Medicine: New Deal

It is no longer necessary to go insane in Washington. Skeptics who heard this announcement last week were silenced by the fact that it was made by Psychiatrist Winfred Overholser, head man at Washington’s outsize mental hospital.

Said Dr. Overholser: “Things are settling down. . . . Some improvement is due to the fact that the worst cases of mental instability have been weeded out. Many . . . have gone back home. . . . Many have been rescued by their families. Some had a flash of real sanity and decided the salary lure was not worth the effort.”

There is also another reason for the falling curve on deranged bureau workers, wives driven crazy while waiting for their husbands to come home from bars, lonely Government girls and maladjusted clerks: Government and private agencies now provide opportunities for psychiatric consultation. “Of course,” says Dr. Overholser. “psychiatrists can’t go about asking every lonely Government girl how her complex is today.” But Government employes have learned to consult psychiatrists before everything turns black. “A girl who can’t find a satisfactory place to live or who can’t find a date is now advised before she reaches the poison-taking stage.”