THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY
little frame which is usually set up outside. On stormy
days like the one that saw our visit, these frames line the
hallway downstairs, creating a blinding smoke and a
frightful fire hazard. Conflagrations in refugee camps are
common. Two occurred on successive days in Pusan in the
middle of December, destroying the shelters and burning
the last few possessions of 550 and 900 refugees respec-
tively. It could happen any day in this schoolhouse in
Chunju, whose people told us they had come from Chor-
won, Kaesong, Pyengyang and Seoul. They made the last
part of the journey by train. When they arrived their sick
overflowed the Presbyterian hospital and nurses' home,
and the dead had to be carried from every freight car and
buried. Many of their sick are still being cared for by Dr.
David Bruce and his staff.
Where to Go?
Across Chunju another 2,500 refugees live in an old
Japanese factory building. The single well which furnishes
their water supply is some distance away, and a line is
always waiting to fill pails, pots and old gasoline cans. A
nearer well has been closed by the authorities, who are
trying to persuade the people to leave. Lacking any certain
place to go, they resist eviction. This conflict may explain
why so many parts of the building are open when they
might be closed by a little glass, a few feet of lumber, an
occasional mat. The place has hundreds of people in its
few large rooms and some families even live on the loading
platforms outside the walls. These refugees also told us they
come from the central provinces where they had settled
Church Help for the Mentally 111
By John B. Oman
T HE MENTALLY ILL are among the most mis-
understood, unwanted, neglected, thwarted, abused,
numerous and pitiable of all human sufferers. They
are often curable and yet not often enough cured. I have
yet to read a poet's line inspired by their heroic suffering.
Who can comprehend their loneliness or the feeling of
hopelessness aroused in them by their delusions?
Those who understand mental illness react toward it
the same as toward physical illness. They feel indifference,
concern or compassion according to their individual na-
tures. But those who do not understand mental illness
usually react toward it with a feeling of awe (more or less
natural when something is beyond one's comprehension)
or are morbidly curious (again, reaction to the unknown),
while the most ignorant tend to ridicule (a defense mech-
anism resorted to by many to cover up their own lack
of knowledge, and therefore not a true expression of their
real emotions). Only those feel contempt for the mentally
ill who would be contemptuous of the physically ill—the
kind of people, that is, who feel that weakness in any form
is a subject for scorn, something that should be crushed
to make way for the strong.
The mentally ill, usually through no fault of their own,
January 23, i952
after having come from the north. They asked if we knew
when they could go back, and whether they were going
to be forced to evacuate their present quarters before they
could return to their homes—or to the place where their
homes had been. They were getting about 1,000 calories
a day.
In neither place did we see many men. The reason is
that most of the men are in the army, or are labor con-
scripts at the front, or are dead. Swarms of children crowd
around. When one of our party bought out the small stock
of a woman who peddled fruit to make a little money, and
gave the 20 nubby little persimmons to the children near-
est him, he was nearly mobbed. The children told us that
a few of them go to school, but most do not have enough
clothing so they can leave the camp.
Many secondary forces contribute to the making of
refugees, but they cannot be considered here. Life for most
people in Korea, where the general status of the population
is not much above the refugee level, has been reduced to
an elemental struggle for survival. One of the greatest
human catastrophes to occur anywhere in the modern
world has struck Korea. Every aggravation of its condition
uproots more people. Since the clash of world forces of
destruction, added to the struggle going on within Korea,
has brought Korean humanity to its present condition,
world energies of reconstruction must come to Korea's aid.
What is being done to help Korean refugees? The next
article will outline the answer to that question.
Next week: "Who Helps the Koreans?"
have been taken away from their relatives and friends and
banished from society. Too frequently they find that, after
they have walked through the admission office of an in-
stitution for the insane, the door is locked behind them
without any comforting assurance as to when and whether
they will return to a life of normality.
Size of the Problem
Mental illness is what the United States Public Health
Service calls America's number one public health problem.
It is estimated that about 8 million people in this country
are suffering from some form of mental illness. At any one
time, studies have shown, there are about a million suffi-
ciently disabled by mental sickness to require hospitaliza-
tion. More than half of all the hospital beds in the country
are occupied by psychiatric patients. (Even this number
would be increased were the mental wards of institutions
not already overcrowded. Some states have been obliged
to care for the overflow in jails.)
One out of every twenty persons in this country will
spend some part of his or her life in a mental institution,
and one out of every ten will need psychiatric help. Psy-
chiatric disorders are the basis of half of all pensions paid
January 23, 1952 THE CHRISTIAN
by the Veterans Administration for disability; nearly 2
million men were disqualified for military service during
World War II because of nervous or mental disorders.
What facilities are there to meet this problem? There
are 566 registered mental hospitals. However, less than
one-third of these meet the requirements set forth in the
principles of hospital standardization; only 155 are in­
cluded in the approved list of the American College of
Surgeons. Figures published by the American Psychiatric
Association indicate that the United States needs between
10,000 and 15,000 psychiatrists to do the work confront­
ing us in the care and treatment of the mentally ill. Yet
there are at the present time only a few more than 5,000
registered psychiatrists in the whole nation.
Shortage of Trained Psychiatrists
In view of the present situation and the prospects for
the immediate future, our shortage of fully trained men­
tal practitioners looms up as a growing national calamity.
This further impresses itself upon any who study what is
happening in this field when it is realized that the present
ratio of hospital psychiatrists to patients in psychiatric in­
stitutions is one to 298 patients, whereas the standards of
the American Psychiatric Association call for one psychia­
trist to every 30 to 50 patients.
Among the problems today in the field of psychiatry is
that of informing the layman of the cost of the scientific
research necessary for progress in the treatment of the
mentally ill. Let me give some figures which throw light
on the inadequate number of psychiatrists and personnel
in mental hospitals: The money spent annually for re­
search on cancer is $10 per victim, on infantile paralysis
$92 per victim, and on tuberculosis $191 per victim. In
poliomyelitis we spend approximately $100 per case. But
in psychiatry we spend only 25 cents a year for each esti­
mated case of mental illness and only $1 for each known
case of total disability from mental ill health. For every
dollar spent on psychiatric research in this country we
spend $65 in other medical research and $2,500 in in­
dustrial research. We are 2,500 times more interested in
machines than in men !
Care of Mental Patients
The same high standards of care should govern the
treatment of the mentally ill as prevail in the treatment of
physically ill patients. For generations the insane were
bound with chains, thrown into pits or locked in cells. The
removal of chains, lock-beds and cages was regarded as a
daring innovation. Have we now reached a point of con­
cern over this ever growing problem and its solution where
we are really ready to grapple with the requirements of
adequate care and treatment? Public apathy is disap­
pearing. An interest that has been casual is becoming
vital. Many previously indifferent are now aroused about
this largest and most neglected group of patients, for they
are being confronted with them in their group of relatives
and friends.
What can and should the Christian church do about
nervous and mental disorders? It is not necessarily the re­
sponsibility of the church to build and maintain mental
hospitals. Rather, the church should enlighten its member­
ship and the public concerning the prevention, treatment
CENTURY 101
and research necessary. To do less is to miss completely
the spirit of Christ, of whom it is written so often in the
New Testament that "he had compassion." The healing
of the demoniac is sufficient proof of our Lord's concern
for the mentally sick. His church can have no less an in­
terest and still be Christian.
A part of the church's educational program will be to
orient people to the new concept of mental institutions as
hospitals and not asylums. It is no disgrace to be mentally
ill. We do not apologize for breaking a leg or becoming a
cancer victim. We accept it and take the necessary treat­
ment to alleviate or cure the condition. People should take
the same intelligent attitude toward a nervous or mental
breakdown. This is probably the place where the church's
concern for these needy ones should start.
The church should insist that proper facilities be pro­
vided for prevention and early treatment. By doing so, it
can put "legs on its prayers." An enlightened citizen, made
such by intelligent discussion in the church, will know
enough to seek the help of a psychiatrist in time rather
than to wait for a relative or friend to "snap out of it."
Christian Vocation
Ministers, missionaries, religious educators and deacon­
esses have been recruited from the church's membership.
With the desperate need for more psychiatrists, the church
should appeal to its finest young people to consider be­
coming psychiatrists as also a calling from God. We need
five times the number of psychiatric nurses we now have.
Why should not the church look upon this also as a sacred
obligation? We have the young women. Why not challenge
them to enter this profession?
It is impossible to have good mental hospitals without
good employees. Some attendants have been abusive, neg­
lectful and even brutal. In our churches we have men and
women seeking employment. Often they are without a
trade or specialized training. Here is an opportunity for
the church to recommend such persons of fine character
as attendants. They can do much to care sympathetically
for those who are mentally sick.
The church's first concern is with people, and here are
opportunities to make the gospel effective in their lives.
We hear much about making this world a better place to
live in. We will have a better world when we have better
people. We will have better people when the church claims
for Almighty God the whole realm of life, body, mind and
soul. The future of millions who are mentally sick depends
upon the impact that can be made upon the thinking of
America. To a large extent, that impact must be made by
the compassionate spirit of the churches if it is to be made
at all. What is at stake is the future of our neighbors, our
friends, our relatives—maybe our own future.
War and the Children
TV/ΤΑΥ God forgive hands, warm and cold,
·*•*•*• Of all on whom is hung
The guilt for children's faces, old
Before they can be young.
MARGARET EVELYN SINGLETON.
 ^ s
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