The history of the first inebriate asylum in the world / by its founder [Jonathan Edward Turner]. An account of his indictment, also a sketch of the Woman's national hospital, by its founder.

  • Turner, J. Edward, 1822-1889.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The history of the first inebriate asylum in the world / by its founder [Jonathan Edward Turner]. An account of his indictment, also a sketch of the Woman's national hospital, by its founder. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    When such fearful results of the mental annihilation of a people are presented to the mind as these statistics show, the inquiry is at once made, what are the causes which are work- ing the certain destruction of oui- race and country? By our investigations we have been al)le to show that the prolific mother of insanity and idiocy is inebriety. To dem- onstrate this fact still further, we have onlv to state that in France, where the chronic form of inebriety is but seldom seen, the number of insane is small, being only one to' a thou- sand; while in Scotland, the land where inebriety is most prevalent, the ratio is one to five hundred and sixty-three; in the United States the ratio is one to seven hundred and fifty-one; in England it is one to seven hundred and ninety- three. In our visits to the principal insane asylums of Europe and the United States we have always found by inquiring of the attending physician that in a large percentage of the patients within the asylums the insanity was caused by an acute, chronic, constitutional, or hereditaiw inebriety. The destruction of the phj’sical and mental powei'S of the people of the United States by this disease alone is so vast in its character and ra]:>id in its increase, that it requires no voice of inspiration to pen the certain downfall of ourrepublic and the com]fiete annihilation of our peo])le. The sinq)le rule of multiplication proves with mathematical certainty that before a thousand years have rolled away into the past, the historian will have written its gloomy epita]fii by the side of her sister republics, Greece and Rome. The success which has followed the treatment of this dis- ease by the ])ractitionei’S of the past and ]U‘esent centuries has been small indeed, owing tothewantof a proper restraint which the physician needed over his ])atient, and which he has nothad at his command. Our treatment we will here describe in connection with that ado])ted at the ])resent day. An asy- lum, instead of jails and jaisons, a hos])ital, ministering to physical comforts and medical wants, a retreat, looking- out into the hap])y future of restored manhood, we offer as a substitute for iron bars and grates, where the air vibi-ates with the oaths of the degraded thief and cruel murderer, or