Commitment, detention, care and treatment of the insane : being a report of the fourth section of the International congress of Charities, Correction and Philanthropy, Chicago, June, 1893 / edited by G. Alder Blumer, A. B. Richardson.

  • International Congress of Charities, Correction, and Philanthropy (1893 : Chicago, Ill.)
Date:
1894
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Commitment, detention, care and treatment of the insane : being a report of the fourth section of the International congress of Charities, Correction and Philanthropy, Chicago, June, 1893 / edited by G. Alder Blumer, A. B. Richardson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    old criminals feel themselves abandoned by those who ought to protect them in a social point of view; very often they are obliged to look for hospitality in lodgings inhabited by the lowest class of society. It is not easy for them to find work again, consequently they are obliged to spend most of their time in these houses of ill-repute. With the little money they have they begin to drink; they make the acquaintance of bad people, and by and by they begin to attempt, or are provoked to commit new crimes. The psychological examination has often proved that these individuals on leaving the prison cured, as mucli as possible, physically and morally, if they are obliged to follow the course Ave have described, soon again de- cline mentally, and, above all, lose their Avill and their self-respect. 1 read also, before the Congress of Anthropology held in Brussels a few days afterwards, a pa]>er “On the Nature of the Incorrigible,”* and asserted: That anthropologists cannot classify the incorrigible without having re- course to the science of pathology. Degeneracy may involve at the same time the physical and the psychical state, but it may vary greatly and pre- dominate in one or the other of tlie two states. Lombroso’s school has de- voted too little of its attention to the opposite etiology which considers the amelioration of man. After having studied the so-called incorrigible as well among children as among youth, we concluded: In order to give to the theory of incorrigibility some standing, some scientific value, it would be necessary to be able to bring forward certain specimens as having passed through all the different systems of treatment and education. The proof of incorrigibility in tnen who, psycliically, present no hereditary taint, is, therefore, yet to be made. . . The reformation of so-called incorrigibles should be attempted in the reformatories and prisons; it should be continued even outside of these in- stitutions. ... If every countiy had the good fortune to have a law for the protection of childhood; if the authorities had sufficient latitude to remove the children from parents and tutors incapable or unworthy; if the govern- ments would organize methodically a system of education for these unfor- tunate creatures, in a very few years we should see criminality decrease to a. considerable extent. To-day, and in consequence of the kind invitation of your worthy President, Dr. G. Alder Blumer, I have the honour to offer to the section on the Commitment, Detention, Care and Treat- ment of the Insane, of the World’s Congress of Chicago, tlie ben- efit of my unintermitting study, lioping that the alienists of the New World will be pleased to accept favorably these few lines. Indeed, in what other part of the world could we meet more ex- tended ideas of charity than in the United States ? Is it not in * The Monthly Summary, 1883, Elmira No. 2, and Bulletin de la Sooiete de Medicine Mentale de Belgique, 1892.