Bloomingdale Centenary. A fortnight ago the
twenty-fifth annual graduating exercises of our Training School for
Nurses were held in this room. This year also marks the decennial of Dr.
Russell's term of office as Medical Superintendent. When his devoted
predecessor, Dr. Samuel B. Lyon, asked in 1911 to be relieved from
active duty and became our first Medical Superintendent Emeritus, we
were most fortunate in securing as his successor Dr. Russell. Coming to
this institution after a broad psychiatric and administrative
experience, he has taken up our special problems with deep insight and
gratifying success. He has selected for his subject this afternoon "THE
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENT OF BLOOMINGDALE HOSPITAL." No one can speak with
greater authority on a theme of which it may be said _quorum magna
pars_--fortunately not only _fuit_--but _est_ and _erit_ as well.

DR. RUSSELL

The object of this celebration is not merely to glorify the past and
least of all is it to laud the present. What we hope from it is that it
will establish a milestone, not only to mark the progress thus far made
but to point the way to a path of greater usefulness. The advances in
medical science and practice and in the specialty of psychiatry during
the past hundred years fill one with wonder and hope. It is worth while
to review them merely to obtain this help. The outlook for the century
to come is, however, so far as can be anticipated, still brighter.

To review the past is, at a time like this, not unprofitable. It may
prevent us, in our zeal for the new, from discarding what is valuable in
the old, and from overvaluing some things which may have outlived their
usefulness. We must be careful that we do not fall into errors similar
to those from which the medical profession was rescued by the movement
of which Bloomingdale Asylum was an offspring. It should be recalled
that the establishment of the asylum was due to the initiative of the
Governors of the New York Hospital, especially Mr. Eddy, rather than to
the active interest and direction of physicians. The object of the
establishment was, according to Mr. Eddy, to afford an opportunity of
ascertaining how far insanity may be relieved by moral treatment alone,
which, he says, "it is believed, will, in many instances, be more
effective in controlling the maniacs than medical treatment." The moral
management he referred to, though advocated by Pinel and a few others,
some of whom were benevole