The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1867-03-02
The Management of the Insane
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There has been Il good deal of excitement
at Springfield within a week in reference TO
the management of the Insane Asylum at
Jacksonville, and for a day or two il was
doubtful whether the Legislature would make
the necessary appropriation for its support
during the next two years under Its present
management. The appropriation was pass
ed, however, with the understanding that
there should be rigid investigation, and a
committee was appointed to make it. The
charges against the management of this
| noble charity assume body and shape in
| letter to Gov. Oglesby written by Mrs. Susan
| A. Train, lately an employee in the lnstitu>
| ton. Her statement received all the more
credence because she was not discharged
| from the institution, but had left it ON her
own accord, to the apparent regret of the
| trustees, whence she seemed to have no
motive for Misrepresentation.
Mrs. Train states that being employed as
an attendant at the jacksonville Insane Hos
pital, she had multiplied opportunities to
| witness and deplore the treatment Of its poor
unhappy inmates. She states that he scenes
she witnessed were so BRUTAL and hearts
| rending as 10 cause her, even now, to slud-
der al their remembrance. Women are there
confined as insane who are only partially so,
but whose treatment night we'll make them
incurable lunatcs. Many of these unfortu>
mates are placed there to relieve their hus>
bands from their presence, so that they may
pursue undisturbed a career of intemperance
and lIcentieusness.
Serious charges made against the
Principal of the Institution. Two systems
of punishment or "restralnt,' as it Is termed,
Mrs. T., says, are employed. They remind
the reader of the recital by DR. Warren of
England. These appliances of torture are
known as the "scresn room and the ''cod
bath"
When removed to the screen room for any
exhibition of undue excitement, the patient
Is subjected to the jacketing system, or
strai ght Jacket. in It's most " straitest form"
Tightly and firmly secured, the patient is
thrown upon the floor, face downwards, her
clothing removed. and beaten till her flesh
becomes livid and Jelly. The cold bath is
administered for the more trihing offences,
or Excitement Spells Divested of cloths
ing, the poor insane female is tied hand and
foo:, plunged into and held ander the water
until life Is nearly extinct.
Mrs. I. expresses her willingness t. make
oath to the truth of her statements.
1t is DE to DR.. Mcfarland, the principaI
OF the Asylum, to state, in anticipation OF
fuller investigation, that .Ir. Ward, the chair
man Of the Senate committee on the institu
tons at Jacksonville, when the appropriation
| bill came up in the Senate, made Il Statement
which for the present, at least, must cas-.
| great doubt on the statement of Mrs. Train
Mr.. Ward stated that the committee had
| Immediately Oh the publication of her letter.
made an investigation, and, believing from
| all they had heard, that tn IRE was ground for
| the most serious charges. they had been very
agrecably disappointed to find the charges
apparently without The least foundation. A
| letter from DIR. Mcfarland was also read. in
which he not only denies the charges IN toto
but asks the fullest and most thorough inves>
| tigation.