s a more or
less privileged forerunner in standards and policies. Without having to
carry the burdens of the whole State with its sweeping and sometimes
distant power and its forced economy, a semiprivate hospital like
Bloomingdale aims to minister to a slightly select group, especially
those who are in the difficult position of greater sensitiveness but
moderate means in days of sickness. It serves the part of our community
which more than any other sets the pace of the civilization about
us--the intelligent aspiring workers who may not have reached the goal
of absolute financial independence. It creates the standard of which we
may dream that it might become the standard of the whole State.

When we review the roster of Superintendents--from John Neilson to Pliny
Earle and from Charles Nichols, Tilden Brown, and Samuel Lyon down to
the present head, our highly esteemed friend and coworker William L.
Russell--and the names of the members of the staff, many of whom have
reached the highest places in the profession, and last, but not least,
the names of the Governors of The Society of the New York Hospital, we
cannot help being impressed by the forceful representation of both the
profession and the public, and we recognize the wide range of influence.

Instead of depending on frequently changing policies regulated from the
outside under the influence of the greater and lesser lights and
exigencies of State and municipal organization, the New York Hospital
has its self-perpetuating body of Governors chosen from the most
public-spirited and thoughtful representatives of our people.
Bloomingdale thus has always had a remarkable Board of Governors, who,
from contact with the General Hospital and with this special division,
are in an unusual position to see the practical aspects of the great
change that is now taking place. You see how the division of psychiatry
has developed from practically a detention-house to an asylum, and
finally to a hospital with all the medical equipment and laboratories of
the General Hospital. And you begin to see psychiatry, with its methods
of study and management of life problems as well as of specific brain
diseases, infections, and gastrointestinal and endocrine conditions,
become more and more helpful, even a necessity, in the wards and
dispensary of the General Hospital on 16th Street. The layman cannot,
perhaps, delve profitably into the details of such a highly and broadly
specialized typ