able assurance foresee a solution to the problem of mental health. We
also share with him the desire that mental hospitals such as we know
them will cease to exist in another generation. In any event, we see our
objectives here in Maryland and we must apply ourselves with great
diligence to attaining them.
Earlier this year, I received a report from the Commissioner of Men-
tal Hygiene in which he outlined some of the objectives of his depart-
ment. He pointed out the effort that is being made to stimulate commu-
nity based programs. He noted the regionalization of the State mental
hospitals and other activities in keeping with the theory of treating
and rehabilitating persons as close to home as possible. He spoke also of
the continued development of our psychiatric hospitals as active treat-
ment, rehabilitation, training and research centers; of the continued
stimulation and expansion of service relationships between the hospitals
and the regions they serve, and of the development of a more adequate
and comprehensive range of programs for the retarded.
If we do succeed in our efforts to conquer mental diseases, then this
event in which we are participating here today may well be as historic
for Maryland as the one Dr. Felix mentioned in which the seventeenth
century French physician removed the chains from the patients of his
Paris hospital. It must be our purpose to bring about this transition
from long hospitalization and custody of the mentally ill to treatment
of them in their own surroundings and close to the bosom of their
families and their communities. While we know that we are not ready
yet to assert that such a day is here, we have every hope that it is near at
hand. I know that all of you here join with me in the hope and the
prayer that the day is not too distant when we may be able to stop
building new hospitals for the mentally ill.
The psychiatric profession has been accumulating greater and greater
knowledge of early diagnosis, intensive treatment and care of the men-
tally ill. This means that many who have been disabled for long periods
of time in the past will be treated without losing their productivity, or
interrupting such productivity for short periods of time only. Research
is a keystone for the fulfillment of such hopes and promises, and we are
delighted that a new building to be erected on this site will be dedicated
to this task.
As we remove this stone from Old Main Building this afternoon, let
us say, "Hail and Farewell"—farewell to a past of gloom and hopeless-
ness and all hail to a healthy and happy future. All of us rejoice that
here on these grounds we are tearing down a symbol of despair and
erecting in its place a symbol of hope.
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