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Tardtvel) > «< in«< QUBBRC L^GER BROUSSEAU STEAM* PRINTINa ESTABLISHMENT 9, Buade Street ' ' • _ ' 1885" I '■ I I ■ ?*...■< f. s M X . . * If '' I. \ i =!'«•; N , ' ^ m ^^ '* ;-' '•*•••» « « ' t •••• •• fc • • •< »...»..• •' • • .• *. •• • : • • "• • • « • ••••• •••• -.. • ••••• • •••• -••• OUR LUNATIC ASYLUMS b During the past few months, attacks, as iiijiist as they are violent, have been launched against our excellent Lunatic Asylums of Beauport and Longuo Pointe. There is however but little to be wondered at in that, for almost everywhere public institutions are periodically the object of this kind of criticism which generally springs from ill-will. To the ordinary causes which subject establishments of this character to such vexations must be added, in the Province of Quebec, a particular feeling produced by the antipathies of race and by the fanaticism of a certain class of sectarians. la order to show that our asylums are not the only ones that are exposed to the shafts of slander, I shall content myself with the reproduction of a few passages from the writings of American authors on the subject of lunacy ; after which, in order to set forth the odious plottings that are possibly being hatched against the management of the asylums in the Province of Quebec, I shall relate a case that happened when I was one of the inspectors of the public Institutions of the united Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada. Dr. Gale,superJntendent of the Central Kentucky Lunatic Asylum, who came victoriously out of a struggle of this land after having been accused of cruelty and incom- petency, wrote as follows in his annual report for 1882 : " The troubles here are but a repetition of those " had by almost every institution in Inis country and " Europe. Such asylums as have had none are " exceedingly fortunate, and are the exceptions to the " rule." Dr. Everts, treating the same question before the United States Lunatic Asylum Superintendents Asso- ciation (see the October 1881 issue of the American Journal of Insanity) says, among other things : ../;^--, 81779 u To accuse managing boards of dishonesty, and " medical siiperinlondents and subordinates of incom- "■ petoncy, or criminal neglect of duty and al)nse of '' authority, towards helpless prisoners is a common " feature of public scandal Born agitators " and professional reformers, who live and movn upon '^ turning this world upsiideration, are second to none ; all our asylums are a credit to Canada ; none are perfect ; certain arrangements, certain customs in any of these institutions maybe looked upon favorably or imfavo- rably according to the notions one may have. The wholesale contrast that Dr. Tuke would fain establish and the language he makes use of do not constitue the report of an inquiry ; it is not even the appreciation of a reasonable man* arid of a man who respects himself ; it is abuse and senseless perversity. Our two asylums of the Province of Quebec, I ; '.-f.' _^v. ^ =-V— -r-r - -^- 10 repeat it, can sustain enquiry and comparison. As for situation, Beauportis without a rival, and Saint-.Tean-de- Dieu has few equals ; the buildings, as regards appearence and size, rank among first class institutions ; the grounds and gardens of Beauport are magnificent, and those of Longue Point, though more recently laid out, are already very fine ; the interior divisions, the heating, lighting and ventilation are either excellent or a good average ; the food is wholesome and plentiful ; the clothing and bedding of the inmates, the gr^at majority of whom, as elsewhere, belong to the poorer classes, are quite suitable, taking into account the distinctions everywhere made between clean and quiet lunatics, dirty and wasteful lunatics and those who are temporarily violent and destructive; the domes- tic care and discipline are mild and bear the stamp of charity and respect for suffering and misfortune wiiiiout degenerating into whims and idle dreams and vagaries ; the moral and physical treatment is about the same as elsewhere. These two asylums have resident physicians and visiting physicians, they are regularly inspected by officers appointed by thp govern- ment ; efforts towards Improvement are made as time and the means furnished permit :- -Changes are moreover sometimes made in order to satisfy current fancies, in Ontario as well as in Quebec, but these changes are not alwdys improvements. No sacrifices are offered in these asylums to Psyche or to any other fantastic divinity ; the managers limit themselves to Christianity and therefore they look after the souls as ^ well as the bodies of the unfortunate inmates ; priests and ministers take care of those belonging to them, each according to his religious belief. The comparative calmness of the lunatics in these asylums is remarkable ; there, as elsewhere, accidents will occur, but they are unfrequent ; the health of the inmates is relatively good, and the number of cures is as large as in Ontario. If we take into account the fact that these two institutions admit indiscriminately, and rightly I think, cases of idiocy, of imbecility, of insanity and acute mania, incurable patients as well as those who are supposed to be curable, we will find by the statistics a favorable state of things. Tn saying this, I desire however, as a «►' ■Mi V, h practital man, to make certain reservations ; because I am well aware of the fallacies of statistics everywhere, for through them no account can be held of a thousand and one circumstances with which it would be essential to be acquainted in order to form a well grounded - opinion. On this point Dr. Tuke seems to think like every body else for in a foot-note on page 91 of his Chapters^ spe?king of Si-Luke's^ in England^ he says : '' Statistics of recovery are given for different " periods, but the fallacies attending such comparisons " are so great that T have not cited the figures." All that satisfies Dr: Tuke in Ontario but seems to him to be altogether insufficient in Quebec : the reason of these two weights and two measures is evident. 1 have just spoken of the system which consists of admitting all kinds of insane into establishments common to all. This is a matter of controversy, like many other questions, upon which every one is free to form his own opinion. After years of study and reflexion upon the subject I have come to the same conclusion I had arrived at when 1 was inspector and which 1 advanced in my private report of 1862 ; I quote from the English version : " I do not deny that some advantages, as well as " inconveniences, might result from a classification of •' the asylums of the country, provided always that the " poor should be suitably lodged and clothed, and '' treated in other respects like the rich. *' The only system praticable in Canada, in my opifiion, is that which makes a lunatic asylum both a hospital for the cure of such as are curable, and a retreat for the incurable, — in which the unfortunates of all classes, poor as well as ri(,h, may find a suitable refuge in which luxury and pomps may have no place, but in which, if need be, a compartment may be devo- ted to the accomodation of the insane members of " wealthy families who ought, in each case, to be " required to pay a fee sufiicienl to cover all expenses '' on a liberal scale." • .^ » All our Canadian asylums occupy a rank midway between the two classes of foreign asylums, one of which iff remaikable for luxury of furnicure and main- tenance the advantages whereof are questionable, and the other is composed of poor and too Small asylums u u ■II u (( '\"-: ^■r^7^ ■! n i> approaching the chiiracter of alms houses and work houses. The matter of luxury in furniture, of delicacies in- food and raiment, of extra attendance on the inmates, is merely a question of money. If opulent families do what they deejn to be reasonable for their insane, or if they even incur extravagant expenses without profit for iheir sick and often to their detriment, it is their own business, but.it would be aa act of bad administration for the State to uselessly increase expenditure in order to make an idle and pharisaical show or for the mere l)leasure of fostering the whim.s of dreamers. "TiTdl OBce saw, in a foreign asylum, a very wealthy lunatic whose family lavished on him all that luxury could imagine. This unfortune man occupied appart- ments the walls of which were hung with pictures ; a private table and a private attendance were set apart for nim : He gazed upon all that with a look of senseless i^atisf action, of idiotic vanity and calm complacency most painful to behold. My impression was that all this show had had a most baneful effect upon his disease which at the time had become almosi uncurable, and I was given to understand that such was the opinion of the managers of the institution. By dint of satisfying the fancies of the sick man his friends had reduced him to a state of calmness which, in its turn, had degenerated into torpor ; so true it is that in such matters appearances are deceptive. . I will not follow the defamer of our two -great institutions through his lengthy denunciation evidently drawn up at the instigation of certain enemies of theses two asylums and of passionate adversaires of their, managers ; a cureory glance over a portion of this docu- ment will be sufficient to set forth its worthlessness and futility and to show the motives which actuated him in writing it. Dr. Tuke begins by the Saint-Jean-de-Dieu asylum at Longue Pointe. He states that the buildings are imposing,forming " a prominent object from the St Lawrence on approaching. Montreal" he found the Sisters of Provi- dence polite and he thanks the visiting physician for his kindness ; he says that the dispensary, ipharmacie) which he calls apothecaire (sic) is a model of cleanliness ; he has but little fault to find with the parts of the building \ r) I ^ - ■■sf u u u a relating to the general management of the institution as well as the accommodation afforded private patients and the clean and quiet insane among the poorer class ; but he takes this backward step only to be able to jump further, and slander soon takes the place of well merited praise, and even extends to subjects foreign to the ques- tion of the intrinsic worth of these asylums which was the pretext of his wi itting. Dr. Tuke even goes so far as to criticise a book which the Sisters of Providence make use of as nurses. We read the following in the second paragraph of his memoir : " The nuns have themselves published a pharma- ceutical and medical work, a large volume, entitled Traite elementaire de Mature Medicale et Guide Pratique^ a copy of which the worthy Mother superior was good enough to present to me. I was somewhat disappointed to find, on examining its pages, that only one was devoted to mental alienation, of which nine lines suffice for the treatment of the disorder. Among the moral remedies, I regret to see that " punitions " " are enumerated ; their nature is not specified." Ur. Tuke has erroneously imagined, or, which would be worse, he wishes to gratuitously insinuate that the book of the Sisters of Providence was published for the special attendance upon lunatics ; and he does so in order to afford himself the opportunity of being astonished to find only one page devoted to lunacy. Now the fact is that this volume was published several years before there was any question of establishing the Saint-Jean-de-Dieu asylum ; this book was published in 1870, whilst the asylum only dates as far back as 1876, This most useful work is a pharmacopeia with accompanying elementary information on ^11 kinds of diseases ; each complaint of course occupies but little space, but every thing i& in its piace and goes right to the object of the work which is clearly and modestly defined in the introduction where we read the following : " Our purpose in publishing this book is to enable the Sister of Charity to fulfil in a more perfect manner the object she had in view when she consecrated herself to God "—And further on—" to enable her to become acquainted with that which she is required to know in order to be in a position to intelligently second 14 the physician, or in his absence and in urgent cases, to administer the lirat remedies to the sick." Surely, the noble and holy women consecrated as it were by the spirit of sacrifice carried to the immolation of all human selfishness, the well educated women who wrote these beautiful lines, the modest women who talce upon themselves, before God and man, the role of servants of the sick under the direction of physicians, such women can look down upon their defatners and easily forgive this impertinent sarcasm which is unable to reach them. The Guide Pratique contains only one page especially devoted to mental alienation, which is as much as can be found in many celebrated manuals and abridged dictionaries ; and if any one were so placed as to be unable to consult upon tjfiis disease any other work than this book of the Sisters of Providence or the Chapters of Dr. Daniel Hack Tuke M. D. F. R. C. P., he would do well to make choice of the Sisters' book. Dr. Tuke could say, no doubt, that his work is not a treatise on mental alienation, but a history of the English lunatic asylums ; to this we could answer that the Sisters' volume is a pharmaceutical guide, and not a work upon lunacy. The Sisters' book says, with regard to the treatment of lunacy, on page 947 which is now being spokea of : — "" The moral treatment consists in applying the educational art to lunacy by the means of obedience, work, punctuality, amusements, punishment and reward, confidence, change of scene, strengthening of moral and religious principles having due regard to the particular character of the patient and the nature of the disease." It would be difficult to say, in a few words, more and wiser things relating to the moral treatment of mental alienation. A violent desire to criticise the Sisters and the requirements of a bad cause have blinded Dr. Tuke to such an extent that he has placed himself, with regard to this passage, in a position to be convicted either of ignorance or of remarkable dishonesty. Indeed, when he says : — " Among the moral remedies, I regret to see that '* punitions " are enumerated," — Dr. Tuke exhibits most deplorable ignorance if his regret be sincere ; il this regret be not sincere, then he exhibits odious dishonesty ; for punishments as well as K. ^. 6 / ■ n t I A 3 rewards do certainly form part of the treatment of insanity and of the discipline to which the insane are subject. 1 do not believe that a single writer on lunacy, of any worth, would deny this truth which is elementary and flows from the very nature of things. The opposite idea of reward is necessarily punishment. The idea of merit carries\vith it the possibility of demerit, and the same may be said of good or bad conduct, whether we have to deal with beings morally responsible and governed by law or only with sensitive beings governed by instinct. It is a primordial truth that a diflerence of disposition towards the exterior world, in the government of men and even of animals, carries with it a difference iti treatment which is called, accordingly as the case may be, praise, encouragement, reward, or restraint, repulsion, chastisement : The bad results of acts detrimental to persons and things must be prevented, the repetition of such acts must be guarded against when it has been impossible to entirely prevent them, and their authors must be punished for their own education and for the example of .others : Lunatics do not escape from this law which applies to all sensitive beings. * This kind of reasoning will be sufficient for all those whose practice it is to study things according to their nature ; but as there are persons with whom names have more weight than philosophy — which is more or less wanting — I shall quote the remarks upon this subject of two well-known writers on lunacy. Dr. Gale, of Kentucky, in his interesting report for 1882, has a chapter intitled : — Restraint and Punishments^ " in the third paragraph of which we read : — " Punishments *' are sometimes as essentially necessary as remedial *' agents for the purpose of control in individual cases, '* and for the maintenance of discipline. " Dr. T. S. Bell, reviewing the proceedings of the enquiry into the conduct of the officers of the Anchorage asylum, quotes, with reference to this question of the punishment of theinsane,the case of the lunatic Theodore Clay, eldest son of the famous Henry Clay : Dr Bell, speaking approvingly of the treatment of this patient of illustrious descent, says : — •' 1 may say here, that while " Theodore Clay was generally quiet and harmless, he ^ 10 (( a would have occasional outbreaks, /"or which he was punished when the institution was under the manage- " mont of some of the most devoted friends that his " father ever possessed. " In a w" d, both logic and the experience of com- petent men proclaim that punishment is necessary in certain cases, and upon this *point the Sisters win a scientific victory over Dr. Tuke. The latter, wishing no doubt to make light of these modest Sisters of Charity, goes on with his jesting and his sorry criticism of this excellent book ; he says : " Two skeletons in the apothecaire (sic) were shown to us by Ste Th6rese, as being much valued subjects of anatomical study for the nuns, who would, it is not unlikely, consider their knowledge of the medical art sufTicient for the needs of the patients." Sister Th6rese and her companions are perfectly right in considering skeletons as objects of much value in the study of anatomy, and it is entirely wrong for Dr. Tuke to give vent to slurs, which nothing justifies, for the pleasure of satisfying wretched prejudices and with the evident intention of gaining unc^sirable popularity. Here is the conclusion of the first part of Dr. Tuke's denunciation : " That such establishments should be conducted by " nuns must seem remarkable to those who are unac- " quainted with the large part taken by Sisters of Charity in the management of hospitals in countries where the influence of the iloman Catholic Church extends. Theoretically, it would seem to be an admirable system, and to afford, in this way, a wide field for the employment of women in occupations congenial to their nature, and calculated to confer great advantages upon the sick, whether in mind or bedy. That women '' have an important role in this fle)d will not be denied ; " but experience proves only too surely that to entrust those of a religious order with administrative power is a practical mistake, and leads to abuses which ultimately necessitate the intervention of the civil power." There is the cat half-way outof the bag whilst think- ing itself still hidden. If Dr. Tuke had come forward and said : I hate the Catholic Churcl), I am hostile to a a u ^ I /^ ,7 a S ■■•■ 1 . ... V, '"^^^ \iyr: i ! , « » K., 17 every thin^ pertaining to it, I cannot abide sisters what ever good they may do, we could at least admit his sincerity if not his sense of justice ; but for him to endeavor to contradict experience and to give us ridicu- lous advice on matters with which we are a hundred times belter acquainted than he is^ that is father too much. We have in Canada, iu all the Provinces, but especially in the Province of Quebec, experienced for ages the admirable aptitude of religious orders for the management of all kinds of public institutions and particularly of benevolent and charitable institutions; it is a fact acknowledged b^ all who possess their souls in peace and are blessed with healthy minds. The same can be said of all other countries ; thus in France, at the present moment, the most eminent physicians, • even those who are unbelievers and hostile to religious ideas, oppose with all their might the secularisation of hospitals and asylums undertaken by a senseless and tyrannical government. We saw recently in France the physic- ^-ns of a famous free- thinking writer enjoining upon nim to go and board in a religious institution for the simple reason that nowhere else could these physicians find equal security for the success of their treatment. One of the most celeDrated lunatic asylums in the United States, the Mount Hope Retreat, of Baltimore, is owned and naturally managed exclusively by nuns, the Sisters of Saint Joseph. The insane population of this asylum number at least five hundred ; out of this number above two humdred are private patients several of whom belong to most distinguished families both protestant and catholic. Although there are other asylums, the city and county of Baltimore send to the Sisters more than two hundred insane maintained by. the municipalities ; the other patients belonging to poor families or withdrawn from the alms houses are maiat^ined in part or wholly by the Sisters wiuh the profits realized on private patients or on the maintenance of those paid for out of the public treasury. And it is in the face of such facts, to be found at all times and m all countries,that Dr. Tuke ^ares to assert that experience comes in conflict with the reasoning which he admits 18 .^'»; « priori to be in favor of the conducting of asylums by nuns. After having spoken of the fine appearance of the interior of the Saint-Jean*de-Dieu Asylum on the first flat, he proceeds so say : ^^ It ^ as we ascend the building that the character ^' of the accomodation changes for the worse, the higher ^* the ward, the more unmanageable is the patient ^^ supposed to be, the galleries and rooms become more ^' and more crowded and the look bare and comfortless. ^* The patients were for the most part sitting listlessly " on forms by the wall or the corridor, while others ''*■ were pacing the open gallery, which must afford an ^' acceptable escape from the dull monotouy of the *''' corridor. The outlook is upon similar galleries in '^ thd quadrangle at the back oi the building, and to a *^ visitor, the sight of four tiers of palissaded verandahs, " with a number of patients walking up and down the '^ enclosed space, has a strange effect. These outside *^ galleries are, indeed, the airing courts of the asylum. '''• There are no others. If the patients are allowed to *' descend, and to go out on the' estate, they do so in " regular order for a stated time, in charge of their ^' attendants, like a procession of charity school " children. Those who work on the farms must be the " happiest in the establishment." I make this long quotation as a specimen of the kind of criticism Dr. Tuke deals in upon the asylums of the Province of Quebec. Here artlessness vifes with ill-will^ the English expert must have enormous faith in the gullibility of the public he addresses to thus abandon all precaution, oratorical or of any other kind. The perspicacious Dr Tuke has discovered, at Longue Pointe, that as one passes from the class of insane who are clean, quiet, and amenable to a curative treatment, to the classes of lunatics who are incurable, dirty, noisy, wasteful, furious and dangerous, things become less and less amiable ; he has discovered that in the asylums of the Province of Quebec, out he seems not to have noticed that precisely the same thing exists in the asylums of Ontario and everywhere else. If he had only jogged his memory a little, open his eyes, reflected an instant or else consulted the reports of different asylums, this truth,, p V \ \ J I>-"" Nowithstanding all the opera- '"'■ tions and traditions of Gonolly, although its affairs . '* have been administered since his day by a series of ^^ disciples prc^essing his views, Hanwell is one of the " worst asylurtis 1 have seen in any part of the world, " whether as regards its structural arrangements or its " government." . - Dr. Tuke could not be allowed tq remain unan- swered, and the best way to squash him is to weigh him as an authority, to sift his talents a little, to set forth the main points of his memoir in order to piit into relief the substance, tbe form and the animus thereof. Several of our newspajfers have already refuted a portion of his comments'^ud laid bare his slanders; I thought T had the righk to join these defenders of our institutions, t^e more so as circumstances he ve been the cause of my making a special study of the questions which form the , subject of this discussion. DISCIPLikE 'OF ASYLUMS. Non-restraint^ as An absolute doctrine, is an idea essentially euglish and obtains only in England. This theory has become, in the mother country, a real mania the tyranny whereof must be submitted to by all who are not ^trong-minAed enough to withstand such m 30 (I currents of.opinion. From that fact and from what we know of Dr. Tuke it is natural to suppose that this gentleman is one of those who carry the notion to its utmost limits. Thus it is sufficient, in order to obtain the praises of this writer, to hoist the colours of non-restrainty to appear to espouse this idea, even if were only on paper and in reports. The Medical Time and Gazelle^ of Londou, whilst yielding to the current, speaking of this hobby, the intolerance and the verbosity it produces, wittily remarks : — ** Without doubt, says this jourhafc, non-restraint is '^ the Keystone of the fabric constituted by our British '^ system of treating the insane, the shibboleth by which " a man is tested, and his views pronounced sound or '^ unsound — the alpha and the omega of the doctrines taught by writers of the English school. To such a length is this carried, that a servant who looks after an , ^^ insane individual must no longer hh called a keeper ; '' he is an attendant, and it is almost a crime to call '* htm by the former name in a modem asylum. In " this dread of words, there would be someting very " ridiculous were there not someting also that is of '' n^oment as concQrning the welfare of the unfortunates '^ detained in these institutions. We are thoroughly ^^ convinced of the soundness of the non-restraint " doctrines, if they are not carried too far, which we ^' are heterodox enough to think possible ; but there is *^ something absurd in allowing an outrageous lunatic ** to smash all the windows in a ward* rather than " interfere with his personal liberty, and thefe are other '' cases which, if not equally telling, are at least equally " important from a medical point of view." As no one has ever thought of prescribing strait- * jackets, muffs, belts and other mechanical means of restraint for quiet and harmless insane, and as it is absurd not to make use of these means for furious, dangeroug orpthdrwise refractory lunatics, it follows that non-restraint is either nonsense or mental aberra- tion. This system, as a system, is rejected in France, in Germany, in the United States, is rejected every where except iu England and even there it is not admit- ted by every body. The writing* of Hill and GonoUy,. >. p- a: .s 31 Ji the inventors of the system, are, in the eyes of Dis, Tuke. the law and the Prophets. Now here is what a Sootcn writter on lunacy, Dr. Lawder Lindsay, says of this theory in the course of an article published in the Edinburah Mechanical Journal for April and June 1878 : '^ This intolerant and intolerabled dogma — opposed '^ as it is to all common sense, common feeling and " common experience — I have designated GonolTyism, '^ because it was undoubtly bv means of GonoUy's ^^ publications that the dogma became popular, and '•'• mischievous in proportion to its popularity. " I find in Jaccoud s Dictionai'y, at the word camisole, the following excellent summary of this subject of the means of restraint to be used in the treatment of insane : — " Strait-jackets, belts with muffs are only instruments ; what is especi'ally important to be understood are the rules which govern their use. Pinel was the first to indicate, with a master's hand, the rules for applying coercive means and since then nothing has been done beyond the development of the principles laid down by him. We must, he says, give the insane the greatest liberty of movement compatible with safety to themselves and to others, allciv them to tvalk and run about in enclosed places limiting ourselves to the mere restraint of the strait-jacket In the opinion of the illustrious master, the strait-jacket prescribed and kept on temporarily may be considered as curative in as much as it subdues the violence of the patient while allowing him sufficient exei else for his health. Esquirol, Georget, Ferrus adopt no other prin- ciples, insisting in their writings and in their practice upon the prudence to be observed in appl/ing means of restraint and at ,the same time on their unquestionable utility. ^* Casimir Pinel rightly says that non-restraint does not exist in England any more than in France, that the means of restraint only are different, and that it is therefore only a question of comparison as to their advantages and their drawbacks. Whatever be the form adopted, rf^straint of some kind is necessary in many cases ; in order to .do away with it, we would have to abolish at the same time the delirious concep- tions and hallucinations which give ri^e to the deplorable sights we have constantly before our eyes. By what ■H 32 other means caYi inclinations to self-poUution and destruction bo mastered ? How can we otherwise combat those foul longiiigs which induce patients to eat their excrements and to drink their urine 7 A temporary application of the strait-jacket is then the only remedy Coercive means have the advantage of allowing the patient exercise and air ; and with a well adapted apparatus, we can obtain calmness during the day and rest at right, a result which could not be obtained otherwise ; to our mind, the entire abolition of restraint is an idle dream. " , The United States Lunatic asylum superintendents Association adopted, in the month of October 1844, the following resolution : '^ Resolved that it is the unanimous sense of this " ponvention that the attempt to abandon entirely the " use of all means of personal restraint is not sanctioned " by the true interests of the insane." Dr. Walker, president of the United States Lunatic asylum superintendents Association expressed himself as follows on the subject in 1877 : — . '"'' My opinions in regard to the use of mechanical ^'- restraint nave undergone no change during the '^ discussion, or since the visit of our distinguished " brother from across the ^ater, but, on the contrary, ^^ having made more faithful and continued efforts " during the past yoar than ever before to diminish the '' amount of mechanical restraint and do without it " altogether, I am forced to say that Island here to day '' with my opinions entirely unchanged. I believe it *■' (mechanical restraint) is not only a humane thing, ^' but absolutely essential for the best good and comfort ^' of our patients. I believe this, that the practice of the " best American institutions on that point to day will " hereafter be the practice of Christendom." At the same meeting of the above mentioned Asso- ciation, in October 1877, after the president, Dr. Walker, a great many of the most distinguished authorities on lunacy in America gave utterance to the same sentiment. From amongst all these depositions given against the system ■ of non-restraint and in favor of mechanical restraint applied with discernment, I chodse that of Dr. Clarke, precisely because he comes from Ontario : i ^ • -^^•- I <..,. ^mLm r V . \ i. u u (( (I 33 ^^ If [ had my choice, sayg the superintendent of the ^^ Toronto aiylum, in respect to the mode of restraint, I '•'' would prefer a camisol, a mufif, or a pair of miUs put ' upon me, than to have a supervisor and attendants holding me. There is a spirit of resistftnce amonp; ourselves to human force, and this resistancH is evi- tt dent also among the insane, that will nut be exercised '^ against inanimate objects I might tell you ^* further, gentlemen, I have reason to believe that in ^' many of these asylums, which show reports of non ^' restraints (I have it from some of the officers of nuch) '' that restraint is winked at when indulged in by (^ subordinates, and yet they publish reports of tho success of non restraint. Whether you put on the camisole, or put a patient under the power of drugs, it doe^ not matter ; both are restraints, and I prefer the mechanical restraint as more conducive to reco- very I prefer to be free, open, and candid, in these matters, rather, than to desire to ride on a ^' popular name, and at the same time, behind the door, '' allow restraint to be used." A well deserved lesson that, and honor to him who had the courage and the honesty to give it. Ors. Gray of Utica and Gale of Kentucky have written against non restraint reports well known to alienists. This opposition to an indefensible doctrine is the result of universal experience and is moreover founded on reason. If 1 wished to retaliate, by describing the frequent accidents and acts of brutality which occur in England by the practice of non restraint^ nothing would be easier ; but I will limit myself to a few quota- tions.' An American alienist. Or. Browers, says, among other things, in the issue for June 1881 of the American Journal of Insanity : — '^ I have now, in my mind's eye, the picture of a scene I witnessed in an English asylum. A restless and violent patient seated on a bench with a strong attendant on either side, holding him down by main force. I shall never forget the contortions, the squir- ming and the struggles of tne man to free himself from their grasp. There is nothing so irritating to <^ some restless and excitable patients as to be held by ^^ manual force ; but Englishmen are unwilling to admit (i It It (( i 84 (( that this is a species of restraint, nor will they admit ^' that ?he padded room, without a particle of furniture, *^ and with small windows near the ceilings, which let ^* in only a dim li^ht, is a restraining machine." Dr. Gale, in his report of 1882, page 21, says : *' About 1840, one John Gonolnr came forward ^^ with a theory, which finally merged into a hobby with '^ him and a few of his followers, that of non- restraint... *' The name is clearly a misnomer, and is calculated to ** mislead and deceive the^ public ; for there is not an ^' asylum now in existence that does not use restraint in '^ some form, either strong clothing, manutention, *' strong rooms, isolations therein &c,£ic,&c Holding *^ a person hj one's hands is lo less a method of restraint ^^ than holding him by a muff or a camisole, and the '' auestion which of them we shall adopt should be '' decided, not by the force of names, but by a careful *' investigation of their effects, both upon the patient and *Mhe attendants England boasts of being (as '•'' regards the treatment of its insane) the country of non '' restraint ; but it will repudiate, I do not doubt, the *' addition that it is equally entitled to the designation '* of the country of fractured ribs." In the same report, under the heading : *' Rib frac- tures and other casualties from non restraint. " Dr. Qale brings forward a formidable list of deaths and wounds caused by the struggles between keepers and lunatics in English Asylums, a list which contains no less than eight cases of patients whose death was the result, according to judicial testimony, of the fracturing of one or more rins followed by inilamation of the pleura or of the lungs ; another death was (faused by the bursting of the bladder, as proved by inquiry, although classed as peritonitis on the registers of the asylum ; without mentioning a considerable number of other accidents of divers kinds being the direct result of the application of the system of non restraint. It has been proved that keepers, tired of struggling, have often recourse to the expedient of kneeling or sitting down on the body of the unfortunate inmate whom they have been ordered to hold, being o')liged, as they are, never to resort to mechanical uiJ^uns which are a hundred times more humane and les^ revolting. < •• ^ I ^ L-\ 35 Viw from mn the idea of citing all the accidentH which may occur in non restraint asyluni^ &> proof against this theory : ail asylums have, from time to time, to record accfdonts, even homicides and suicides ; but Hie accidents horo spoken of are the direct result of the application of non restraint and might iiave been prevented by ineclianical means of restraint. Ifon restraint does not lessen the possibility of accidents of other kinds, on the contrary, it makes them of more frequent occurrence. It is not however the material fact that we must argue from, but (he manner in which it takes pla';e. In the discipline of an asylum there are risks that must be run and others that must bo avoided. Thus from the fact that a lunatic may have committed manslaughter in a field, with a liay-fork, it would bo wrong to conclude that the insane are to be deprive^f instruments that may become dangerous or preveMd from working on the farm ; but if wounds and deaths are caused by disciplinary methods which may be replaced by others that do not give rise to accidents, common sense tells us that the latter ought to be employed. Uneducated and unscientitlc persons are apt to araw erroneous conclusions from what they see in asylums, and the malevolent often work upon this disposition of a portion of the public ; but the alienists mu«t seek causes and observe circumstances bafore adopting or rejecting, before praising or blaming practices which may be commendable in spite of accidents or dangoroub oveu when no accidents have been recorded so far. I will here cite an example jf the versatility of what is called public opinion and. which is invoked in season and out of season, an example which also demonstrates how important and how difficult are the thousand and rtne questions arising from the management of asylums ami the treatment of the insane. Formerly thert was established in Ontario a branch asylum where over sixty insane of the quieter class were placed. The building, erected for another purpose, was neated by means of stoves and open fire-places. It is well known that one of th^arrangements boasted of in England and which forms part of the system extolled there comprises open fire ;)laces without any grating to protect them, the 3e i famous open fires which, with the open doors^ form pari of the ^^ benefits arising from Ihe removal of restnctiouV It was therefore thought proper to allow some of , these open fires to remain on accountof the quiet and harm- less character of the patients that were to he placed in this asylum. At first things went very well, and the visiting public admired these open fires so dear to the English ; " it looks so cheerful," they said. There came a day however when, without any thing having happened to portend the least drawback, one of the quietest among the patients, the daughter of a well known public man, threw herself into one of these open fires and burnt herself so horribly that she died shortly after- wards. It was evidently on her part an aut to which she had been driven by some sudden hallucination brought about by gazing upon this cheerful fire. The n(4^ of this accident was the signal of a declaration of war against the physicians and employees of the asylum, and the so-called public opinion began to look u^on as horrible in an asylum these same open fires considered so chetrful a few days previously. The managers of the institution were justly exonerated from blame by the inspectors and by the authorities who fortunately protected them against the persecution that certain persons would have fain made them suffer. But the Suestion remains whether it is better to have open res in asylums or not to have any, and whether, when it is decided to have them, it is preferable to put no protection before Ihem or to surround them with a grating ? Partisans of non restraint are opposed to a grating ; they resolutely hold to their idea that mad- houses should be looked upon as institutions for people who are quiet and on the whole very nice, though sometimes inclined to be a little eccentric and peevish. Those who do not believe it to be.their duty to endeavor to hide the true character of lunatic asylums prsfer either to have no open fires at all or else to surromnd theiQ with a grating, and I fe.el myself happy and 6asy in mind among the latter. All such questions should be left to the physicians entrusted with the treatment of the insane and to the managers of asyjums. But, it may be said, doctors disagree and there are some among them who are not entirely without focUsh notions ; mamm^ Hi^tttf^iyi^i^iiil 37 '^ it would here be timely to ask ourselves : Quis'custodem custodial ? That is a serious embarrassment which so far we have not experienced in Canada, that I am aware of, and whibh I trust Dr. Tuke will not succeed in bequeath- ing to us. 1 find, in & report of the Commissioners of the Cen- tral Kentucky Asylum of October 3rd 1882 upon this subject'Of medical questions and upon the systems of restraint, the following wise remarks % ^^ In regard to the kind or nu)de of restraint ''or ^' punishment to be used with such unfortunates, we do /^. not profess to be competent judges, and must content *" ourselves with leaving this vexed question to the ^' discussion of medical men. But our experiet^e con- ''- vinces us that both restraint and punishments are as '•^ proper here as in schools of small children or, in " families. " » We may sum up by sayi«g that restraint is a neces- sity in the government of refractory or dangerous lunatics and that it is the duty of those entrusted w.ith the care of these unfortunates to resort to it, a duty towards the insane themselves, a duty towards the keepers, a duty as regards the treatment of mental alienation as well as public and domestic economy. A lunatic who makes use of his liberty to hurt himself, his unfortunate companions, his keepers, to destroy public or private property must b^ subdued ; disasters and accidents must be prevented as far as possible. The only means of doing so are the physical force of the keepers momentarily pat forth, mechanical ' means, cells, the use of narcotics. All means that are neither immoral nor brutal are legitimate, provided they be made use of with discernment, that there be no abuse of them and that they be rendered as mild and inoffensive as possible. As to the choice to be made.^hat depeMs upon the cause, the nature, the duration of the paroxyms, of the character of the disease, the individual aispodition of the patient, of his habitual or actual condition, of the expense to b3 incurred and many other circumstances which can only be decided upon by a careful study of each case which presents itself. As to saying what percentage of patients are to be put under mechanical restraint or suodued by other means, that ittiiiiiiiiiiMiiiii^^ 38 ■\\- cann ot be done ; simply because that depends upon the class of lunatics under treatn^ent, the constllution and the disposition of the patients, the circumstances of time and place. and the means that can be disposed of; all of which is constantly varying in the same place, in the same year, in the same institution. Periods of almost general calm and periods of excitement occur among the insane often witboiil any assignable cause. I do ngt think there is a single alienist, or nurse of auy considerable experience who' has not sometimes noticed these epidemies of violence ;is it were during which, a com- paratively great number of lunatics musU necessarily be put under restraint of some kind. AlLthese questions, and they are numeious, relating to the"methods of establishing asylums, 'of building them, of dividing them, of liglitingy heating, ventilating them, of making them healthy and of maintaiping them; all questions with^ regard to the material, the form of garments, bedding' and appliances of restraint ; aUciueslions relating to the food and the treatment of the insane are intricate questions upon which comfjetent men disagree often as to principles, more often still as to details, and upon which no individual or no associa- t'on has the right to prononce. an authoritative and unappealable judgment. Systems go for nothing gene- rally, and methods for very little : all depends upon the management, that is to say upon the aptitude and the tact of those who have the keeping and the care of the patients and the general conduct of the asylums. MODE OF MAINTAINING ASYLUMS BOARDINa There are only two ways of providing for the main- tenance of lunatics in asylums at the public expense : by means of asylums belonging to the State or to muni- cipalities, conducted by public employees, or by means of asylums belonging to private individuals or to corpo- ratiggis wherein the insane are boarded. It is the letter me hod that Dr. Tuke designates by the rather rough expression ot farming of human beings when speak- ing of the asylums in the Province of Quebeo, but to ^\ :■<( ^^---"- fiaiame:* -.•■*■■::.••■ -J. A ■■*% .'.,.■ --■■-■Kfj-M;'!' .. i-i-'li tr^..,-.» A ^i...^..^..<.Ar..^. ■-^...^■^■^i..,-... j..t.,^^>A-JU^j^.^.,Ju«iiLia 42 few fanatical inlriguers to attack institutions possessing the confidence of the vast majority o^" our population, because it has pleased a man with a hobby, a passing Tisitoi^ to undertake to impose his doctrines upon us by making use of language unworthy *o( a well-bred per&on. * Moreover, the mode of treating insanity, in so far as it relates to the application of divers palliative and curative methods, does not depend upon tne manner of lodging the insane. Such o,r such a method can be adopted without regard to the ownership of the asylums. It is preposterous to endeavor to made the public ima- gine that a lunatic pannot be as well taken care of in a * boarding asyllim an in an establishment conducted by a public official. I shall not do our public authorities the injustice to suppose that they will allow themseWes to be influenced in any way by this outcry; but I am certain, I repeat it, that the catholic populatic^ would see with pleasure our protestant fellow citizens have an asylum of their own, subsidized! as the- others at so much per patieflt. There, all those who do not like Sisters and French-Canadians, those who believe iif the dogmas of non restraint^ open fires and open doors will be able to amuse themselves to thpir hearts' content. We will neither wage war upon them nor insult them ; Dr. Tuke will be permitted to shower upon them his most magni- ficent praises and proclaim the new establishment ". Eden ! Eden ! Eden ! " He will be allowed to come there and offer sacrifice to Psyche ; and we will not be jealous of him. More than that, if they succeed in. imagining or introducing really advantageous means of treating patients, I am convinced that our nuns and our other managers of asylums will quickly adopt them, - Br. Tuke seems to make light of the question of expenditure ; his prompters have no tenderness for the Treasury of the Province ihey inhabit. He would have the number of keepers doubled ana their wages raised, for the pleasure of replacing mechanical restraint by manual restraint. All that would necessitate an increase of the subsidy, since our asylums cost already much less than all other asylums of the same class' Increasing the expenditure for the v> ^ « ■' • n< ^' greater glory of non restraint would be paying too 4ear for a whim looked upon as pernicious oy all scientiilc men outside of England. Dr. Tuke is so heedless of what he says in his denunciation, so determined is he to exagerate every thing, even the embarrassments that he would fain saddle upon us, that he exacts more from^ us than is exacted in England where the very costly system he wishes to impose upon us is applied : — ** I consider, he says in his denunciation, that the number of attendants in such an asylum should not be less than 1 in 7, instead of t in 15. " In his Chapters^ page 278, he adopts quite another view of the financial question and of the proportionate number of attendants required by the system of non restraint ; here is what he says when inveighing against the extravagant cOst of the asylum for criminal. lunatics atJBroadmoor :— '-*' Financial considerations must be a very important practical point in the existancis of Broadmoor. The " state pays for it ; an annual grant from the House " of Commons must be asked for, and the Governn^ent " must be prepared to show that the amount Is not " unreasonable. Now the w 'kly cost of the inmates " is eighteen shillings each That of the inmates' " of our county asylums averages about half a guinea. '* It may therefore not unreasonably be asked. Why is '* this ? What have the criminal lunatics done to deserve " so much more money being lavished upon them? " The chief reason is, that a greater proportion of " attendants must be provided for this class, and that is " costly. At Broadmoor the proportion of attandants to " patients is one in five ; in asylums generally, much less liberal, say one in eleven ; besides which, they are paid better (as they ought to be) at Broadmoor. " Would you belive it was the same man who wrote those two paragraphs ? In English asylums gent*'ally, which Dr. Tuke extols, with a system which obliges the attendants to struggle hand to hand with the lunatics in their paroxysms, he slates approvingly that the pro- portion is, 1 in 11 ; and for our asylums, the system whereof does not require these protracted hand to hand struggles, lie consiflfcrs that the proportion should not be less than 1 in 7. This is a new proof of the honesty of purpose which actuated Dr. Tuke in publishing in u u :£^^«kkja&^^>^^>i,^....::;^..:.^,:..^i..^.;^i..^^^ wm ^^mm mm iiii I III, mi 44 i / Canada his diatribe against the asylums of the Province of Quebec in order to satisfy his whimi^ his prejudices, his antipathies and in order to aid and abet the intriguers who enlisted him for the occasion. The system followed in the Province of Quebec is* as good as another at least ; our asylums are as good as many others that cost more ; the war waged upon them arises from prejudice, for the managers of our ayslums possess the conudence of the vast majority of our popu- lation : There is therefore no reason to change the system, and the government that would break up this organization in. obet^ience to this outcry which is an insult offered to the main body of our population would be guilty of great weakness and moreover of an art of bad ajdministration. Surely such a thing will not occur :Dr.Tuke and his prompters wi IF gain nothing by their intriguing and tnere villainous and sorry writings. They speak of contracts ! Do they suppose that by undertaking the direct administration of the asylums ' the government would escape from contracts ? On the contrary, that would be opening the door to all sorts of contracts. They who have had the experience of • Mhis kind of administration understand the embarrass ment of officials and of the government when they are obliged to deal with contractors for every thing. To the difficulties in details are added the vexations and intri- gues of politics. The whole forming a continual source of mishaps, trouble and losses for the State. i ^ CONFINEMENT OF LUNATICS. ' (THE LYNAM AFFAIR.) Whilst certain writers were doing their best against our as^^lums, others were working up, against the Lon- gue Pointe asylum, the charge of unlawfully detaining a person declared to be in full possession of her mental faculties : That was a matter of course and there was nothing new in it. The least effort at reasoning would have made people see at once that the Sisters,' proprietors and managers of the asylum, had absolutely nothing to do with this question of the confinement of a patient. ^ ■ --■■■X .'l-4,4 -•i'i',-<..-i.--' ■/■.£-'-. ^.'A^'-'.itar MUi^iMk^^UtfiiMiiiiifyi f <- The Sisters do not decide upon the conAr )ment or the discharijd of their boarders; they are bound to receive all persons whom the antorities appointed by law send them, and they are obliged to keep them until an order, also regulated by law, allows them to discharge their patients. It is the same with regard to all asylums ; the mode of maintenance and the character of the managers have nothing to do with the confinement and discharge of patients. That is what good common sense ougnt to have made every one understand ; whereas the Sisters were assailed during the whole time thsft this affair was before the public and before the court which finally took cognizance of it. My work would not be complete were I not to relate the wonderful tale of Rose Church, wife of Peter Lynam. I hasten to say that Dr. Tuke had nothing to do, that I am aware of, with the afiair of Rose Church, so that nothing of what I am about to relate applies to that gentleman. In the month of March 1882, one Peter Lynam, a mason, of Montreal, consulted a lawyer in order to know what he was to do to shield himself and his family from the dangers to which his wife. Rose Church, exposed them all, and also to ward off the ruin his modest home was threatened with. Mrs. Lynam no longer fulfilled her duties as a mother of a family; now she would yield to absolute indolence refusing even some- times to prepare her husbaud's and children's meals ; again she would be subject to fits of violence during which she threatened to kill her husband with an axe and to drown her children in the ri%er. v The lawyer consulted by Lynam went to the latters house accompanied by Dr. Howard, an alienist, in order to ascertain the mental condition of Rose Church. They found Rose Church in a fit of crazy passion : her hair was dishevelled, her clothed in disorder, the food was strewed over the bed, and the children, trembling with fright, were cowering in a cofner. The necessary measures were immediately taken : Rose Church was arrested, and after an examination by- medical experts, was confined in Longue Pointe asylum as a dangerous lunatic, which judgment her conduct at the asylum only served to confirm. This woman, who 1 liiiiittiiiiiii iiiliiiiiiil mmmm ^•„ . I 46 as a rule seemed to be in possession of her reason, would often pass from a state of great calmness to fits of maniacal fury ; her look aqd her mannera were such that her t^vo little girls experienced in her presence an irresistible terror that their love for their mother and the caresses she sometimes bestowed upon them could not overcome. This case is a frequent one ; in the fact of the conftnement there is absolutely nothing strange ; the same thing would have been done in any civilized country. In all that the managers of asylums play a passiip part. Things would have gone oa so, if instead of the Sisters of Providence there had been, at Longue Pointe asylum, a committee of some biblical society ; or again if the asylum had belonged to the State and neen managed by an official, professional or unprofessional. But lo and behold people take it into their heads to sa^ that Rose Church is not crazy and that she is unjustly detained in the asylum. They arm themselves with the opinion of two physicians,- ar^ici cuHob, who declared that this unfortunate women is of sound. mind; then they spread the rumor that she is ill-used in the asylum, according to her own statement ; ill-treatment which consists in having classed her among the dangerous insane ia accordance with the reason of her confinement and the advice of the -physicians. The Sisters are reguested to discharge Rose Ohurch ; the Mother superior answern that she believes Rose Church to be crazy, but that, crazy or not, she cannot be discharged wi thout an ordier from a competent authority. That was as simple as it was reasonable and obvious ; but reason and obviousness exert no sway over prejudice and fanaticism, and people continued to hold the Sisters responsible for the detention of Rose Church and to spread about all kinds of falsehoods as to the manner in which she was being treated. There was a difference of opinion between the medical experts on the one hand and the physicians consulted by the agitator.9 on the other. The former have the legitimate and well grounded -pretention of knowing at least as much about the matter as their opponents : at the very best the latter could only lay claim to a difference of opinion between doctors of equal authority : such things have always happened : Si ('■y., .vQLg>t..ammi^ L- iL^-AMism.imSi ■^ K' % ■^ «7 '• If mMMin Tant-pit alialt voir un malad* " Que riiitoit taiii Mn ooaMr* Taot-mitat." At length recourse was had to the courts, which ought to have been done in the first place, without noise or slander, if the agitators had been acting sincerelv and above board in the affair of Rose Church. Naturally enough the judge, understanding nothing about mental diseases, resorted to another medical exa- mination. The individuali who were leading the cam- paign af ainst the Sisters, under cover of Ro89 Church, wanted to have three experts appointed, with the evident intention that two of these experts should be men on whom they could reckon ; but this time the judge remained firm and a];)pointed only one expert. This exnert, an alienist in the employ of the Govern- ment, founa on examining Rose Cnurch an afifected calmness, impulsive movements which were at least strange, a* perversion of feeling towards her husband and children, with an apparent absence of delirious ideas and hallucinations. This woman declared to him that she had such hatred for her husband that the idea of revenffing herself had become, a fixed idea in her mind. She would like to see her husband dead, but would as soon die before he did, in order to come back after death and revenge herself upon him more comple- tely ; she entertains no doubt as to this role of torturing ghott which she could fulfill, if necessary, 'o her hus- and's detrim<^nt. Questioned as to whether she would not like to occupy another ward than that assigned to dangerous'lunatics she says she would not : the violence and paroxyms of the insane of this class, she says, divert and amuse her. The expert studied the history of the patient and declared that she had been rightly retained in the asylum. In fine, he concluded by declaring that Rose Church was laboring under emotional insanity called also reasoning madness, and ho finished his report by the following words : — *' I believe therefore that it would not be prudent to obliged her husband to receive her, but I see no reason why she cculd not be placed * under the care of any one else who would take charge of her. " With reference to such cases, 1 am happy to be able to cite the opinion of one whose testimony the ^^Pi 48 zealous proteclors of Rose Church will not gainsay : Dr. -> O. H. Tuke, on pages 282 and 283 of his Chaotert, sajs : ^' The numoer of instances in which life is sacrl- '' iiced, and the 6tiil larger number of instances in *' which threats of injury or damago short of honaicide, *^ destroy family happiness, througn the lunacy of one '* of its members, renders it highly desirable that greater '* facilities should exist for placing such persons under *' restraint (we do not refer now to imbeciles) before a '^ dreadful act is committed, to say nothing of terminat- ^' ing the frightful domestic unhappiness. In most of , . '' these cases there is but slight apparent intellectual *' disorder, although careful investigation would fre- *^ quently .discover a concealed delusion, and the '' greatest difilculty exists in obtaining a certificate of ^' lunacy from two medical men. They shrink from the '' responsibility. Nothing is done. Prolonged misery '^ or terrible catastrophe is the result. To Avoid this, ^* there might be a power vested in the Commissioners *' in Lunacy to appoint,] on application, two medical ^' men, familiar with insAnity^ to examine a person '^ under such circumstances. Their certificate that he '^ or she ought to be placed under care should be a suffi- '' cient warrant for admission into an asylum, and they '^ should not be liable to any legal consequences." Rose Church belongs precisely to the class of persons alluded to in the above lives as being fit subjects for conilneraent in lunatic asylums. However, the judge decided otherwise ; he convened a family couucil to appoint some one to be entrusted with the cdre of Rose Church. The council was composed of the husband, Peter Lynam, of two of the patient's cousins and oi four other persons. Five out of seven, the husband, the two cousins and two others decided that Ulster " Th6r^se de J6sus, Mother superior of the Longue Pointe Asylum, should be appointed to watch over and care for Ruse Church, but Alfred Perry, one of those who had got up the whole affair, and another member " of the family council, recommended as Rose Church's guardian. Mr. Alfred Perry... The judge ordered that Rose Church should be placed in Mr. Alfred Perry's hands he becoming her supporter, her guardian and her security. \ < 9 ^x r--"^ gR;7i{ir;.i ! wi.iiJil/d.to;Liii ii L&!iiii l i!^^ : j^^^.dM^.^.,.m.,^MMiM 49 V 61' f / ■ \ >> "Were It not for Ihe principlen at ilaRe in Ihfs matter and the danger th^re would be to consider this decision us la^vful, we should be tempted to rejoic»* at feeing onr good SiBlern delivered of Rose Church and Mr. Alfred Perry entrusted «vith her, but in the interest of oil r families and of society sui h is not the way these things are to he looked at. Speaking of the settlement of ihis Rose Churc'h matter, a french news- paper made the following judicious remarks :' — '' [i is none the less laid down as a principle by this judgment, that a woman, legally under puissaiice de mari, may, without the husband being a lunatic, without tipara- tion de eorps^ and even without any evidence being adduced ihat could justify such a separatiun, be with- drawn from the authority of her huhband and placed under the authority and in the possession of another man who is neither her father or her brother or even a relative. Surely that is a precedent which will be looked upon as something more than strange. Let us hope that it will not be considered as the law of the land. One would think that after such a uignal triumph the agitators ought to have been satisfied, for the time being at least. Undeceive yourself ;.the individuals en- listed in this crusade kept up the war against our asylums A petition or deputation, I know not which, wa& sent to the Quebec government demanding the breaking up of our system of conducting these institu- tions. Rose Church was not dropped : A reporter paid her a visit at Mr. Alfred Perry's bouse. This expert of a new kind, speakir g i the third person of his interview, said among other things: '^ He expected to find her an *' excitable and irritable perscr., whose nerves ha i been shattered by long confinement andwhese dis^jositions had been soured by injustice and ill usage. But he was agreably surprised to find her as calm in her manner and as moderate in her expressions, even " when those who had injured her most were the subject ** of conversation, as any lady of the land When " asked why she had been placed in the furious ward, ** she said that she would not tell. She was not con- '* scions of having done anything or said anything to *' either the nuns or the attendants to deserve such *' treatment. When she entered the asylum she was, Hi 50 " she said, kept for four nights in the First Ward. On *' the fifth night she was slapped, had hair torn out of ti " " - - " (C I ' » her head, was tied to a chair and was finally put in a dirty bed. On being ask if punishment of that kind *' was often inflicted at Longue-Pointe, she replied that " patients were beaten frequently by the nuns, by the *' servants and by the man in attendance." Then fellows a dissertation by Rose Church or by the reporter, it is hard to say which, upon the hygienic conditions of the Longue Pointe asylum and the treat- r*ient of the insane, concluding as follows : " Mrs Lynam describes the whole management of *' Longue Pointe Asylum as unmiligatedly bad. The *' patients are badly lodged, badly fed and badly treated. *' The frequency of punishment and the irresponsibility " of those who inflict it must strike every reflecting " person as most pernicious and tending to aggravate " the diseases of the mind and nerves, with which the *' unfortunate are afflicted." The author of tlte above, whom it is useless to refute, seeing that such trash carries its refutation with it, winds up by stating that net only Rose Church is perfectly sane now, but that she always was so ; this expert does not hide his light under a bushel as you see : '' Her enemies have tried their best, but Ihey have " been unable to prove her insane in a Court of Justice, *' and any one who sees how she conduct^ herself and " hears ner tnlk will be surprised that even the " suspicion of lunacy ever attached to her," What may we not expect from writers capable of such audacity ? A quidnunc, advised by a poor mono- maniac, passes judgment upon the mental state of the latter in the present and in the past 1 Who are these enemies cf Rose Ch urch ? The lawyer who was consulted, the medical experts, the Sinters of Providence no doubt, for all of whom Rose Chuich, beyond the profe?sional and charitaoU duties ihey had to fulfil with regard to her, is a complete stranger, of whose very existence they were probably unaware before they were brought into contact with her by circumstances entirely foreign to their wishes ! These enemies^ phamtoma of her brain, have been unable to prove Rose Church insane 1 Why therefore was she legally taken ^■.j'^., ■^iM.-\.^i.i^„^b,^i^'^.^^iiiid&iUi&i^.x. ..it^. «^'ij&:ia^,i J s^f^m^K 'i&i^iggLa 51 . On out of It in a I kind d that by the nent of i. The .reated. sibility lecling gravate ich the >less to )n with arch is 3 ; this ou see : 8y have Justice, self and 7en the into custody ? Why did experts, on several occasions, declare her crazy, dangeroilsly insane ? Why did the judge, so well disposed towards the friends of Rose Church, deem it his duty to give her a guardian obliged to answer for her conduct ? The ansiver to all that is obvious to any one wishing to see. The writings of certain newspapers against our institutions of the Province of Quebec are all of the same quality : Every thing is supposed to be allowed under thesegis of prejudice, fanaticism and party spirit. The use to which certain persons are putting the unfortunate Rosp Church at the present moment should not greatly surprise us, for there is more analogy between their disease and hers than appears at first sight. The monomania^ the reasoning insanity which has its cause and its object in hatred for every thing connected, closely or remotely, wiih the principles of Catholicism and with French-Canadian nationality, takes the appear- ances characterizing the morbid entity which is its type. Always present in a latent state, it manifests itself, at more or less frequent intervals, by outbursts amounting sometimes to -fury in certain cases. Such a disorder is to Canadian Society what emotional insanity is to the f^amily circle, a frightful domestic unhappiness^ according to Dr. Tuke's expression. Will we ever see the end of it ? Not for a long time at all events, for it is an inveterate evil. )able of p mono- te of the re these insulted, ence no ond the to fulfil of whose ifore they imstances enemies, :ove Rose ily taken * . » • . '. • , . > • « t •••*•••) ' • • » . t • • • » • • ••* «*■>» • • • » . . , • , • • • * » ' • • • I • • • • » • • t > • • t • < • « »' --♦ 1.