ABSTRACT
The provision of physical care in some way illustrates the less usual meaning of the term nurse' in the English language. Treatment and training imply at least a minimum level of technical skill and a capacity to provide for the patient when he is in need of specific attention. The Royal Commission on Mental Health which classified subnormal patients under the general heading of 'mentally disordered persons' argued for a re-orientation of the mental health services as a whole, stressing the need to move away from institutional containment towards community care. Whether change is in the direction of increased medical or psychiatric treatment or towards community care, or an increasing recognition of the importance of education, training and vocational facilities, very far reaching changes in the work of the subnormality hospitals will undoubtedly be involved. The subnormality hospital is, more often than not, a negative solution to the problem of accommodation-adjustment, rather than a positive device for effecting it.
