Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-12-08
MAD-HOUSE HORRORS.
Incarceration OF Sane Persons in
English Asyiums.


IN Warehouses are apt to be received with too
much crednlity by foolish people, and to be
secuted in too on-hand manner by intelli
gent ones. The truth no doubt, lies halfway;
and II 1t be not absolutely easy to get sane
persons treated as lunatics, neither is such a
thing impossible. The laws OF almost every
country empower asylum proprietors to re-
celve and detan persons brought to them
! by virtue OF certificate signed by two doc
tors; although it is provided that the medi-
cal men shall examine the patient separately
within twenty -four hours before he or she is
| shut up, such safeguard would obviously be
! insufficient, even if every doctor all the world
over were infallible and unimpeachabIy hon
| est. The best safeguard against abuse of the
lunacy laws is the publicity which NOWADAYS
| can SO easily be given to acts of oppression,
AT the same. time there mustsbe circumstances
under which even this protection is worth
little. The French papers are ROW making
which deserve noting, because The Two victims
may be regarded as good types of the sort of
sane persons who are most liable to be dealt
with as lunatics. The one was young man
OF property, who, after squandering good deal
OF money, wanted TO crown his eXtravasances
by marrying woman Of low character His
relatives tnaing it impossible to make him
near reason, appealed to the family
doctor as to whether the Young man
WAS net afflicted with the 'sperverson OF the
moral faculties much representing the early
symptoms OF general paralysis )" and the doctor
decided that IL was so. He signed q certifi-
cate, it. was countersigned, and the younr
man was forthwith ciapped into a maisou de
sa'2te, whence he was soon released, owing to
the vigorous eXertiOns OF his intended bride
lhe second case was that OF an Old sauapt of
rather eccentric habits, who buised himself
about chemical experiments and lived soil
tary life in company with housekeeper
Some nephe%s and nieces, hearing that the
Old gentleman had amassed good deal of
money, became anxious as to the use he was
making OF it, and pad him a visit with the
presumed object ofascertaining how his will
would be worded. The story is that the re.
plies being unsatisfactory, it was decided
that the uncle would be all the better for
medical treatment; and here again the family
doctor was called in. The savant's house
keeper, however, proved too much for the
nephews and neices, and after some battling
with asylum proprletors, who maintained that
the old gentleman was really mad and would
be dangerous if released, the interference of
some newspapers got the patient restored to
freedom. Now, even if in these cases the doe
tor gave certificates too easily, that does not
prove that either of them acted With intcn-
tional dishonesty. On the contrary, in the
great majority OF cases OF unjust confinement,
doctors have been shown to have signed Ger
tlficates with perfect good faith. party
OF respectable persons call upon a physician
and say: "Here is our uncle, VINO is in his do
ta-e, and making ducks ana brakes Q. his mon
ey lie Ives with designing woman, who
denies us access so him. and exercises such
COM lete authority over him that he cannot
even see that she is robbing him and hurry
lug aim to an early grace, in The hopes of be-
coming his heiress. We think il would be
better for our uncle if he were put in some
nice quiet house where his health would be
properly cared for.' A family doctor need
not be a foolish man or mercenary one to
think that it would indeed be bctterior an old
gentleman to be rescued from the clutches of
a vulgar iiarpy; and he will be the more dis
posed to believe this if, upon paying visit to
the SUSPECTED lunatic. he is received with
splenetic outburst. 1t is, anyhow, very diff
cult Tor physlan TO determine in one short
visit whether man who talks nationally has
some mental twist which renders him incapa-
BILE OF administering his own affairs He is
generally obliged to take for granted most of
what The suspected lunatcs relatives say on
this subject; and he reflects that if any mis-
take is made the asylum physicians will easily
remedy it by setting the alleged lunatic at
liberty, anti that mean while the latter will be
none the worse for little treatment But
both these MODES of reasoning are fallacious
Tor, ID the nrsJ place, q sane man always Suf-
fers q good deal from uni Just confinement
among maclmen; and in the next, it is by no
means easy for man recognized as sane to
get released from a house where he is incar
cerated under a certificate
Once a man gets into an asylum he finds
himself confronted by an absurd proyiso
which has been inserted in the lunacv laws
OF almost all countries, and which requires
That lunatic shall only De released at the re-
quest OF the friends or relativys who confined
him. The practical effect of this is to remove
all responsibility from the shoulders of asyl,lm
DrODrIefOrS. who NAV he nv
scrupulous relatives into detaiiing a man
long after they have begun to suspect that
there is nothing the matter with him. For if
THESE YUM people eVince a desire to dis
charge patient the relatives have only in
effect to say this: "Do as you please, but if
mischief comes of your action we shall hold
you responsible. We now warn YOU again
enab our relative has been guilty of innumer-
able mad acts, (here the antecedents of pa
tent can be blackened to any extentl, and we
Know that If he be set free our lives will be
endangered by his desire for revenge. Just
wait awhile and you viii see your patient
have an outbreak which will convince you
that your present favorable opinion of him
Was too hasty." What is an asylum doctor to
say III answer to such serious spcech9 If he
were to release a patient who soon afterward
committed a crime under the impulse of YER
tigo, his responsibility would be very heavy.
as it really takes a twelve month to deter
mine whether man is or is not subject to
certain of the subtler forms of epilepsy, any
opposition to an alleged lunatic's release al
most invariably leads to his being detained
Tor this time, which is often
quite enough to unhinge the intellect of a
man Of irritable mood. It may be urged that
mad-houses are periodically inspected: but
this really does little toward assisting wrongly
alleged lunatics; for, if doctor says to the