The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-01-21
TIKI STATE INSANE
Annual Report of the Hos
pital Directors to Gov
ernor Griggs.
AsYLUMS o%VERCRoWDED
Loose Laws Governing the Insane
and Threatening the Sane
TO Isolate Criminals.
ASYLUMS O~VERCROWDED
Specfaz 10 the yersep Citu Ns1ua.

SpecfnI 10 the JcTscu Cttu Ne1C&-
TRENTON, Jan. q, 1s97.-The directors
of the State hispitals for the insane have
submitted their annual report to Cover
nor G-jggs.
According to the reports of g. G.
Hinchxnann, Treasurer of the State hos
pttal at Morris Plains, and H. w. John
son. Treasurer of the State hospital In
this city, $522, 1885, 81 was spent last year
in maintaining these two institutions for
the States insane. The expenses of the
Morris Plains hospital aggregate $751;
t07. 70, and the receipts $279, 1876. In Tren-
ton the expenses were $241,3S0.25, and the
receipts $3.50, 734.6S. The former institution
began last year with a balance of
$22, OBJ ..13. and the latter with a balance
of $50. 1886.
During the year 251 patients were adj
mitted to the Trenton hospital, and 2S0
to the hospital at Morris Plains. A. the
end of the yea the institution in this
city contained l,O01 patients, and there
were LIS at Morris Plains. Both DR..
John w. Ward and DIR. r. D.. Evans, the
medical directors of the two hospitals, in
their reports say that the institutions
are overcrowded. DR.. Evans says he be-
leves the increase in the death rate at
Morris Plains IS largely to the effects
of overcrowded sleeping rooms.
The report of the Board of Managers
furnishes startling information as to the
loosensss of New Jersey laws regarding
the commitment of people to insane
asylums. The report says
We deem it a duty to submit to your
Exceilency facts going to prove that the
ing. the conditions upon which patients are
to be committed to n received by insti-
tutions for the insane. State, county. or
it would not be difficult to secure the COM
initial of a sane person, If there were
strong motives to induce the attempt
behalf.
THE law does not require that a physi-
clan should have had any experience
competent to certify to insanity or sanity.
Five minutes after the youth has re-
ceived his diploma, the first case to which
ne is called may be one of mental dis
certify that the patient is insane as If he
had been a quarter of a century in daily
intercourse with such cases.
MOI does the law provide that he shall
not be a near relative, by blood or mar
riage, of the person named in the certifi-
cate and to be committed. Nor does it
provide that he shall hold no official con-
nection with the institution to which the
person is to be committed; or If a private
institution, that he shall nave no finan-
cial interest in it. Nor does 1t require
that he shall not be a trustee or guardian
of the person whose committal he de-
sires. Nor does it require that h shall
state how often he has seen the patient,
what examination he has made of him
or hex, nor hat symptoms he found
which led him to the conclusion that the
patient was of unsound mind and suitable
to be placed in a hospital for the insane.
Nor does It require that the certifying
physician should have seen the patient
within four weeks of the time of admis-
sion.
Yet no graver outrage could be in
hicted short of murder upon a sane per-
of having been charged with insanity. 1t
is true that very few have been found
in insane asylums who were not insane.
The total. number found to have been
committed to Trenton who were sane is
twenty-nine; but the number whose i'm
proper or violent removal to an institu-
ton for the insane, on account of an
error In diagnosis, who may lave been
and cannot be tabulated in statistical re-
turns
DR.. Evans, in his report on epileptic
patients, says
The hospital year closed with rs cpl
leptics in the Morris Plains institution
and 50 in the State Hospital at Trenton,
making a total Of l60 -e~pileptics confined
IN the two hospitals I endorse fully the
position taken by DR.. John w. Ward,
the medical director of the New Jersey
State Hospital at Trenton, relative to the
epileptic insane being kept in our State
hospitals along with the ordinary forms
of insanity. 1t is decidedly preiudIciaJ
to the interests and comforts of the cpl
leptics as well as to a large percentage
of patients afflicted with other forms Of
mental perverSiOn."
Both medical directors treat at length
sane. In the hospital here there are "a
n in that at Morris Plains 81 onvicts
the latter having, in addition to these, II
criminals. The report says:-"A remark
able difference exists between the con-
Wet insane n ordinary insane persons.
1t has often been affirmed that the in
sane are not capable of concerted action;
that they never conspire or combine. But
the convict insane are liable to combine
at n time. A recent occurrence at the
Morris Plains Hospital illustrates the
a fendants e ar wh asnos po5h PATENTS F;ve dena ana at +
that institution. recently planned a des-
perate scheme by which they were to
make their escape. The five were sleep
and upon which-owing to the crowded
condition of the institution-cots are
placed Upon the floor in the corridor. The
of the night nurses and escape, and but
for the miscarriage of one item in the
details of this carefully contrived
scheme, 1t woul nave been executed to
the letter, with the loss of one or more
lives;
The details OF the plan were that they
should wait until n of the night nurses.
OF whom there are two upon the ward,
had gone to his midnight meal, which is
served In another place. Then one Of the
most powerful and most desperate of the
c%onvicrs was to call for something to make
stefan In charge had left a sleeping potion
with the night nurse for such an emer-
gency. Upon the latter going to the door
and opening it. a convict who was upon
nna af nnd rvn- 49, = 4 =