Notes and News

Reporting on his first year as New York State's Commissioner of Mental Hygiene, Dr. Newton Bigelow disclosed that the year 1950-51 had ended with the largest mental hospital population in the history of New York State and the largest mental hygiene budget in history to provide care and treatment. The total number of patients in the institutions was 107,164 on March 31. In addition 11,365 were convalescing in the community. The budget for 1951-52 is $143,000,000. Emphasis in the department's program has been placed on treatment, research, and prevention, Dr. Bigelow said, and many new approaches to these problems are being explored.

The progress report indicated several advances during the year, notably in research, in the extent to which new therapies are being applied, in construction of badly needed new facilities, and in the use of volunteer workers in the institutions.

The Fourth International Congress on Mental Health will be held in Mexico City, December 11-19, 1951, under the joint sponsorship of World Federation for Mental Health, Liga Mexicana de Salud Mental and the Regional Office for the Americas of World Health Organization. Dr. Alfonso Millan, President-elect of the World Federation, is Chairman of the Mexican Organizing Committee for the Congress.

The four major topics to be dicussed at the plenary sessions are:

Mental health and children

Occupational mental health—rural and industrial

Mental health problems of transplantation and migration

Community efforts in mental hygiene.

There will be a series of technical meetings with speakers and discussants from the various countries and professions represented at the Congress. In addition to these there will be fifteen to twenty-five international, inter-disciplinary working groups, each composed of approximately fifteen professional people who will meet daily to exchange ideas, to consider approaches found useful in various countries and to make suggestions for future planning.

The Congress registration fee for Mem