The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1886-04-29
THE MIND DISEASED.
An Asylum Physicians Discoveries in ths
Study of Unbalanced Brains.

A walk through the female wards of
ihe insane hospital with DR.. Fletcher
is amusing, rather than saddening.
Some sing him songs, others beg bite
from his dried and well-worn plug of
tobacco, others are determined to dance
with him, and all look on his coming
with pleasure. They call him pet
names, as s'Uncle,' ''Doc'' and s'Pop-
sy." Sunday they hunt him for candy.
Others beg him to write home for
them. A few beg to be taken home.
They cut some strange antics. Not
long since female patient on the up
per floor kicked out the ward door
panel, crept through, and at midnight,
climbed the fireman's ladder to the
loft, where, though it was dark as pitch,
she crept about among the rafters and
steam pipes, until she came to the ele-
vator-well, seventy feet deep. She
seized the wire cable, slid down two
stories, and then got off onto the screen
door, at least three feet from the cable.
Here she hung, with fingers and toes
in the meshes, until she was discovered
by quick-witted woman-one of the
ward attendants = who was going
through the passage and heard a
scratching on the wires. The attend
ant rushed into the clothes-room, seized
shelf-board, and broke out large
pane of glass above the girl, who clung
like squirrel fifty feet above the base
ment, and pulled her out, chattering
and laughing, into the passage, and so,
with good courage and rare presence
of mind, saved her life.
Only three patients wear the bed
ticking mittens, and this so that they
will not pull out their eyebrows and
finger-nails. Only one is kept in a
crib, and this so that she may secure
rest to broken limb.
The screw holes and chair marks arc
seen. where the bad patients were
formerly fastened in rows, each with
arms in a jacket and a strong band
about the waist which passed through
holes in the back of the chairs and was
locked. The chairs have been supplied
with rockers, and the patients seem to
enjoy them-always excepting the poor
melancholics, who sit or lie huddled up
in heap, and seem to enjoy nothing.
DR.. Fletcher says they receive from
fifty to one hundred inquiries from
friends daily, and that the women
usually send stamp and envelope for
answer, while the men use only a
postal-card. Not iIfrequently two OF
three members of family are in the
various wards, indicating hereditary in
| sanity.
Here is fine field for study in patho.
ology and psychology, and one which
DIR. Fletcher is improving, though be
says to do any work of scientific
nature where there are three hundred
| attendants and sixteen hundred patients
| means the use of spare moments and
midnight oil. However, he has become
very much interested in the study of the
blood supply of the brain in diseases
subject almost untouched in the work.
on brain and mind diseases, as, fol
example, in the great aliases of the
brain by DR.. Dalton. of New York
recently published.
DR.. Fletcher had series of injected
specimens of the arteries supplying tn,
brain dissected out, notably the arter,
at the base of the brain, which branches
like tree, two of the shoots spreading
around to meet the arteries in front
forming the remarkable communication
between the front and back sets o
brain arteries, known as the .'circle o
| Willis, in memory of its describer.
contemporary and adherent of Hunter
who discovered the circulation o
the blood. Many. anomalies tn
Doctor finds in the blood suppl,
of the insane brain-two of th
four great tubes that supply tn,
brain, in one case reduced to the siz
of pin; others turned to solid cords
and yet others with beads and pocket
developed in them. Of these he ha
made careful drawings, and has pre-
served specimens, hoping to add some
thing to the multiplicity of causes, in
cluding disease and distortion of ever,
organ and function of the body from
the sole of the foot to the crown of tn
head-which go to make up the un
known thing which we call insanity
but which, like headache or heartache
or WEAKNESS, may spring up from an
part of the body. or from purel
external causes. Indianapolis Josl77sd
Rev. DIR. Barbour, pastor at Yal
College, says: ''The behavior of th
Yale students of late years, in tn
Judgment of their instructors, has bee
most exemplary" President Seelye
of Amherst, says: THE moral life G
the members of the college was neve
J higher than now" President Barnard
of Columbia College, says: "The mora
tone of the college is quite satisfactory
and perhaps has never been more so.
J President Bartlett, of Dartmouth, says
} ssThere has been unquestionably 9
, Dartmouth for several years stead
: and marked improvement in colleg
morals - Dr.. McCosh bears simila
J testimony as to Princeton.
Rev. Robert Collier says: thin
, | we may notice four eras in the life ,
great historic churches. We may el
title them first, inwardness; secont
outwardness; third, worldliness, an
fourth, worthlessness. In the first el
| the soul is the main factor; in the Sc
! ond, the senses; in the third, theincom
! and the last. emptiness of whatsoev,
, things are true and lovely and of GOO
! T.. Al <l.