Item is an undated review of the current Nova Scotia mental health system, as well as an outline of required changes to the system, compiled by Alexander Murchison in the early 1970s. The item provides a brief outline of present mental health programs and facilities in the province — the Cape Breton Mental Health Centre in Sydney, the Eastern Counties Mental Health Centre in Antigonish, the Pictou County Mental Health Centre in New Glasgow, the Cumberland County Mental Health Centre in Amherst, the Cobequid Mental Health Centre in Truro, the Funday [sic] Mental Health Centre in Wolfville, the Digby-Annapolis Mental Health Centre in Digby, the program at the Yarmouth Regional Hospital, and the South Shore Mental Health Centre in Bridgewater — as well as mental and public hospital services — Nova Scotia Hospital, Abbie J. Lane Memorial Hospital, Halifax County Hospital, and Kings County Hospital — and provides recommendations on how to improve the province-wide program addressing mental health. Item contains a few inked and whited-out corrections.
Item is a paper written by Alexander Murchison in December 1970, outlining the "acute psychiatric emergency" of school phobia, suggesting that it is more complicated than being simply "separation anxiety." He defines the phobia, outlines the clinical features and symptoms, discusses the role of separation in the condition, and addresses potential treatments.
Item is a draft manuscript written by Alexander Murchison and T.A.H. McCulloch (of Canadian Forces Hospital Halifax) in the early 1970s. The item addresses a case study of an 18-year-old "leading seaman, unmarried and of Ojibwa Indian extraction" admitted to the psychiatric unit of Canadian Forces Hospital in Halifax after a sudden onset of psychosis experienced by the patient shortly after his vessel left Halifax in 1968.
Item consists of handwritten correspondence from Owen Bell Jones to Archibald MacMechan, dated March 7, 1923, from Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, Quebec, frankly discussing his struggles with his recovery amid fears he is "slowly becoming a wreck; [often] feeling useless and frightened" and angered by not being told his poor prognosis and difficulty of recovery back in 1917.
Item is a letter written by Jason M. Mack addressed to any constables or police officers of the town of Liverpool, Nova Scotia. The letter involves the mental health of and the request for detainment of George Roy, a fisherman from Liverpool, who had been declared of unsound mind by two local medical practitioners. Item also contains an envelope addressed to William Winters.
Item consists of a facsimile of correspondence submitted by A.P. Reid to the March 1903 issue of the Maritime Medical News (Vol. XV, No. 3), dated January 30, 1903, on the topic of a Jamaican asylum.
![A tropical insane asylum / A.P. Reid : [correspondence, facsimile]](/uploads/r/dalhousie-university-archives/e/7/8/e78c01c656b613d84b0701077c62dd371bbfc28e6116643e37a73d5db3caf2f8/afdad051-3c37-463d-a00d-f544bed5b8d2-MS-13-33_SF63_3_33_142.jpg)