three commissioners from England coming during the past summer. Commissioners also came from Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey and other states where the public care of epileptics is receiving attention. APPOINTMENTS. Dr. Annie M. Tremaine was appointed woman physician January 21, 1901. Dr. Harriet A. Gignoux was appointed medical interne March 7, 1901. Drs. Tremaine and Gignoux have since had charge of the entire women's group. Dr. William T. Shanahan was appointed medical interne February 11, 1901. Rev. Alfred F. Pratt was appointed Resident Protestant Chaplain February 8, 1901. Miss Mary F. Tracy and Miss Marietta Hitchcock were appointed teachers on the respective dates of September 9 and 21, 1901. RESIGNATIONS. Dr. L. Pierce Clark, for five years first assistant physician, resigned the latter part of September and went to Europe to study general medicine in the schools of Berlin and Vienna. After a year's absence Dr. Clark expects to enter private prac tice in New York city. He was always ready and willing to give his best efforts to the work of the Colony during its pioner devA, and with all his duties was an ardent student of epilepsy. His genial personality and example of industry will be greatly missed. Dr. Edward L. Hanes, third assistant physician, resigned October first and went to accept a similar position in the Hudson River State Hospital, at Poughkeepsie, by request of the Superintendent of that institution. THANKS TO ALL. I most gratefully acknowledge the good work of the officers, administrative assistants and employees during the year. The undivided support and consideration I have always received from you, and for which I again thank you, have been pleasant and effective aids in doing the work required of me. Very respectfully submitted, WILLIAM P. SPRATLING, M. D., |