The number of State hospitals reporting data on expenditures was 182 in 1945, 183 in 1944, and 172 in 1943. The corresponding numbers for psychopathic hospitals were 7, 7, and 6, respectively. Of the veterans' neuropsychiatry hospitals, 31 reported data on expenditures in each of the three years covered in this report.
INSTITUTIONS FOR MENTAL DEFECTIVES AND EPILEPTICS
State and city institutions.—The coverage of public institutions for mental defectives and epileptics has always been less complete than that for public hospitals providing permanent care for psychiatric patients. In 1945, the following State and city institutions failed to return schedules: Indiana Village for Epileptics, Newcastle, Indiana; Ellisville State School, Ellisville, Mississippi; Western State Custodial School, Buckley, Washington; Re and the Sophie L. Gumbel Training School, New Orleans, Louisiana. ports for one additional institution—the State Public School, Owatonna, Minnesota —were received in 1945. Also, in this year, separate reports were received for the Mount Pleasant Home and Training School, Mount Pleasant, Michigan, and the Lapeer Home and Training School, Lapeer, Michigan. In previous years, a consolidated report had been submitted for both of these institutions.
Contrary to the procedure used in connection with State and veterans' hospitals for mental disease, estimates for public institutions for mental defectives and epileptics have not been included in the statistics presented be cause coverage has been incomplete in most years and therefore definite totals have not been established. Like those for hospitals for mental disease, administrative statistics for institutions are generally less completely reported than statistics on other subjects and the statistics presented on administration are based on the number of institutions reporting them in each year.
Private institutions.—In those States in which there is no State super vision, it is possible that schedules were not sent to all institutions or schools, and not all of the institutions to which schedules were sent returned them. For 1945, schedules were returned by 92 of the 120 private institutions to which schedules were sent. Since the probability that a private institution will be listed in the available sources of information on the number of institutions of a given type, and the probability that it will return schedules tend to vary directly with its size, the statistics presented for private institutions do not substantially understate the number of patients involved.
Number of institutions reporting: 1936 to 1945.—The number of each type of institution reporting in each year between 1936 and 1945 is indicated in table B.
