THE PROBLEM BEFORE CONGRESS.

9

act approved February 2, 1841, authorizing the marshal for the District to send to the lunatic asylum in Baltimore all such lunatic persons as were confined in the jails of Washington and Alexandria counties, and all such as might be considered lunatics by the circuit or criminal courts; to pay for their removal and maintenance, and to be allowed for the same in his settlements with the Treasury.1

In discussing the measure, Caleb Cushing inquired why, if the lunatics were paupers, they were confined in the common jail, instead of in the almshouse; to which Mr. Johnson, of Maryland, answered that it would not be safe to place among the paupers the twelve lunatics then in prison with common criminals, and that the Baltimore asylum was willing to receive them at moderate prices. The debate developed the fact that these twelve lunatics were without the common necessaries of life; that they were obliged to lie on the prison floor; that they were supported by the corporation of the city at a cost of $2 a week; that no provision was made for their treatment; and that, as Mr. Reed remarked, the wretched accommodation in the jail was sufficient to make a man a lunatic, whether he was previously so or not.1

Subsequently the marshal was authorized to place the insane in such hospital as he might select, consulting economy in the selection;2 also the amount to be paid was limited to $4 per week;3 and in 1851 it was given to the Secretary of the Interior to determine where insane paupers should be placed for support and medical treatment. The control of the treatment of insane paupers is now with the District authorities. In 1845 an appropriation of $5,000 was made for the liquidation of the debt due to the Maryland hospital for the support of lunatic paupers of the District of Columbia; and subsequent appropriations were made for the same object until September 30, 1850. Then for four years, or until August 4, 1854, sums varying from $8,000 to $12,000 a year were expended under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior for the care of the insane. From 1851 to 1856 the amount expended for this purpose was $94,697.37.5

II.

The act of August 29, 1842, provided that the commissioner of public buildings should cause alterations to be made in the "old jail" to adapt it for the reception and accommodation for the insane of the District of Columbia, and all such sick, disabled, and infirm seamen, soldiers, and others deemed proper to be received therein. When the building should be completed, the President was authorized to appoint three respectable persons, residents of the city of Washington, to be

Congressional Globe, Twenty-sixth Congress, second session, p. 86.

2 Act approved August 3, 1841.

3 Acts of June 15, 1814; March 3, 1845; May 8, 1846.

4 Act approved March 3, 1851.

Ex. Doc. No. 84, Forty-fifth Congress, second session.

DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX.

11

n. (1824); and the Worcester, Mass., Asylum (1830), were In the theories of Pinel and Tuke. These efforts, however, Tentative. They were conducted privately by a few leaders ar in advance of public sentiment. The people had yet to to the horrors of the madhouse as they existed in every ; and until they should be so aroused the authorities could d to act.

hed condition of the indigent insane in Washington, into Cushing so casually inquired on the floor of the House, to that of the indigent insane throughout the land; but in 's own State a delicate girl was to be brought face to face horrors, and was to preach the gospel of reform with such and tact that legislature after legislature was to yield to e eloquence, and even Congress was to be moved to begin haritable institution the nation has ever created.

III.

8, 1841, Dorothea Lynde Dix, then a volunteer teacher school maintained by Harvard Divinity School students mbridge, Mass., house of correction, found among the insane persons, with whom she talked. She noticed no stove in their room; and the keeper, on being 1 it would not be safe to have a fire. Miss Dix appealed 1 warmth was provided. Miss Dix enlisted Dr. S. G. les Sumner, who were induced to visit the East Camre a raving, blaspheming maniac and a gentlewoman lightly obscured had been penned together for months entilated and noisome with filth. From the Berkshire f Cape Cod Miss Dix pursued her investigations, until ated a tale of horrors. She proved that insane persons ealth of Massachusetts were "confined in cages, closs, pens; chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed

vituperation followed the publication of this memorial. "ever, knew that the facts she had printed could not be tradicted. To her aid came Dr. William E. Channing, hn G. Palfrey, and especially Dr. Luther V. Bell, of

, who was able to show by his own experience the nane treatment of the insane. It was fortunate for re fortunate for Massachusetts-that Dr. Howe hapmber of the legislature to which she appealed. Her ferred to a committee of which he was the chairman, liate result was the enlargement of the Worcester

othea Lynde Dix, by Francis Tiffany, 1890, p. 73 et seq. The rom Sumner's letter to Howe.

first memorial, January, 1843.

a board of inspectors of the new institution, and to hold their offices for two years from the date of their appointment. To them was given a general supervision over the comforts of the hospital, with power to appoint the necessary subordinate officers thereof and to prescribe rules for the admission and the regulation of the patients therein. The sum of $10,000 was appropriated to carry out the provisions of the act. This was the beginning of the project for a combined hospital for the Army and Navy and for the District of Columbia.

The building in question was originally the jail of Washington County, and was located on Judiciary Square. After it was refitted for the purposes of an insane asylum, Congress decided to continue the treatment of the insane at Baltimore; and, as has already been noted, the building was turned over to the medical faculty of the Columbian College for the purposes of a public hospital.1

Thus the first attempts to establish in the District of Columbia a hospital for the insane failed, and the old system of placing insane patients in the asylums of the States was continued. It is not at all surprising that such was the result, for at this time the modern ideas as to the treatment of this unfortunate class of persons had not begun to prevail. It was not until 1792 that Dr. Philippe Pinel, the superintendent of the Bicêtre, the Paris asylum for incurable insane males, broke the iron chains and banished the cages that made a hundred madmen where they cured one. The idea of cultivating the germ of rationality that exists in every insane person was entirely novel; but once put into practice a revolution began. Four years after Pinel, William Tuke, a member of the Society of Friends, began at York, England, experiments that led him, entirely independently, to the same goal that the French physician had already reached. It was so late as 1838, however, that Dr. Garduer Hill and Dr. Charlesworth, braving the opposition of both hospital authorities and medical men, abolished mechanical restraint at the Lincoln Asylum in England, and dared to treat insane persons who were not bound hand and foot, neck and waist.

At the beginning of the present century there were four insane asylums in the United States: That at Philadelphia, established in 1752; one in Williamsburg, Va., founded in 1773, and notable as the first State insane asylum; one in New York, dating from 1791; and the one in Baltimore, established in 1797, which was used by the Washingtou authorities charged with the care of the insane. All of these institutions were conducted according to the old theory that an insane person was more dangerous than a wild beast, and was utterly devoid of human feelings. In 1817, Philadelphia Friends transplanted from England the vines whose slow but sure growth Tuke had watched over. The McLean Asylum at Somerville, Mass. (1818); the Retreat at Hart

1 For a racy discussion of the problem of the insane see the Washington Directory for 1813, p. 51.