Since World War I the population of New York's mental hospitals has grown from 35,724 to 73,120. There are now 20 of them. They are huge aggregations of depressing buildings, usually in secluded parts of the State. Behind their screened terraces and barred windows the patients who have committed themselves or who have been committed live in the empty world of insanity.
Behind the case histories of each one of the 4,421 patients at Creedmoor, the 8,634 at Pilgrim, the 7,117 at Central Islip, the 5,855 at Rockland—in the padded violent cells and in...
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