Annual report of the managers of the State Lunatic Asylum. : Utica, January 16, 1844.

  • New York (State). State Lunatic Asylum
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the managers of the State Lunatic Asylum. : Utica, January 16, 1844. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to a condition upon which not one who reads this page, could look bul with unmitigated horror ! Do you turn with inexpressible disgust from these details ? It is worse to witness the reality. Is your refinement shocked by such statements ? There is but one remedy—prevent the possibility of such monstrous abuses by providing [hospitals and asylums where vigilant inspection, and faithful care, shall protect and minister to those who, in losing reason, can no longer protect themselves .; who as young, feeble infants, are helpless and unconscious; who, through the calamity of insanity, become in the most peculiar manner the charge of those whose “ light has not gone out.” Turning from the dungeons, the keeper said, “ come to the crazy- cellar, you’ll get noise enough there.” I objected, that the master of the house had said, they were in no condition to be visited. “Oh, come, he knows nothing about them. The women there told him, three weeks ago, that the dungeons were too cold for those people you saw, but he’s forgot all about them—he’s something else to think of—come, this is the way.” I hesitated, but the idea that possibly I might learn facts which should lead to a change for the sufferers, led me on; reach¬ ing the cellar—within which, just then, all was quiet-—the keeper en¬ tered, and “ for the sake of exercise,” began by knocking one down, and so went on to rouse the whole company; there were twelve or four¬ teen men here, sufficiently clothed for decency-some extended on the floor, others chained to their beds-—all exhibiting a disgusting and mis¬ erable appearance : in an adjoining apartment were others in like cir¬ cumstances. In March last, some gentlemen visited this same cellar, and returned expressing horror, that “ such things could be tolerated, or that they ever could have existed in any civilized country.” I revisited this county house a few weeks since; there had been a change of masters. The present overseer evidently has qualifications which enable him to secure a very improved order of things through¬ out the establishment; he has to contend against the great defects of the present system, and prominent evils must of course exist. Five hundred paupers of every age and various conditions, (a large pro* portion of these able-bodied foeigners, who here are idle for want of work, which the county does not provide, as well as idle in many cases from choice,) compose this family or rather community. Con¬ sidering the very crowded state of the house, and all the difficulties to be encountered, a surprising degree of order and cleanliness are now secured. But inevitably this is a soil where the vices will take [Assembly, No. 21.] 10_