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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    Again in tlie fixll of 1863, the Board of Supervisors of the county of IMonroe issued a circular to all the Boards of Siipei'visors of the State, soliciting their aid in the work of instructing their ineinkers of the legislature to repeal its charter. “In the repeal of its charter,” stated the circular, “ there would he a saving to the counties annually of about seventeen thousand dollars, now diverted to the building of the Inebriate Asylum at Binghamton.” This new combination was a scheme finding the heartiest approval of every jxolitical manipulator of the two great ])olitical parties of the State. No one knew, or understood so well its formidable character as did the writer. He had travei’sed the leno-th and breadth of the O State, and had come in contact with the unintelligent masses, and with the })rejudices of the average citizen who had never for a moment thought of the drunkard as a diseased man needing the medical treatment of a hospital. The intelligent, as well as the ignorant of that day, classified the drunkard in fhe same moral condition as the thief, the liar, and the murderer. They thought that the Inebilate Asylum had originated in the brain of some fanatic, and that the endowment of such a scheme had grown out of the weakness of human nature, the frailty of human judgment, and the absurdity of human action. But the most intellicrent citizens mive it O O tlieir moral sup])ort, and sulxscribed to its capital stock. Another class thought that the hos])ital had l)een pro- jected, fifty years in advance of its time, and yet they saw the necessity of its immediate existence in the disease and death -wrought by inebriety at their very door. Aftei‘ consulting with Dr. Valentine Mott in refer- ence to the circular of the Board of Supervisors of the county of Monroe, it was thought advisable to invite the