The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1880-03-11
Our Treatment of the Insane.

Review for March, presents this topic
in an able manner. The treatment of
this class of unfortunates has taxed the
generosity, philanthropy and ingenuity
of benevolent men for ages, yet in read
ing the article mentioned it would seem
that appliances for the treatment of the
"mind diseased" are yet far from being
in all instances of that humane charac-
ter which misfortune should always ex-
cite. Rumors in regard to the bad
management of the Lonsview Asylum
in Ohio became so prevalent that the
Legislature of that State appointed q
committee to investigate them, and the
following extracts from the report of this
committee are given by Dr. Hammond:
According to the testimony of several
eye-witnesses, Il punishment frequently
and sometimes gleefully resorted to by
attendants in this asylum is one known
as taking down" Taking down. in
the words Of the testimony, consists in
tripping or throwing the patient TO the
floor, holding her down (for 'taking
down" is female punishment the men
being usually knocked DOWN. with the
knee on the chest, while another en-
ploye gags the patient, and still another
holds the patients hands. The patient
is held down till she is quite weak and
exhausted, becomes purple in the face,
and the breath is almost gone.
Another punishment is to make q
"spread eagle" of the patient. This
consists in stripping a patient to naked
ness, and making attendants whip him
with wet towels This is a punishment
inflicted for a refusal to work. 1t is de-
scribed as very painful, and is practised
because it leaves no marks.
There is testimony rs to duclling,
kicking, beating, black eyes, and other
marks of cruelty. 1t is in evidence that
weak patients are ovei worked, and all
inmates have not been properly fed and
cared for. Hard work has been need
lessly compelled in a room in which the
mercury stood at one hundred and
twenty degrees. The use of "cribs" and
the ''strong room is shown Loath-
some vermin in loathsome numbers
have been allowed to accumulate upon
the bedding, the apparel, and the person
of patients. All of these things and
others told with a painful painness is
the testimony that has made part Of
this report.
Few, even among those who have
given some attention to the subject, know
the depth of wretchodness to which
within comparatively short period the
lunatic was consigned, and which, even
at the present day, is in some places
scarcely lessened. DR.. Connolly, whose
advanced ideas OF science and humanity
led to the uniform adoption in England
of the "non-restraint" system of treat
ment, speaking only thirty years ago on
this subject, says Every few ply
sicians of education We're to be found,
until recent period, devoting them
selves to mental disorders. Those occu-
pied in asylums were chiefly distn-
guished by an eccentrcity and rough
ness which, uniting them for other
professional vocations, made them will
ing to undertake to treat mad people.
BY such persons. i'll educated, preu-
diced, and without any resources but
methods of violence. and who had never
studied the condition of the insane, were
bitterly and unscrupulousl y opposed with
every contrivance of vulgar minds.
Meantime, the outside walls of an
asylum were regarded with awe; the
shrieks issuing from it made night hid
eous the frantic creatures enclosed in
their dens furnished appalling sub
iects for the artist or the nov
elist squaor and dirt, and fam
inc and ferocity were every
where to be met with" And now in
the latter half of the nineteenth century
we find that the methods which Con
oily so vigorously denounced, and to the
abolition Of which he gave his life, are
in full use in almost every asylum in
the United States that the attempts to
improve the condition of the insane are
opposed, as in his day, by those who
have the charge of them thai dens are
still in existence, chains still employed,
blows still inflicted, systematic fogging
still practiced, the strait jacket still used
as a means of restraint: and that these
agencies of subsection are supplemented
by the Utica crib-an apparatus not
only inhuman, but one which no person
possessing a competent knowledge of the