The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-02-23
CARE OF THE INSANE.

From the New York Sun.
Among the diseases which afIlict the
human body none occupy so singular
relation to society, and particularly to
the law, as certain maladies of the brain.
Most diseases are treated by the physc-
ian at home or in special or general hos
pitfalls, but disorders of the brain, when
they give rise to the group of symptoms
known as insanity, are apt to come SOON
er or later into contact with the law.
The insane person goes to the asylum,
not as to a hospital for the relief of his
infirmty. but as to some house of deten-
tion, prison or reformatory, under legal
form, committed by a justice of court
of record. He is not only ill, but he is
deprived of his legal rights as a citi-
zen. While there are valid reasons, which
we need not dwell upon here, why such
formal process is frequently necessary,
it is still fact which has tended to
cast stigma upon the unfortunate pa
tient and his family. The change of the
term asylum to hospital for the in
sane in many states, though a step to-
ward relieving patients to slight de-
gree of this opprobrium, has made lit
tie difference in popular opinion. Some
thing of the prison stigma fingers about
the sick man who has been discharged
as recovered from the hospital for the in
sane. All the insane must suffer because
Of the few whose conduct becomes such
that the law must throw around the ra>
tient and around society its protecting
devices.
In certain states these legal measures
are so intricate and difficult that they
involve suffering and harm to the sick
man and his family by the delay and
publicity incident thereto. 1t is not con-
sidered that the patients illness often
does not differ essentially from ordinary
diseases accompanied by delirium, like
pneumonia, typhoid fever and the like.
He must be subjected to visitation from
court officers, or, in some states, be hailed
to court. before he can enter hospital
for treatment Generally it is even worse
than this, for there are comparatively
few places among the vast number of
villages, towns and cities in the Union
where he is rot first taken to Jail pend
ing the legal disposition of his person.
1t is no wonder, then, that popular opin-
ion associates insanity with penal offence
rather than with physical disease. The
remedy proposed for this is the estab-
hshment in all of our large cities of
psychopathic hospitals; hospitals to which
the insane in the early durable stages of
their malady may be sent without legal
process, precisely as patients sick with
other disorders are taken into general
HOSpltdlSI lnCTc 10 remain lOT IL lew Weeks
until cured, or until chronicity of the
disease becomes apparent and entails
transfer to an asylum. In this way many
patients will be spared the inflctions of
the law.
There is nothing of tho kind in the
United States, not even in our largest
cities, where they are most needed. Here
is a new avenue for the wealthy and
charitably disposed, an opportunity to
erect the first psychopathc hospital on
this continent, as we'll as the best in the
world How could one better immortal
ize himself than by giving a new boon
to afflicted mankind, by affording med
ical men better opportunities to faml-
iarize themselves with the treatment OF
disorders of the brain, by creating lap-
Oratories for the discovery Of the causes
of mental disorder, by helping to lift the
curtain which conceals from us the un-
known world of mind and spirit?