LUNATIC ASYLUMS. In every civilised country the necessity of at least guarding against any calamitous result from the loss of reason in any of the members of society, must have been a serious consider ation. In the East, idiots or harmless lunatics are considered as holy, and are usually provided for by the benevolent, but no public care seems to be bestowed even on the more violent. The buildings in cemeteries are often the abodes of such sufferers. Mr. Warburton (‘ Crescent and Cross,' ii. 352) states, that when travelling in Lebanon, and near a Moslem village, " the silence of the night was now broken by fierce yells and howlings, which I discovered proceeded from a naked maniac, who was fighting with some wild dogs for a bone." This madman, on being disturbed, made an attack on 31r. Warburton. Unfortunately, it appears to have been taken for granted that such maladies were incurable, and coercion and confinement were the chief appliances used in all cases where any restraint appeared necessary. Even Shakspere makes Rosalind say, " a dark house and a whip" are what madmen deserve ; and 3lalvolio is to be had " in a dark house and bound." When they were supposed to be harmless, lunatics and idiots were suffered to wander about the country, trusting to precarious charity, and subjected to occasional whippings. These provisions, such as they were, became manifestly insufficient, and asylums were sparingly provided, where probably the worst cases were received. But though shelter was thus given, the treatment did not greatly vary. It was still the dark house and the whip. The system pursued was always one of coercion and severity, too frequently of cruelty. In the old hospital of Bethlem in Moorfields, London, the poor lunatics were made a show of, as if they had been wild beasts, and the miserable patients were excited to raga to render the exhibition more stimulating. Henry Mackenzie, in his Man of Feeling,' published in 1771, describes with other sensations a visit to this place. " Their conductor led them first to the dismal mansions of those who are in the most horrible state of incurable madness. The clanking of chains, the wildness of their cries and the imprecations which some of them uttered, formed a scene inexpressibly shocking. Harley and his companions, especially the female part of them, ibegged their guide to return : he seemed surprised at their uneasiness, and was with difficulty prevailed on to leave that part of the house without showing them some others ; who, as he expressed it, in the phrase of those that keep wild beasts for show, were much better worth seeing than any they had passed, being ten times more fierce and unmanageable." Mackenzie makes Harley observe, " I think it an inhuman practice to expose the greatest misery with which our nature is afflicted, to every idle visitant who can atffird a trifling perquisite to the keeper ; especially as it is a distress which the humans must ace with the painful reflection that it is not in their power to alleviate it." The last plate of Hogarth's Rake's Progress,' of a date a few years earlier, gives even a more vivid picture of a madhouse of the period. Nearly naked, in chains, his head shaved, in a dirty straw-littered cell, and wildly raging ; " a monumental figure over the grave of his reason," as Lichtenberg, the German commentator on Hogarth, expresses it, the poor maniac is yet exhibited by his stern-looking keeper. Still the system was con tinued; thousands went to see, hundreds perhaps to pity, but none to remedy. The only approximation was, that this shameful exhibition was prohibited in 1771.
Such scenes were not peculiar to England. They could have been paralleled, perhaps exceeded, in every state throughout Europe. But
relief was approaching, and it began in France.
The benevolent and courageous Pinel was the first to attempt the restoration of the insane to a position among human beings. The scene of his exertions, which were the first great step of the non restraint system, was the Bicetre—a hospital for insane men, near Paris. In this frightful prison the universal practice was to load patients with heavy chains, which remained on for the remainder of their lives, and to immure them in dark, unwarmed, and unventilated cells. Pinel determined on at once releasing a large number of patients. The following account of the experiment is extracted from the British and Foreign Medical Review :'— " Towards the end of 1792, Pinel, after having many times urged the government to allow him to unchain the maniacs of the Bicbtre, but in vain, went himself to tho authorities, and with much earnestness and warmth advocated the removal of this monstrous abuse. Couthon, a member of the commune, gave way to M. Pinel's arguments, and agreed to meet bins at the Bidtre. Couthon then interrogated those who were chained, but the. abuse he received, and the confused sounds of cries, vociferation, and clanking of chains in the filthy and damp cells, made him recoil from Pines proposition. You may do what you will with them,' said he, but I fear you will become their victim.' Pincl instantly commenced his undertaking. Thera were about fifty whom he considered might without danger to the others be unchained, and he began by releasing twelve, with the sole precaution of having prepared the same number strung waistcoats with long sleeves, which could be tied behind the back if necessary. The first man on whom the experiment was to be tried was an English captain, whose history no one knew, as he had been in chains forty years. He was thought to bo one of the most furious among them ; his keepers approached him with caution, as ho had in a fit of fury killed one of them on the spot with a blow from his manacles. He was chained more rigorously than any of the others. Pinel entered his cell un attended, and calmly said to bim, Captain, I will order your chains to be taken off, and give you liberty to walk in the court, if you will promise me to behave well and injure no one." Yes, 1 promise you,' said the maniac ; but you are laughing at me : you are all too much afraid of me.' I have six men,' answered Pinel, ready to enforce my commands, if necessary. Believe me then, on my word, I will give you your liberty if you will put on this waistcoat.' He submitted to this willingly, without a word : his chains were removed, and the keepers retired, leaving the door of the cell open. He raised himself many times from the seat, but fell again on it, for he had been in a sitting posture so long that he had lost the use of his legs; in a quarter of an hour he succeeded in maintaining his balance, and with tottering steps came to the door of his dark cell. His first look was at the sky, and he cried out enthusiastically, How beautiful !' During the rest of the day he was constantly in motion, walking up and down the staircases, and uttering exclamations of delight. In the evening he returned of his own accord into his cell, where a better bed than he had been accustomed to had been prepared for him, and he slept tranquilly. During the two succeeding years which be spent in the Bicetre, he had no return of his previous paroxysms, but even rendered himself useful by exercising a kind of authority over the insane patients, whom he ruled in his own fashion." Other instances are given of the efficacy of the mild treatment, which are not necessary now to be re peated to show its salutary effects.