Delaware General Assembly

CHAPTER 241

DELAWARE STATE HOSPITAL

AN ACT to authorize the establishment of a Mental Hygiene Clinic under the direction and control of the State Board of Trustees of the Delaware State Hospital at Farnhurst.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Delaware in General Assembly met:

Section 1. The State Board of Trustees of The Delaware State Hospital at Farnhurst is hereby authorized and empowered to establish a Mental Hygiene Clinic, to be composed of such professional assistants as may be recommended by the Superintendent of the said State Hospital. The Superintendent of the said Hospital shall be the directing head of said Clinic and he is hereby constituted State Psychiatrist and Criminologist. It shall be the duty of the said Clinic to examine all children within the State, attending any public or private schools, who are two or more years retarded, when so requested by the Superintendent or other Executive head of such School. The said Mental Hygiene Clinic shall likewise undertake and carry on a continuous survey and examination of all feeble minded. The said Clinic shall have power to observe, examine, study and treat the inmates of any institution supported in whole or in part by the State of Delaware, or any County thereof, and shall likewise have power to observe, examine, study and treat any person charged with any offense in, or subject to the provision of, any Court within the State, when requested so to do by the Judge or Judges thereof. The said Clinic shall likewise have power, when requested, to extend its psychiatric services to all social agencies of the State, general hospitals and all institutions for the feeble minded for the purpose of the discovery and treatment of mental disorders.

Section 2. The said Mental Hygiene Clinic shall have power through the State Psychiatrist and Criminologist to apply for the commitment of any person to the Delaware State Hospital at Farnhurst under any existing or future Laws of the State of Delaware relating to such commitments.

Approved April 8, 1929.