Report of Commissioners Appointed under a resolve of the Legislature of Massachusetts, to Superintend the Erection of a Lunatic Hospital at Worcester, and to report a system of discipline and government for the same.

  • Massachusetts. Commissioners Appointed to Superintend the Erection of a Lunatic Hospital at Worcester.
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of Commissioners Appointed under a resolve of the Legislature of Massachusetts, to Superintend the Erection of a Lunatic Hospital at Worcester, and to report a system of discipline and government for the same. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    ?2 To this unfortunate class of beings, humanity is in long arrears. One of the strongest, if not one of the first principles of social obligation arises from necessity of relief and ability to relieve. And when does a man so urgently require the light of others to direct his steps as when he wanders in darkness ? When does he stand in such extremity of need of the knowledge and guid- ance of his fellow-men as when his own mind is a wild chaos, agitated by passions which he cannot quell, and haunted by forms of terror, which the living energy of his nature is perpetually calling into being but cannot disperse ? When does he so strenuously demand their succor, as when his own soul is like a living wound and he has lost all power of distinguishing between the sources of healing and of torture ? If the insane have done nothing to forfeit the claim which men who suffer have, by the law of nature, upon men who are able to prevent that suffering ; they should be treated, not with a sole regard to the security of others, but with special reference also to their own misfortunes, and in a man- ner adapted to shorten their duration, or where that is impossible, at least to mitigate their severity. How- ever imperiously the public good may demand the co- ercion of the insane, it can never be just to cast them into a hopeless dungeon, thereby making the cause of their confinement remediless, and then the confinement itself terminable only by the death of the sufferer. In its practical operation, such a system is a direct con- signment of human beings to the long-protracted and mysterious horrors of madness. In view of these facts and considerations, the Com- missioners cannot hesitate to recommend, that as soon as the Hospital at Worcester shall be prepared for the