The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-05-31
THE GHEEL COLONY.
a Visit to a Lunatic Asylum that Is Founded
Superstition.


Visit to a Lunatic Asylum that Is Founded
Superstition.
DR.. George A. Tucker, who has been engaged
some time, under the auspices of the New South
Wales government. in q tour of America and
Europe investigating.the cure and treatment of
the insane, has published in Il little pamphlet
Just issued in Birmingham, England, an account
of the lunatic colony at Gheel Belgium, which
he visited in December last DR.. Tucker does
not give captivating description Of Gheel,
which is rather gloomy, dirty place.
with narrow, ll-kept streets. The com
mune of Gheel has a population of over
100000 of whom nearly ,, 900 are lunatics. The
town itself has population of 5000. The lead
ing features of the place is the frequent drinking
shops. The hospital TO which the new patients
are first brought is building suggestive Of
melancholy Newcomers are retained Tor a
while at the hospital, and then drafted out
among the cottages, one or two patients, and
sometimes three being assigned to each cottage.
In ancient times the patients at first lodged
in an old house near the church, in the Flemish
language the Ziekenkamer, or sick room,
where they underwent religious treatment
for nine days with a view of their
cure. Sometimes second course OF
nine days similar treatment was gone
through and if they stin showed no
signs Of recovery they were committed to the
care of some family in the neighborhood of the
church where they daily attend 70 participate IN
the benefit of the prayers specially offered on
their behalf. This means is still used as of old
though not to the same extent. In addition to
the medical director, who resides at the hospital
there are four medical assistants living in the
town. and to each of these a quarter of the
colony is assigned, which they are expected to
visit twice a month and personally to inspect
each patient. There are, besides six inspecting
attendants, who are also supposed to visit each
patient twice month";.
Dr. Tucker inspected the hospital very thor
oughly, and went about among the people freely,
talking with many of them. He found the dull
ness and monotony universal There is nothing
to occupy the time attention of the patient
but the almost enforced labor imposed upon
them, which in many instances is repugnant to
their feelings and unsuitable to their mental and
physical conditions. In other respects, they are
left to their own resources in the families and
amongst the frequenters of the houses in which
they are lodged Their life from day to day and
from year to year is mere torpid existence de
void of variety in the present and of hope in the
future-an existence as stagnant and unwhole-
some as that of the water i'll the dirty pools scat
tered all over the place At the hospital he
learned that the patients, on their first coming,
are detained there from five to eight days. Every
Wednesday the medical staff meet and decide
what patients shall be drafted out At the time
of his visit there were in the hospital thirty-two
men and twenty-five women.
The drinking shops referred to are very freely
patronized by his patients numbers of whom
are domicied therein. Generalzing on the
pccts of the place, DR.. Tucker says: MANY if
not most of the patients l saw looked neglected,
cold, dirty and miserable. 4 number of them
seemed to have no object or purpose in life but
that of sitting near the smoky stove tif there is
one which is not always the easel of the
kitchen, with nothing to divert the mind or break
the eternal monOtony of their existence Only
in one house did I find any books and nowhere
did there seem any provision made for the intel
leetual or other amusement of the patients. In
this, as in so many other respects, all the
mons Of modern treatment, agreed upon by the
best authorities IN unaey, are ignored and
probably unknown.
THE patients are watched by the whole popu-
laton, as well as by the authorities, and escapes
are rare One Of the methods still used for the
treatment of patients with q view to their cure
is so full of superstition as to seem scarcely pos
sible in this age in civilized country 1t is
pursued in the old house or ''Ziekenhamer' al
ready spoken of. The ancient house is said to
stand on the spot where the saint was slain by
her unnatural father The first room shown to
visitors is a kind of kitchen, dark and gloomy,
with iron bound windows a stone floor and
large, open, old fashioned fire place. In the up
rights on each side of the fire place two large
iron rings are fixed. One is close to the floor,
and the other about two and half feet higher
To those rings the faithful patients are fastened
the ankle of one leg to the lower ring, and the
wrist of the same side to the upper ring. By
this arrangement the patient on each side of the
fireplace is doubled up in q kneeling position,
and the evil spirits by whom he is possessed can
incite him to no effective resistance to the eXor-
cisms of the priests or the operations of the
Eant In an adjoining room the only light and
air admitted pass through an inbound, I'M
glazed window, looking into the kitchen. The
room is almost dark, and can be rendered com
pletely so by heavy wooden shutter attached
to the window and fitting close to the bars. The
bar is strong and further secured by iron. 70
the fixed wooden bedstead at one end heavy iron
chains are attached for securing the patient in
bed. The floor is of stone. the room cold and
prson-like and the grim gloom of the apart
ment however much it may favor sanity inter
positon) is not, FROM the mundane point of
view, at all calculated to mitigate the insanity
Of an inmate
Dr. fuckers convictions are altogether against
the Ghcel system in all of its particulars and in
concluding his observations he says Il have
visited some hundreds of lunatie asylurns in four
out Of five of the geographical divisions of the
globe, and in the worst of them l have seen
some cheerful faces. At Gheel | did not see a
single one, and apart from the other causes of
this the dreary aspect of the town and the en-
tire country is incompatible with cheerfulness of
spirits in any mortal not endowed with the Tap
leyan gift Of being happy under the most ad-
verse circumstances. In word Gheel is an
abode of desoation-a lingering survival of re
mote aees-a monstrosity in this nineteenth cen
tuty and huiniliating reproach to our modern
civilization"