Twenty-second annual report of the trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital, at Worcester. December, 1854.

  • State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Twenty-second annual report of the trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital, at Worcester. December, 1854. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    rooms,” or rather cells. They are built of stone or brick, pre¬ cisely like prison cells, with grated doors and windows, aper¬ tures for putting in food, taking out vessels, &c. They are so contrived that they can be easily warmed and cleansed from filth that offends the eye, but in all other respects they are unfit abodes for human beings. The older ones are per¬ fectly detestable. Opened to the more enlightened moral sense of this day, they seem like the relics of a comparatively barba¬ rous age. Well might the Trustees, in the Report of last year, ask, “ How is it possible that the furious, the violent, the inde¬ cent should ever be restored while occupying apartments unfit for the abodes of dumb beasts?” They might have added, that any sane man, unless an eminent non-resistant, would become “ furious and violent ” by being placed therein. Even those cells constructed at so great cost within a few years, are not fit habitations for the worst maniac, because they needlessly aggravate his malady and his misery. They, too, are stone cells, with iron doors and grated windows. These cells have been almost continually in use since they were built; and when the Hospital was as crowded, as it some¬ times has been, their use has doubtless seemed absolutely necessary. So many unfortunate men and women have been shut up in them year after year, and so many others have been restrained by mechanical contrivances, that such imprisonment and re¬ straint have come to be considered as matters of course in the treatment of the insane by official and unofficial visitors, by legislative committees, and, to a certain extent, by the pub¬ lic at large. Now, it can be shown that neither “ seclusion” nor “re¬ straint ” of insane persons is necessary, saving in rare and exceptional cases, and then only for short periods of time and in ordinary rooms ; first, by general reasoning; second, by experience in other places; third, by experience here at home within the last year. First, as to the general reasoning. “ Seclusion ” of an insane person is a dainty word for expressing his imprisonment in a cell. Restraint is a dainty substitute for fettering his hands or feet, or both, the fetters being of leather instead of iron. Insanity, as was remarked before, deranges, but does not