up and suggest such an amendment as would cover it; it would be a very desirable thing to do.

On the general question, the law reads: "The superintendent may grant a parole to a patient not exceeding six months under general conditions prescribed by the Commission." It would seem that the Commission might properly prescribe the "general conditions" and in that way cover the whole subject; but if the desired changes were enacted into law it would probably be more satisfactory.

Dr. PALMER: I would like to ask before the motion is put how is it possible for Dr. Hurd's point to be properly covered in this motion. It seems to me it is a question as to the length of time for paroling a patient; whether a patient commits a homicide can not be covered; the question is whether the superintendent shall parole such a patient at all. A superintendent can never be sure that any parole patient will not commit some overt act. The two questions do not seem to me to be related.

The motion of Commissioner Higgins was adopted.

The next paper "Statistics of the Psychoses of Suffolk County," was read by Dr. H. G. Gibson of the Central Islip State Hospital.

(The paper appears on page 18 of this issue.)

Dr. ELLIOTT: Dr. Gibson has requested me to say something about this subject so far as Willard is concerned. I am surprised to find such a large proportion of senile patients received from Suffolk County. At Willard we have known for years that the proportion of this class from our district is higher than that of any other hospital, and is due to the fact that our whole district is extremely rural in character; it embraces nine counties in which there is no large city. Some of these counties, notably Seneca and Yates, have been decreasing in population for a number of years. The proportion of persons over 65 years of age to the whole population in the district is very much greater than in large cities as has been shown by the reports of the United States Census Bureau. This accounts for the situation at Willard and I presume the same argument applies to Suffolk County.

The Chairman announced that a slight change would be made in the program of the conference, paper No. 5, The Care of Babies in State Hospitals, to be next taken up. He called upon Dr. Howard to open the discussion or to read a paper on the subject.

Dr. HOWARD: Mr. Chairman-When this program was distributed by mail from the Albany office, I saw that I was to discuss this subject and I immediately wrote to Dr. Smith here that I would be unable to be present at this conference. I also sent a specious explanation to Commissioner Pilgrim, Chairman of the conference. Then I came down here on the quiet thinking that they had sent from Albany to other parties the information upon which this discussion was to be based, Mr. Elwood having written me that he would on Monday morning forward to me from Albany the material that should be presented to the conference. Now, as that material never reached me, I supposed naturally it had gone to some one else; hence, I concluded that I was not to be called upon. Since such is not the case, and as I don't know what was in this package he was to send me, I think I can safely limit myself to a very brief statement, of experiences and expression of opinion, the main point of which would be that the most difficult matter to solve in regard to the care of babies in the State hospitals, is how to dispose of them. An important point is to get rid of them as soon as you can do so with propriety. They are not, however, so very much bother while they are there in their earlier days. There are old ladies eager to care for them and the nurses in the school are perfectly willing to neglect their other duties and take care of the babies, and there is no particular danger from the patients. But when you get down to the point of getting rid of them then you have trouble. Suppose they die. You can't bury them with the funds of the State and you are in great difficulty. The coroner don't want anything to do with such babies, and the superintendent of the poor won't have anything to do with them if he can avoid it; and you don't know what in the world to do with that dead baby. And sometimes those babies are born to the hospital employees. I remember an employee being delivered of a

dead child and she had no friends and no relatives and hadn't been in the hospital long enough to earn any money; and there was the baby to bury; and the superintendent of the poor said that if he could determine the legal residence of the father he would give an order to charge the expense to the county, city or town. Now, suppose the baby is alive and you try to get somebody to take charge of it, to adopt it. No one wants to adopt it on the general impression that it has inherited the insanity or because of other unfavorable influences in its early days and you can't get anywhere with that proposition.

If a baby does appear at a State hospital the superintendent should begin at once his efforts to get rid of it. The circumstances will vary in each case. If he lets the baby stay there the time is going to come when that baby gets too old to remain and yet not old enough to be admitted as a voluntary patient. It is not all fun to take care of that child even while he stays there. We had a baby at the Rochester, State Hospital and the mother had improved to such an extent that she was permitted to be out on the lawn. One morning she went out on the street, strolling up and down in front of the hospital with the baby in her arms, and a gentleman and his wife driving by, from Rochester saw her and asked her if she didn't want a ride. She had no objections and they took her in and went on up to the first village. She didn't seem to have reached her destination, and appeared perfectly contented and continued the ride with them. They went in all thirty miles, to the White Horse Tavern at East Avon. That was the end of their journey and they suggested that the woman get out and she did get out with her baby and walk up the road, and they after a time came back to the city. We had, meanwhile, been striving to locate the patient and the baby. Darkness having come on, the people who had taken the patient evidently thought that she might have belonged at the hospital and they telephoned and learned that the woman was a patient with us. The question with. us then was how in the world to find the woman and baby. I telephoned to the President of our Board of Managers

(and I think the president of every board should come to a fellow's rescue now and then) and he said he didn't see how the board could stand back of us in the case of an ininsane woman and her child having escaped from the hospital unless we could show that we had spent the whole of the night looking for her. He suggested that we send out searching parties up toward this White Horse tavern and keep them going all night.

We found the mother and child and brought her back. I speak of that case to indicate what might occur.

I want to impress upon you before concluding that in this matter of binding out babies you may find complications and you may be sorry when you reach my age that you have ever tried to do it.

Twenty-three years ago a woman in our district wanted to adopt a baby and having a baby at hand I produced it and she was glad to take it. This woman's husband was absent at the time but returning home and finding the baby there he seemed to be perfectly satisfied. Along about two years ago a young man called on me at the office and waited to see me. He told me that he had decided to come down and see me from his home town and talk matters over; that he had been brought up in the belief that I was his father; that his foster father had died and that he thought he would come to Rochester and have a nice visit with his own father, and so forth. I couldn't very well take him home; so I took him into the library and locked the door and talked with him a while. Then I learned that he and his people lived in Brooklyn. Now, I don't mind. telling you that I got here this morning by coming through the tube and I did it safely, but I am timid about going back if I have to go through Brooklyn. I asked if I couldn't get back by going across the sound to Dr. May's place in Massachusetts.

Perhaps the Commission ought to establish a rule that there should be no babies in the hospitals; that within two weeks after their birth they must be delivered to somebody outside the institution. There may be some way out of it but the orphan asylums won't take a baby until it is one year old, and that is because of the large death rate among

young children.

As I said before, the baby in a State hospital gets good care, splendid care. I remember one case where we had a baby at the hospital and I couldn't get rid of it, it remained there in the hospital. After a time I found that the Catholic Church holds views with regard to the care of children that can be taken advantage of; the Catholic Church don't want babies of Catholic parents brought up by people who don't belong to the church; and if you can make them believe that you are going to give that baby to somebody not a Catholic, the Catholic authorities will take that Catholic baby and bring it up.

The CHAIRMAN: I think that Dr. Howard's substitute for his written paper has been a very agreeable and satisfactory one; and I felt sure that he would render us some help through suggestions as to a solution of this problem; we all know of his great reputation for successfully solving hospital difficulties and I am sure he has given us some illuminating views.

When we thought Dr. Howard was not going to be here, Mr. Elwood made a suggestion that Mr. Folks might be induced to open the discussion of this subject, and I am very sure that he has some ideas to offer, and I know also that you will be glad to hear from him.

Mr. FOLKS: Mr. Chairman-What ideas I have upon this subject can be very quickly stated. Perhaps I am responsible for having brought this question within the range of discussion and I will tell you how it came about. The city authorities of New York City were inquiring about children received into the charitable institutions of that city and what led to their admission. They found in their inquiry that a certain number of babies were received from the State hospitals for the insane-very young babies those were-and they asked me to get some idea of how many such cases there were and what the plan of the State was in dealing with them and what was the best thing to be done. I spoke of it to the Secretary of the Commission and I think that led to the inquiry as to the number of babies received at each hospital and what was done with them. The result of that inquiry shows that the number is not a considerable one, not one of large importance: I think 19