The Sick List

"Universities were everywhere setting up psychiatric wards, I discovered. It became an accepted feature of university life, these wards, and the necessity of setting them up. My own institution was particularly proud of its own. Not only was it the first to set up such a ward, it could also boast the most impressive ratio between diminished employees and beds. My university maintained the longest standing and most comprehensive provision of beds for the lowest proportion of incarcerated employees. That index, a ratio of one thing to another, was a source of considerable pride. We had more beds than we needed, and so were always ready, whereas other institutions often had more immobile and dessicated employees than beds."

~~ from The Sick List by Ansgar Allen