1929 Memorandum for Dr. White from Chief Medical Director of Office of Indian Affairs

1929 Memorandum for Dr. White from Chief Medical Director of Office of Indian Affairs

Letters (Correspondence)
Memorandums

A memorandum from the Chief Medical Director of the Office of Indian Affairs for Dr. William A. White regarding the diagnoses of the asylum patients.

State Archives of the South Dakota State Historical Society

Copy from The National Archives

1929

government records, public domain

[1929]
REFER IN REPLY TO THE FOLLOWING:
5-1100
ADDRESSS ONLY THE
COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES
MEDICAL
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
OFFICE OF INDIAN AFFAIRS
WASHINGTON

Memorandum for Dr. White,
St. Elizabeth’s Hospital.
The following is quoted from Dr. Silk’s report, page 44, regarding the type of patients treated at Canton Asylum:
An attempt was made to get some idea as to the types of mental cases treated there. The inadequacy and incompleteness of records, absence of laboratory reports made reliable diagnosis impossible It would have consumed entirely too much time to examine carefully each patient individually, and this was not even attempted. However as a result of a discussion with Dr. Hummer and with the aid of the meagre records available the following classification was arrived at:
At the time of the interview there were 90 patients in the institution, 45 males and 45 females, divided as follows:
CLASSIFICATION
Diagnosis Male Female
Dementia Precox 17 19
Mental Deficiency (Imbecility) 10 9
With or without Psychosis
Senile Dementia 3 0
Constitutional Psychopath without Psychosis 3 0
Intoxication Psychosis 1 0
Idiocy 3 1
Manic-Depressive Psychosis 0 3
Psychosis with Organic Brain Disease 0 2
Epilepsy 9 6
Baby 0 1
Total 45 45
No date - [illegible] in Dec | 29
The above diagnoses were based mainly upon symptoms presented by patients upon admission. Some of these have been there many years, and at the time of inspection of the Institution did not show any active evidence of mental disease.
CLASSIFICATION OF THE SO-CALLED EPILEPTICS
Male Female
Essential Epilepsy 4 3
Cerebral Palsies, Congenital Idiocy and Imbecility with Convulsions 3 3
Organic Brain Disease with Convulsions 1 0
Alleged to be Epileptic; no Convulsions for two years, 1 0
Total. 9 6
There are a number of insane Indians hospitalized in the various state institutions. We have written to the field for this data, but it is incomplete.
I should think that provisions should be made for 150 to 200 patients, and probably such provisions would require further additions after a period of a few years.
[illegible signature]
Chief Medical Director.