grown accustomed to the presence and care of patients with disordered
minds. The system is the outgrowth of a superstition founded in the
presumed miraculous cure of a lunatic whose reason was restored by the
shock of the sight of the killing of a beautiful girl by her pursuing
father, whose fury had been roused by her choice of a husband. A
monument to this unfortunate graces Gheel, and as St. Dymphna she is
supposed to be in benign control of the lunatic-sheltering colony. Some
of the features of the Gheel system of care are also distinctively known
as the Scotch system. There the placing of patients in family care is
common. Massachusetts has also adopted it to a considerable extent. But
there are many objections to family care in isolated domiciles, as
practiced in Massachusetts. Special medical attention and official
visits are made expensive and inconvenient. Dr. Wise plans to get all
the advantages of such a mode of life for patients whose condition
retrogrades under institutional influence. Not the least of these
advantages is that of economy in relieving the State from the per capita
cost of construction for at least one-fourth of the insane of the
district. He would utilize the families in the settlement which always
grows up in the vicinity of a large hospital. It is composed of the
households of employes, many of which are the result of marriages among
the attendants and employes. On Point Airy, by the use of the buildings
that were on the different plots bought by the State to make up the
hospital farm, such a settlement can be easily made up. Its inhabitants
would pay rent to the State. They would be particularly fit and proper
persons to board and care for patients whose condition was suitable for
that sort of a life, and the patients could have many privileges and
benefits not possible in the hospital. Point Airy's little Gheel on such
a plan would be a most interesting and valuable extension of the
beneficent rule of St. Dymphna.