Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles. Daniel Hack Tuke

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      Eloquently did Daniel Defoe protest against the abuses of asylums in his day.[101] The "True-Born Englishman" reprobates the practice of men sending their wives to mad-houses at every whim or dislike, in order that they might be undisturbed in their evil ways. He asserts that this custom had got to such a head that the private mad-houses were greatly on the increase in and near London. He might well characterize this system as "the height of barbarity and injustice," and worse than "a clandestine inquisition," and say that these houses, if not suppressed, should at least be subjected to examination. "Is it not enough," he asks, "to make any one mad to be suddenly clapped up, stripped, whipped, ill fed, and worse used?" He says, "If this tyrannical inquisition, joined with the reasonable reflections a woman of any common understanding must necessarily make, be not sufficient to drive any soul stark-staring mad, though before they were never so much in their right senses, I have no more to say." He asks the reader to indulge for once the doting of an old man while he lays down his remedy, and not to charge him with the ambition to be a lawgiver. Defoe goes at once to the point, and says that it should be no less than felony to confine any person, under pretence of madness, without due authority. He calls upon Queen Caroline to begin her auspicious reign with an action worthy of herself. Addressing the ladies, he says, "Who can deny when you become suitors? and who knows but at your request a Bill may be brought into the House to regulate these abuses?" Defoe little knew the prejudice any reasonable measure would arouse when he added, "I am sure no honest member in either honourable House will be against so reasonable a Bill; the business is for some public-spirited patriot to break the ice by bringing it into the House, and I dare lay my life it passes." He would have infallibly lost it.

      This naturally brings us to the question of what has been done by legislation, both for protecting the subject from being unjustly incarcerated on the plea of insanity, and for the protection of lunatics when confined in asylums. The only Act of Parliament, up to the year 1808, which bore upon the care and protection of the lunatic poor was that passed in the year 1744, in the seventeenth year of George II. (17 Geo. II., c. 5). This authorizes any two justices to apprehend them, and have them securely locked up and, as might be expected, chained. The contrast between the spirit and the provisions of such an Act, and that passed a century later, under the auspices of Lord Shaftesbury, brings into strong relief the solid advance which has been made in a century, in the face of constant opposition from interested persons, as well as that which arises out of the mere apathy and lethargy of a large class of the community.

      It should be added, in justice to the framers of the Act of 1744, that it refers to those who "are so far disordered in their senses that they may be too dangerous to be permitted to go abroad." It is rather for the protection of society than the care of the lunatic.

      A Committee of the House of Commons was appointed in 1763, to inquire into the state of the private mad-houses of the kingdom. On this Committee sat Pitt and Fox,[102] Wilkes, Lord North, Mr. Grenville, and Mr. T. Townshend—names which alone serve to secure one's interest, and also to raise the expectation that something would be done. Their Report, while evidently drawn up in a cautious manner, shows, as had been insisted upon by Daniel Defoe, with what alarming facility the liberty of the subject could be taken away on the plea of insanity, and how frequently persons availed themselves of this facility in order to get rid of a troublesome wife or daughter, or to obtain some selfish object equally improper. Dr. Battie[103] gave it as his opinion that sane persons were frequently confined in asylums, and mentioned a case in which a gentleman, who had had his wife immured in one, justified himself by saying that he understood the house to be a sort of Bridewell, or place of correction. The same witness found one patient in an asylum, who had been there for years, chained to his bed, without ever having had the assistance of any physician before. He never heard anything more of him, until he was told some time after that he had died of fever, without having had further medical advice.

      The Committee resolved, "That it is the opinion of this Committee that the present state of the private mad-houses in this Kingdom requires the interposition of the legislature."

      The Resolution was agreed to by the House, and leave was given to bring in a Bill for the Regulation of Private Mad-houses, its preparation being left to Mr. Townshend and six other members of the House.

      Unfortunately, no legislation followed the Report of this Committee; in fact, no further action was taken for ten long years.

      Two years after this Committee sat, a melancholy picture of the condition of private asylums in England is given in the Gentleman's Magazine, and we can well believe that it was not over-coloured when we consider the evidence which had been given before the Committee.

      The writer asserts that persons may be and are taken forcibly to these houses without any authority, instantly seized by a set of inhuman ruffians trained up to this barbarous profession, stripped naked, and conveyed to a dark room. If the patient complains, the attendant brutishly orders him not to rave, calls for assistants, and ties him down to a bed, from which he is not released till he submits to their pleasure. Next morning a doctor is gravely introduced, who, taking the report of the keeper, pronounces the unfortunate person a lunatic, and declares he must be reduced by physic. He is deprived of all communication with the outer world, and denied the use of pen and paper. Such usage, the writer goes on to say, without a formal warrant, is too much even for the Inquisition in Spain or Portugal, and cries aloud for redress in a land of liberty. One circumstance brought forcibly out is similar to that which, occurring at York some years afterwards (1791), led, as we shall see, to the foundation of an institution in which a directly opposite course was pursued. "Patients," he says, "often cannot be found out, because the master lets them bear some fictitious names in the house; and if fortunately discovered by a friend, the master, or his servants, will endeavour to elude his search and defeat his humane intentions by saying they have strict orders to permit no person to see the patient."

      At an earlier period a lady was sent by her husband to a private asylum simply because she was extravagant and dissipated. The account of this affair is in manuscript, dated 1746, but the substance of it is given by a gentleman in Notes and Queries, May 5, 1866. Two or three girls were placed in the same house, in order to break off love affairs disapproved by their friends.

      Again, I observe the following entry in the Gentleman's Magazine under date Sunday, August 6, 1769:—"A gentleman near Whitehall, by the assistance of four ruffians, forced his lady into a hackney coach, and ordered the coachman to drive to a private mad-house, and there to be confined."

      The Gentleman's Magazine writer's remedy for "a condition compared with which none is so deeply calamitous; no distress so truly miserable; no object so deserving of compassion, and none so worthy of redress," was a really effective Bill for the regulation of private mad-houses.

      At last, in 1773, a Bill passed the Commons for the "Regulation of Private Mad-houses," the Report of 1763 having been first read. But again disappointment awaited this honest attempt to protect the insane and those alleged to be insane. The Bill was thrown out, as too many good Bills have been thrown out, by the House of Lords. One is reminded of the saying of Daniel O'Connell, "If it took twenty years to do nothing, how long would it take to do anything?" In the House of Commons, Mr. Townshend said in the debate that facts had come to his knowledge which would awaken the compassion of the most callous heart. Mr. Mackworth said that the scenes of distress lay hid indeed in obscure corners, but he was convinced that if gentlemen were once to see them, they would not rest a day until a Bill for their relief was passed, and protested that he would mind neither time nor trouble, but employ every hour until some relief should be obtained. He asserted, as also did Mr. Townshend, that it was the "gentlemen of the long robe" who prevented any action being taken. Be this as it may, the Bill, as I have said, was thrown out, while another,[104] which proved almost a dead letter, was passed in the following year. It was required by this Act that licences should be granted "to all persons who shall desire the same." Reports of abuses were to be made to the College of Physicians, to be СКАЧАТЬ