COLUMBIA LIBRARIES OFFSITE 
 
 HEALTH SCIENCES STANDARD 
 
 HX64127419 
 RC445.N48 N486 1 880 The answer of the Ne 
 
 RECAP 
 
 I 
 
 T II E 
 
 ANSWER 
 
 New Yoek Neukological Society 
 
 TO THE DOCUMENT KNOWN AS THE 
 
 REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH 
 RELATIVE TO LUNATIC ASYLUMS. 
 
 • J\^T'. 64, 
 
 IN S E N A T E 
 
 ]VIav a 3, ISTQ. 
 
 SuBj^rrrTED to thf. N. Y. Neurological Soctety, and unanimously Accepted 
 
 and okdeked to be printed by the same, at its stated jteeting, 
 
 held at the acadkmy op medicine, on january sixth. 
 
 Eighteen Hcindred and Eighty. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 TROWS PRINTING & BOOKBINDING CO]VTPANY, 
 
 201-213 East Twelfth Steeet. 
 1880. 
 
Rr.4^4s-.N^{P 
 
 NM(p 
 
 Calumbia (HnitJersittp 
 
 COLLEGE OF 
 
 PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive 
 
 in 2010 witii funding from 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/answerofnewyorknOOnewy 
 
THE 
 
 A:t^8WEE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 New York Neurological Society 
 
 TO THE DOCUMENT KNOWN AS THE 
 
 REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH 
 RELATIVE TO LUNATIC ASYLUMS. 
 
 I 
 
 JSTp. 64:, 
 
 IN SENATE, 
 
 nMay as, 1879. 
 
 Submitted to the N. Y. Neurological Society, and unanimously Accepted 
 
 and ordered to be printed by the same, at its stated meeting, 
 
 held at the academy of medicine, on january sixth, 
 
 BiOHTEEN Hundred and Eighty. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 TROWS PRINTING & BOOKBINDING COMPANY, 
 
 201-313 East Twelfth Stkeet. 
 
 1880. 
 

REPORT 
 
 The undersigned, the Committee of the New York Neurological 
 Society, appointed to consider the subject of Insane Asylum 
 Abuses, respectfully report : 
 
 That it has waited for the report of the Senate Committee of 
 Public Health on the petition presented to the Legislature, before 
 making any detailed statement to the Society on the subject. 
 
 On the day of the adjournment of the Legislature, or there- 
 about, a garbled, grossly unfair, and untruthful synopsis of the report 
 of the Senate Committee was given to the press, with the object of 
 forestalling public opinion to the disadvantage of the purpose your 
 committee has had in view, viz. : a proper examination into the man- 
 ner in which the asylums of this State are conducted, with the object 
 of correcting abuses which had long been known to exist. In reply 
 to this synopsis, your committee presented a " Provisional Keport," 
 in which the falsehoods and other misstatements published were ex- 
 posed, as explicitly as could be done under the circumstances. This 
 " Provisional Report " was widely circulated through the medical 
 and lay press. In using this latter means of publication, your com- 
 mittee conceives that it has acted in the way best calculated to at- 
 tain the object in view. It should be borne in mind that all reforms 
 must be brought about through the operation of an enlightened pub- 
 lic opinion. The asylum interest will yield nothing unless forced 
 to do so by a power which it cannot resist. Neither argument nor 
 entreaty moves it. Hard blows are the only logic it understands ; 
 and in a country such as ours, in which the people rule, it is 
 through the will of the people that those ameliorations to which the 
 New York Neurological Society stands committed must ultimately 
 be secured. Already the fruit begins to fall, and it is not a matter 
 for doubt that ere long the full harvest will be gathered. 
 
 Within a few days the complete report of the Senate Committee 
 has been published, after an unusual delay of several months. It is 
 
doubtful if it would ever have seen the light had not members of 
 your committee in a measure forced the publication. 
 
 However that may be, your committee is now in a position to 
 examine fully into its pretensions, and it proposes to do so. In this 
 task it will be necessary to show to the Neurological Society and the 
 public the unjust, ex parte, and untruthful character of a legislative 
 document of the great State of New York, and the unscrupulous 
 conduct of the asylum power. The office is not a pleasant one, biit 
 your committee knows well the individuals with whom it has to deal, 
 and it will not shrink from any portion of its duty. Happily, how- 
 ever, the instance is an exceptional one ; for never before in the his- 
 tory of the State has partisanship been so evident, and the plainest 
 dictates of propriety and courtesy been so disregarded to anything 
 like the extent manifested in the paper which is published to the 
 world by a committee which should have exhibited more of truth and 
 justice on a question of so much importance. 
 
 So extraordinary is this document, and so very divergent from 
 the customary action of a legislative committee of inquiry is the con- 
 duct of its authors, that your committee feels that neither is entitled 
 to the respectful consideration that would be gladly accorded to both. 
 Your committee, therefore, desires to express its regret at being com- 
 pelled to characterize any State paper in terms which to many may 
 seem to be out of place and unnecessarily severe. But the report is 
 so recklessly slanderous, its statements so glaringly false, its innuen- 
 does so malicious in character, its quibbling so utterly beneath the 
 dignity which Senate committees have heretofore exhibited, its in- 
 tention to crush out by every unworthy means the rights of those 
 who, in the interests of humanity, addressed a respectful petition to 
 the Legislature is so strongly evident, its object to impugix the mo- 
 tives, injure the reputations, and, by every means at command, to 
 lessen the social and professional standing of those who had the peti- 
 tion in charge and who signed it is so clearly apjjarent, that your com- 
 mittee feels no delicacy in referring to the outrage in language which 
 will admit of no misunderstanding. Gentleness and forbearance are 
 qualities which these people do not appreciate. They would be mis- 
 taken for doubt and timidity. 
 
 In the first place, the report endeavors to convey the idea that 
 the committee was guilty of fraud in placing the names of President 
 Barnard, of Columbia College, and of Prof. John W. Draper, of the 
 University of New York, on the petition without their authority — 
 in fact, of forging their signatures for the purpose of giving in- 
 
creased weight to the memorial. In the synopsis given last spring 
 to the newspaper press, and sent through the agency of the asylum 
 interest to all parts of the country, this crime was enjphatically 
 charo'ed. In the present full report it is less distinctly stated ; but, 
 nevertheless, the inference will not fail to be drawn by those not con- 
 versant with the facts, or with the unscrupulousness of a portion of 
 the asylum interest, that your committee had appended the names of 
 the gentlemen in question to the petition without their authority. 
 To this charge your committee has to offer the following state- 
 ment : 
 
 The petition was presented to President Barnard by one of your 
 committee (Dr. E. C. Seguin). Dr. Barnard took the paper, said he had 
 not time to read it then, kept it three days and then returned it, not 
 only with his signature appended, but with a letter in explanation. 
 In support of this statement your committee submits Dr. Seguin's 
 affidavit (Appendix, Exhibit A). Examination of the petition, if it 
 remains in existence, ^vill satisfy any expert that the signature is 
 President Barnard's, a fact which, as your committee understands, he 
 does not now deny. 
 
 Probably no circumstance has been more unjustly used than the 
 statements of the committee relative to President Barnard's signa- 
 ture. Adherents of the asylum interest circulated them by means 
 of the medical and secular press. Hundreds of copies of an Albany 
 newspaper, in which the " synopsis " first appeared, were sent abroad 
 in this coxmtry and in Europe, and doubtless had with many the 
 eflfect of condemning your committee for what was apparently, at 
 least, a gross misuse of the name of a respectable and learned citizen. 
 
 In regard to Prof. John W. Draper, it was never asserted by 
 your committee that his name was among the signatures to the peti- 
 tion, and therefore the statement in the report of the Senate Com- 
 mittee that he had not signed it, is, of course, correct. Messrs. 
 Goodwin and Goebel would doubtless have received negative replies 
 from many other gentlemen they might have addressed, and thus 
 have manufactured a still stronger temporary prejudice against your 
 committee. But the name of Dr. John W. Draper's son, Prof. John 
 C. Draper, is there, and he signed it at the request of one of your 
 committee (Dr. Hammond) in the faculty room of the University 
 Medical College, at the same time Prof. Pardee signed. That the 
 Senate Committee has quibbled and acted disingenuously in this mat- 
 ter, is sufficiently apparent without further comment. 
 
 The idea is sought to be conveyed by the Senate Committeej that 
 
many of the signers of the petition -withdrew their names in a par- 
 oxysm of self-excited virtuous indignation. 
 
 The faQt is that the most strenuous arguments and entreaties were 
 employed by the agents of the asylum interest to induce signers to 
 withdraw their names, and when these were not efficacious, threats 
 were made use of. Several such cases have come to our knowl- 
 edge. One gentleman (Mr. David Dows) who signed the petition, 
 after a careful perusal, informed one of us (Dr. Hammond) that he 
 had been repeatedly approached in the manner stated. To his honor, 
 be it said, he steadfastly resisted all influences, and his name remains 
 on the petition. 
 
 It is true that others were less courageous in support of their con- 
 victions than Mr. Dows, and there were a few withdrawals. Some of 
 these were in consequence of the quasi threatening letter of the 
 committee (Appendix, Exhibit B) summoning them to Albany, and 
 others, through the efforts above mentioned. For these individuals 
 your committee has only pity. It is not given to all to be endowed 
 with sufficient moral courage to adhere to what they believe to be 
 right, to have the judgment to read what is presented to them for 
 signature, or to understand its bearing after a careful perusal. Those 
 persons, therefore, who allege that they signed an important petition 
 without reading it, or that, having signed it, they did not compre- 
 hend its purport, or that they could not possibly have signed any- 
 thing against the State Commissioner in Lunacy, for he was their 
 bosom friend, or that having signed it they found on reflection that 
 they had no charges to make against the asylums as did the minister 
 (Senate Report, p. 2), or that they had signed under the representa- 
 tions of another (p. 2), or that " he cannot be a party to such charges, 
 as they are entirely without his knowledge and belief " (p. 3), are 
 clearly entitled to the deep commiseration of the public. The Sen- 
 ate Committee and the asylum interest are welcome to all such con- 
 verts. They will probably receive the sincere contempt of both the 
 friends of asylum reform and their antagonists. 
 
 The report states that " two physicians wrote withdrawing their 
 names. The one asserting that he had signed under misapprehen- 
 sion; the other that he had signed no petition containing allega- 
 tions of mal-administration either on the part of superintendents of 
 lunatic asylums or the Commissioner of Lunacy, and knew of no facts 
 that would sustain such allegations." 
 
 These statements may be true, but your committee hesitates to 
 believe that any medical gentlemen who signed the petition would 
 
so stultify" themselves. It is to be regretted that the names of these 
 physicians are not given. Yoxir committee will endeavor to obtain 
 them. Individuals under torture have frequently confessed to hav- 
 ing perpetrated crimes of which they were not in reality guilty. 
 We shall see whether the rack of the Senate Committee of Public 
 Health is more powerful than that of three hundred years ago. It 
 is more difficult, probably, to get a confession of imbecility than one 
 of criminality. 
 
 In regard to other portions of the evidence, as printed in the re- 
 port, your committee emphatically declares that it is inaccurate, im- 
 perfect, and garbled. 
 
 Take, for example, the pai't where the State Commissioner in Lu- 
 nacy ostentatiously, and doiibtless according to prearrangement, ques- 
 tions Dr. Nichols in regard to Dr. Hammond's statement that a pa- 
 tient in Bloomingdale had died in a crib (Utica) soon after having 
 been placed therein. And Dr. Nichols triumphantly replies : 
 
 " jSTo such case has occurred since the institution has been under 
 my charge." 
 
 This all seems very straight, but it is nevertheless directly calcu- 
 lated to deceive. If information was desired on this point why did 
 not Dr. Ordronaux question Dr. Hammond, who had made the 
 assertion ? He had pxiblicly stated his willingness to give names, 
 and the whole matter might easily have been inquired into if any 
 real desire to get at the facts of the case had existed. In the course 
 of his examination by Mr. Goodwin, Dr. Hammond, unaware of 
 what had taken place between Dr. Ordronaux and Dr. Nichols, 
 brought this matter up very unexpectedly to his questioner, who at 
 once dropped the subject. The crib (Utica) being under discussion, 
 Dr. Hammond was asked : 
 
 " Q. Do you know anything about the condition of the patients 
 who were restrained ? 
 
 '' A. No ; but I know pretty positively, as well as I know any- 
 thing else, that a patient died in a crib, in an asylum not far from 
 New York City." 
 
 Here was an opportunity for Mr. Goodwin to have gotten Dr. 
 Hammond's authority for the statement, and to have learned the his- 
 tory from the physician in whose practice the incident occurred. 
 
 Although, as it happens, Dr. Nichols was not the Superintendent 
 at the time the event took place, yet, for all that, it might have hap- 
 pened during his administration, and he have been none the wiser ; 
 for when a physician went to his institution, by order of the Court, 
 
8 
 
 to examine a lady, wlio it afterward was shown had been confined 
 there, while sane, for about seven years, Dr. Nichols did not know 
 that any such person was a patient under his charge ! 
 
 Dr. Nichols states that he does not use the crib at Bloomingdale. 
 Why, he does not inform us ; but that it was used there before his 
 advent he will probably not deny. If it is so good a thing, as many 
 insane asylum superintendents contend, and, as he says it is, why 
 does he not employ it ? Are the insane to be deprived of so bene- 
 ficial a contrivance as the Utica crib merely because a few pestilent 
 so-called reformers have denounced it ? 
 
 Dr. Cleaveland, the Superintendent of the Poughkeepsie Asylum, 
 testified (page 17) that he did not employ the Utica crib ; that it was 
 a form of restraint that should be used cautiously, and that some pa- 
 tients were seriously injured hy its use, although thinking it a hu- 
 mane form of resti'aint for certain cases. Assuredly an agent capa- 
 ble of inflicting such damage, and which, as we know, is often re- 
 sorted to indiscriminately, is entitled to all the censure which has been 
 directed against it. 
 
 Among the Superintendents whose fitness was most distinctly im- 
 peached, was the one then in charge of the New York City Asylum, 
 on Blackwell's Island, for women. Since the meeting of the Senate 
 Committee, this gentleman has been removed from his position on the 
 ground of incapacity ; not as the result, be it borne in mind, of any 
 inquiry originated by the Commissioners of Charities and Correc- 
 tion, but only after a newspaper reporter had ferreted out abuses in 
 the institution, of which the commissioners must have been previously 
 aware, but which, when published, they did not deem it prudent to 
 overlook. Such a wholesome dread of public opinion should be 
 commended if it were based on an honest desire to change a bad sys- 
 tem. But as the system remains unchanged, and as the last state of 
 that asylum is worse than the first, your committee can only regard 
 the sacrifice of Dr. Strew as either only a " sop to Cerberus," or the 
 consummation of a plan to place two asylums under the charge of a 
 superintendent who, exjoerience shows us, is incapable of properly 
 managing one. 
 
 It must be remembered that those of your committee who went 
 to Albany were not allowed to state anything but what they knew of 
 their own knowledge, and that no documentary evidence was ad- 
 mitted. Is it to be supposed for one moment that if the Senate 
 Committee, or rather Mr. Goodwin (for Mr. Goebel, though the chair- 
 man, never asked a question), wanted the truth, they would not 
 
9 
 
 have got information from all sources ? Whoever heard before of 
 signers to a petition for the reform of abuses being required to ver- 
 ify their statements by their own knowledge ? Your committee had 
 witnesses ready to prove all that was alleged, and in order to get 
 at the truth more easily, several of the petitioners addressed a letter 
 to the Senate Committee, requesting that the committee would meet 
 in New York where the witnesses were ; but this was peremptorily 
 refused. 
 
 The facts set forth in the memorial were many of them things 
 which could only be known to a few persons, inmates of asylums, and 
 which were only known to your committee through evidence which 
 had reached it, and which would have been adduced upon an inves- 
 tigation. Mr. Goodwin might as well have called upon us to prove, 
 by our own knowledge, the existence of such a place as Pekin, or 
 that Alexander the Second is Czar of Russia, or that General Grant 
 has just returned from a voyage round the woi'ld. We could, with 
 time and opportunity, establish all these points to the satisfaction of 
 any unprejudiced person; but we do not know them of our own 
 knowledge, and that is exactly the position, in reference to asylum 
 abuses, in which those of us who were invited to go to Albany were 
 placed by the unjustifiable action of the Committee on Public 
 Health. 
 
 Nevertheless, we did know some things of our own knowledge, 
 and these we testified to, vainly as it turned out, for the committee 
 disregarded all that was said by us and went on to consummate their 
 prearranged plan. For instance, Dr. Hammond declared that he 
 knew of his own knowledge : 
 
 1st. That the superintendents are not chosen from among physi- 
 cians who have piirsued special studies in neurology, and he gave a 
 case in point, that of the Superintendent of the Blackwell's Island 
 Asylum (page 22), who has since been removed on the alleged ground 
 of incompetency. 
 
 2d. That there were assistant physicians who were just out of 
 the too elementary medical schools, and he gave the instance of 
 Blackwell's Island, supporting his assertion by the Report of the 
 Board of State Charities, to the effect that there had been eighteen 
 assistants in that institution within two years (page 23). 
 
 3d. That he knew of insane asylums, within the State, that did 
 not possess the proper instruments for making examinations of their 
 inmates and for treating them (page 23). 
 
 4th, That he knew that the medical' officers of asylums were over- 
 
10 
 
 I 
 
 worked and wretcliedly paid, while some were not paid at all (pages 
 23 and 24). 
 
 • 5th. That he gave his reasons for believing that the superinten- 
 dents and their assistants are, with scarcely an exception, not skilled 
 in the modern methods of diagnosis or of post-mortem examinations 
 (page 25). 
 
 6th. That he knew the pathological work done at the asylums 
 was of little value (page 26). 
 
 7th. That he knew that undergraduates acted as assistant physi- 
 cians, in which Mr. Goodwin was kind enough to confirm him (page 
 26). 
 
 8th. That he knew, of his own knowledge, that patients were for- 
 cibly fed by nurses and attendants without a physician being present, 
 and he gave the case of a lady he had personally examined, and the 
 roof of whose mouth had been torn out by the instruments used (page 
 27. Also Appendix, Exhibit C). 
 
 9th. That he knew, of his own knowledge, that the Superintendent 
 was not consulted when restraint Avas employed, but that nurses, 
 at their will, applied it (Appendix, Exhibit C). 
 
 10th. That he knew, of his own knowledge, that the barbarous 
 and inhuman means of restraint, known as the crib (Utica), was em- 
 ployed in a number of institutions. 
 
 11th. That the law requiring the State Commissioner in Lunacy 
 to be an experienced physician was disregarded, the present official 
 never having been a practising physician. 
 
 These things were of themselves sufficient to authorize an inves- 
 tigation, but they were, as the exhibits appended will show, by no 
 means a large proportion of what we had to allege. 
 
 Before proceeding directly to these, we propose to exhibit the 
 true character of some of the other manoeuvres resorted to by the 
 Senate Committee on Public Health. 
 
 The language of the Senate Committee, when speaking of the 
 Society in which your petition had its oi'igin, is unwarrantably and 
 designedly contemptuous. It is calculated to mislead the lay readers 
 into believing that the New York Neurological Society has either no, 
 or at best a very problematical, existence. It would be superfluous 
 to contradict this to our medical readers, who are familiar with the 
 record of this body ; with others it may suffice to state that the New 
 York Neurological Society is a well-known and regular medical as- 
 sociation. 
 
 That many signers of the petition withdrew their names simply, 
 
11 
 
 or declined to go to Albany as having no personal knowledge of asy- 
 lums, nay even resorted to evasion to avoid what they had every 
 reason to consider a threatening summons, will not appear remark- 
 able to those familiar with the operations of the human mind. 
 
 That any of the signers at all went under the summons referred 
 to is to be wondered at ; from the manner in which the few who 
 went were treated while at Albany, it follows that those who refused 
 to go had the best excuse a posteriori that they could have desired for 
 declining to appear in person. 
 
 The statement that signatures to the petition were obtained under 
 misapprehension, and by the surreptitious affixture of names, appears 
 on its face so absurd that we might well afford to treat such assevera- 
 tion with the silent contempt it merits. It rests on the sole and ir- 
 responsible assertion of a superintendent between whom and mem- 
 bers of the Committee on Asylum Abuses, of the New York Neuro- 
 logical Society, matters have come to an issue as to veracity on other 
 occasions to be specified (Exhibits D, E, F, N, O, P, Q, X, and AA). 
 
 It is significant that the names of those signers who are alleged 
 to have signed the petition under the mistaken idea that it referred 
 to local improvements are not mentioned anywhere throughout the 
 report. The matter of Mr. Browning, who is represented to have, 
 with the employees in his establishment, signed the petition under the 
 idea that it was a certificate of good character for one of his former 
 clerks, is sufficiently met by the subjoined documentary evidence 
 (Appendix, Exhibits D and E). it may, in this connrction, be well 
 to refer to the fact that the letter of Mr. Browning, whom a super- 
 intendent alleges to have made the above statement, is not published. 
 
 It is also false that, as Dr. A. E. Macdonald asserted, and the 
 ^Senate Committee repeats, signatures were obtained from members 
 of the New York Club in such a way as to induce the signers to be- 
 lieve that they were signing a club paper. An affidavit from Dr. 
 T. A. McBride (Exhibit AA) disposes of that matter. 
 
 Equally decisive is the letter of Dr. Landon Carter Gray, of 
 Brooklyn, to the effect that the statement of the Senate Committee 
 that only one Brooklyn physician had signed the petition is false. 
 Over a dozen of the best known physicians of that city signed 
 (Exhibit W). 
 
 If the Senate Committee says true when (page 3, S. C. Rep.) it 
 states " another requests the withdrawal of his name, saying that 
 some months before he had signed a petition which he believed to 
 favor a new street railway on Broadway, but which he now believes 
 
. 12 
 
 was to be directed against the management of insane asylums of the 
 State," then this Senate Committee has not only succeeded in find- 
 ing fitting tools for its very questionable piece of work, but also dis- 
 covered some additional subjects for asylum treatment, whose mani- 
 fest imbecility some member of the Committee on Asylum Abuses 
 must have failed to recognize while obtaining signatures. Your com- 
 mittee, however, is unwilling to believe that any of the signers could 
 have actually made such an exhibition of themselves, and is strength- 
 ened in this conviction by the fact that no names are mentioned by 
 the Senate Committee. 
 
 It is not true that any signatures were obtained under misappre- 
 hension. The Senate Committee resorted to the questionable strategy 
 of citing signers before them in such terms as to convince the latter 
 that they had individually made charges against asylums. Many not 
 having a copy of the petition to refer to, were consequently induced 
 to write the Senate Committee, stating that they had not any per- 
 sonal knowledge, nor had made charges against asylums, and that 
 there must have been a very grave misapprehension somewhere. These 
 answers naturally followed a citation of so misleading a character, 
 and clearly were designed so to follow hy the Senate Committee maJc- 
 ing the citation. 
 
 The Senate Committee then go on to say that "the general as- 
 sertions of the petition are not stibstantiated by facts." This, like 
 numerous other statements, and most of the so-called conclusions of 
 the Senate Committee, is a qiiibble, for the Senate Committee does 
 not and could not deny that many specific allegations were proven, 
 even in the course of the brief and garbling procedure instituted by 
 the committee under the name of an examination. 
 
 It is admitted by the parties appearing before the Senate Commit- 
 tee, either as asylum representatives, or for the purpose of crushing 
 investigation : 
 
 1st. That the Commissioner in Lunacy does not go through the 
 asylum wards unattended by some member of the asylum medical 
 staff (page 10, lines 19-27, S. C. Rep.). 
 
 2d. That the Commissioner in Lunacy does not make night visits 
 in order to satisfy himself as to the condition of the asylum inmates 
 at night. 
 
 3d. That the Commissioner in Lunacy often gives the superin- 
 tendents notice of his coming to visit their asylums (page 18, line 2, 
 also bottom). 
 
 4th. That a superintendent has been appointed in direct violation 
 
13 
 
 of the law, which requires that the superintendent shall have had 
 hospital experience, and that this took placp during the term of 
 office of the present Comraissioner in Lunacy (page 17, line 32). 
 
 5th. That the Commissioner in Lunacy, althovigh appointed to ex- 
 ercise supervision over all asylams in the State, seems to disclaim 
 having any control over county or private asylums by the language 
 of his testimony ; which is in conflict with the law under which he 
 acts (page 9, line 38, S. C. Rep.). 
 
 6th. That asylum medical officers are overworked (page 13, line 
 24, S. C. Rep.). 
 
 7tli. That the crib is an unnecessary means of mechanical restraint, 
 since the Poughkeepsie, Willard, and Bloomingdale Asylums, al- 
 though treating as many, if not more acute and violent cases of in- 
 sanity than are treated at Utica and Ward's Island, do not permit 
 its use. 
 
 8th. That the crib is an injurious appliance and its use coupled 
 with risk to the patient (page 17, bottom). 
 
 9th. That undergraduates in medicine have been employed to per- 
 form medical duties at our State Asylums (page 17, line 8, Ibid.), 
 
 As far as the fact on which the Senate Committee mainly bases 
 its deprecation of the petition, namely, that some of the petition- 
 ers had not been inside the walls of certain State Asylums for sev- 
 eral years, goes, it amounts to absolutely nothing. 
 
 It is proof of the bad judgment, if not the bias of the commit- 
 tee, that they fail or refuse to recognize that allegations of misman- 
 agement, must be based on something stronger than mere individual 
 assertion and inspection. That stronger and documentary evidence 
 submitted was excluded (page 42, line 40,' S. C. Rep.).- 
 
 A part of this documentary evidence thus excluded, is herewith 
 submitted, and the reader may judge for himself whether the New 
 York Neurological Society was justified in its petition or not. 
 
 The " conclusions " of the Senate Committee are absurd logically 
 and unsustained by facts. 
 
 The first " conclusion " is sufficiently characterized by the fact 
 that it rests on a few lines from a Governor's Message. 
 
 ' The testimony is not accurately given. Dr. Spitzka stated : "If this 
 committee permits the presentation of documents or documentary evidence, 
 I have them in this satchel," to vrhich Mr. Goodwin replied, as reported 
 with characteristic relevancy, " Then our committee would be as long in 
 making a report, as it would take you to tell what a competent physician 
 is." 
 
14 
 
 Tlieir second allegation, that in view of the existence of a State 
 Board of Charities, . which has never suggested any such defects as 
 those intimated to exist, an investigation was unnecessary, is met by 
 two facts : First, that the State Board of Charities, shortly after 
 the examination by the Senate Committee, asked the Legislature for 
 full power to investigate. This request, for which there must have 
 been a reason, was refused by the State Legislature. Second, that 
 the most prominent of the local visiting committees ' have instruc- 
 tions to refrain from any criticisms on the rnedical management of 
 asylums. Now it was precisely to defects in the medical manage- 
 ment that our petition referred. 
 
 The third conclusion falls to the ground, inasmuch as it is based 
 on the assertions of the State Commissioner in Lunacy, an officer 
 who has more reason to dread an investigation of the asylums in 
 this State, than most of the superintendents themselves. 
 
 To exhibit the full value of the fourth so-called conclusion, we 
 subjoin it in the full and original text, it requires no further com- 
 ment : 
 
 ^^ Fourth. — The insinuation of the petition that the superintend- 
 ents of these State asylums are not thoroughly trained and thorough- 
 ly competent medical men, is too notoriously untrue to require 
 denial," 
 
 The fifth " conclusion " consists of no less than three distinct and 
 demonstrable misstatements. It is first stated that " no undei'gradu- 
 ates in medicine have been appointed as assistant physicians in State 
 Asylums," If for the quibbling phrase " been appointed " we sub- 
 stitute " served," and turn to page 17 of the Senate Committee's 
 Report, we find that the Siiperintendent of the Middletown Asylum 
 confesses to having a student of medicine employed to make the 
 gynecological examinations, among the most delicate manipulations 
 in practice ! ! It is also false that, as stated, only one person ever oc- 
 cupied an assistantship in county asylums while an undergraduate. 
 This statement seems to rest on the allegation of the Superintendent 
 of the Ward's Island Asylum, was stigmatized at Albany as a "down- 
 right falsehood" on the personal i-esponsibility of one of your com- 
 mittee (page 41, S. C. Rep.), and is proven to be such by the sub- 
 joined letter from the Commissioners of Charities and Correction 
 (Appendix, Exhibit F) of the City of New York. 
 
 The third falsehood the Senate Committee is itself responsible for. 
 
 ' Those of the Ward's and Blackwell's Island Asylums. 
 
15 
 
 Nowhere throughout their report can the reader find the slightest 
 evidence that any of the four petitioners appearing at Albany ad- 
 mitted that the charge that undergraduates in medicine served as 
 physicians in asylums of this State, " was a reckless misrepresenta- 
 tion." The instances given in the Appendix show how well founded 
 that charge was. The phrase " reckless misrepresentation," applies 
 with gi-eater propriety to the so-called conclusions of Messrs. Good- 
 win and Goebel. 
 
 The seventh conclusion, stating that the accusations made against 
 the pathological work carried on at the Utica Asylum are suflficiently 
 met by a letter from Dr. J. C. I)alton, of New York, is about as logi- 
 cal as if the accusations made by a committee of chemists, against a 
 certain chemical laboratory, were to be considered as disproved by a 
 letter of endorsement from a geologist. Dr. Dalton is a distinguish- 
 ed physiologist, it is trvie, but, so far as your committee knows, has 
 never claimed to be, nor was he ever considered to be, a pathological 
 expert. His endorsement is a mere opinion unsupported by any facts 
 or sj)ecific disproval of the grave charges made, and your committee 
 has proof that the doctor was not acquainted with the published pa- 
 thological results of the Utica Asylum at the time when he wrote 
 his letter of endorsement. In justice to itself, the committee 
 of the New York Neurological Society feels called on to declare 
 (however much it regrets the necessity of so doing) that the endorse- 
 ment in question is absolutely without bearing on the subject at issue. 
 
 The mere manufacture of large brain-sections which has deceived 
 others into a quasi endorsement of the Utica laboratory, does not 
 prove the one manufacturing them to be a skilled pathologist, or even 
 a scientific investigator. No more this in fact, than the preparation 
 of a finely-mounted skeleton shows the mechanic mounting it to be 
 a scientific anatomist. 
 
 The so-called pathological work done at Utica, stands or falls 
 with its published results. These wei-e condemned as trivial, crude, 
 and misleading, and not a single physiological, pathological, or thera- 
 peutical result has been achieved at the Utica Asylum since the es- 
 tablishment of its laboratory at such enormous cost, which is tangi- 
 bly accessible to the medical profession (Appendix, Exhibits G, and 
 H). 
 
 Such results as have been published, are criticised on the strength 
 of their microphotographic exhibits, as showing absolutely no rela- 
 tion to insanity, and this by one whose special field is the pathology 
 of nervous and mental diseases. A judgment like this outweighs a 
 
16 
 
 hundredfold the letter and extract published by the Senate Com- 
 mittee in defence of the fragmentary work done at Utica (Exhibit J). 
 
 It is certainly very suspicious that the representatives of the 
 Utica Asylum, in their eager search for any available endorsement, 
 failed to obtain such endorsement from a single pathological expert. 
 It is also remarkable, suggestively so in fact, that these same repre- 
 sentatives have been silent regarding the charges made against the 
 Utica work by a member of the New York Neurological Society, and 
 published in a journal of high scientific repute — charges that were 
 repeated in a second article in the shape of a direct challenge to the 
 Association of Amei'ican Superintendents of Insane Asylums, Those 
 charges were either demonstrably true or demonstrably false, and 
 could have been put to a crucial test by any one who considered it 
 safe to risk such a test. But in this, as in every other instance, the 
 advocates of our defective asylum system have found it safer to re- 
 move the discussion of a strictly scientific subject from medical to lay 
 circles. They have succeeded in obtaining an endorsement of such 
 a character as to blind the eyes of laymen, perhaps, but not of a sin- 
 gle competent judge. 
 
 The attempt was made by the Senator examining one of your 
 committee, to hint that the charges against the work done at Utica 
 were not answered because they were not worth answering. This 
 would appear sufficiently ridiculous if the charges had been sup- 
 ported by nothing more than the endorsement; of the tfournal of 
 Mental and Nervous Diseases, published in this cotintiy, the JTournal 
 of Mental Science in England (Exhibit K), and the statements of 
 Professor Westphal of Berlin. But it is shown to be utterly without 
 basis, by the fact that when a member of this Society offered to read 
 a paper before the New York Medico-Legal Society, on the asylum 
 question, and gave fair notice to the Superintendents of the Ward's 
 Island and Utica Asylums (among others) of his intention to criticise 
 the asylum management in this State, these superintendents made 
 persistent attempts to suppress the i-eading of this papei". It was 
 read, however,' and one of these same siiperintendents was present, 
 and as on a similar occasion in the history of the New York Neuro- 
 logical Society (when repeatedly called on to speak by the presiding 
 officer) had not a word to say in defence of the impeached sj^stem. 
 
 ' " Real Asylum Abuses," read before the New York Medico-Legal Society, 
 March 3, 1878, not published except in the daily papers, the Evening Mail of 
 March 14th and 15th having it in full. 
 
If 
 
 The second endorsement of the work done at the Utica Asylum 
 consists in an extract from Dr. Biicknill's work. Dr. Bucknill was 
 admitted, by two of the witnesses present at Albany, to be a promi- 
 nent and practical alienist, but his pathological opinions were, at the 
 same time, stated to possess no intrinsic value, and we question 
 whether he would have made a commendatory statement if he could 
 have anticipated that it was destined to constitute the sole support 
 from a psychiatrical point of view, of the Utica work, against delib- 
 erate and well-founded scientific criticism. Your committee holds 
 that Dr. Bucknill was deceived by appearances, as others have been 
 since his time. 
 
 But since the Senate Committee quote Dr. Bucknill thus tri- 
 umphantly in the support of the Superintendent of the Utica Asy- 
 lum, it may be well to quote other passages from the same author, 
 referring to subjects regarding which he is universally admitted to 
 be a better judge than he seems to be in pathological matters. These 
 passages (Exhibits L and M) exhibiting the defects of our asylum 
 system in the entire State, the deception which was practised on Dr. 
 Bucknill by the Superintendent of the Utica A sylum with regard to 
 restraint, and the discreditable condition of the city asylums of the 
 metropolis of this country, more than justify in themselves the lan- 
 guage and pertinency of the petition, sneered at by the Senate 
 Committee. 
 
 Now as to the manner of proceeding adopted by the Senate Com- 
 mittee, a few words may not be out of place at this point. Taking 
 the Senate Committee's Report as a whole, and as it stands, it will 
 strike every- experienced and reflecting reader as a "bogus" Report. 
 The following is evident from a mere perusal of this Report : 
 
 1st. That it was not the intention of this Senate Committee to hear 
 the real facts of the case. 2d. That it was their deliberate intent to ex^ 
 elude all testimony in i-elationto the fundamental points of the petition, 
 and to narrov/ down the exhibition of evidence to the personal quarrels,, 
 or collisions, which were alleged (Exhibit N) to have taken place be- 
 tween the petitionei's and the superintendents.' 3d. That most of the 
 witnesses were examined precisely on those points, which any prompt- 
 
 ' "While the Committee of the New York Neurological Society considers it 
 entirely foreign to the subject at issue whether or no one or more of its mem- 
 bers have had personal differences with superintendents, it would call atten- 
 tion to the fact that such differences have occurred after, not before, the agita- 
 tion of the subject of asylum reform. 
 
 2 
 
u 
 
 ing of the Senate Committee would have informed them those witnesses 
 were least acquainted with, while they carefully avoided examining 
 them on those subjects with which they were supposed to be reasonably 
 familiar. 4th. That the examination of the petitioners was cari-ied on 
 in a quibbling manner, such as characterized the cross-examination of 
 witnesses by certain persons popularly known as pettifoggers in our 
 police courts, when these were at their worst. For specimens of unwar- 
 rantable and ungentlemanly language, we refer to the bottom of page 
 43, Sen. Com. Rep. ; for irrelevant questions, to page 44, line 27 ; for 
 questions based on false assumptions, to page 33, lines 23 and 31 ; also 
 to page 27, line 10. Regarding the assumptions on which the latter 
 questions were founded, a letter (Exhibit 0) from the superintendent, 
 whose verbal testimony was unhesitatingly accepted by the Senate Com- 
 mittee as a basis for such assumption, is herewith appended. This sin- 
 gle document shows that the threats made against those signing the 
 petition were not empty threats, and it also shows that the charge 
 which this superintendent made against one of your committee, namely, 
 that the latter had represented the petition as serving low, personal 
 ends, this superintendent could not have had any grounds for believ- 
 ing to be true when he made it. 5th. It is evident that unimpeacha- 
 ble documentary evidence was excluded^ although freely used against 
 the petitioners. 6th. That recourse was had to trickery (not to use a 
 stronger term) in presenting a so-called " anonymous letter from Dr. 
 Kiernan," not as every right-thinking person would assume on the 
 occasion when Dr. Kiernan was examined (Exhibit P), but when 
 Dr. Morton was. This document, which Dr. Kiernan does not hesi- 
 tate to state, whether fabricated or not by the persons exhibiting it, 
 was the basis of groundless assumption, was never shown him, nay, 
 was not even mentioned on the occasion of his examination. 
 Doubtless, the Senate Committee anticipated that in this case its 
 bogus character might have been exposed. This document was not 
 exhibited to any member of your committee, or to any one, while 
 members of your committee were being examined. We refer to an 
 affidavit (Exhibit Q) of Dr. Morton's to prove this, and to illustrate 
 a procedure of the Senate Committee, which it would be difficult to 
 characterize. 
 
 Instead of first calling for evidence from the petitioners, in order 
 to see what grounds existed for investigating the subject of asylum 
 management in this State, the Senate Committee called on the trus- 
 tees and superintendents of asylums, and the Commissioner of Lu- 
 nacy. That thus they collected some of the material for the cross- 
 
i§ 
 
 examination of the petitioners which followed, and also learned what 
 questions it would be wise to avoid asking, is evident. 
 
 At this stage of the so-called investigation another disingenuous act 
 of the Senate Committee is manifested. On the first day, when the 
 superintendents, trustees, and managers of asykims were " examined," 
 " Chairman " Goebel is represented as stating that some thirty or 
 forty petitioners had been called on to appear; he is then represented 
 as saying : " If there are any persons here who wish to appear, we are 
 ready to hear them." 
 
 " No one rising, Senator Goodwin said, etc. : " This makes it ap- 
 pear as if the prominent signers of the petition had been summoned 
 to come, but had either refused or been afraid to do so," Your 
 committee has been unable to discover a single petitioner who was 
 invited to appear on the 6th, and looks upon this part of the report 
 as a designed misrepresentation. 
 
 Even the President of the Board of Managers of the Utica Asylum, 
 Mr. Campbell, although certainly not prejudiced in favor o( the peti- 
 tioners, could not refrain from remarking that the examination of 
 the asylum representatives before the petitioners were summoned 
 was improper and premature. In saying this he must have had some 
 grounds for believing that the petitioners had not been yet asked to 
 appear. 
 
 The first party examined at any length is the Commissioner in 
 Lunacy, who argues quite elaborately against the necessity of an in- 
 vestigation. He opens as follows : 
 
 " It seems unnecessary to say, at the outset, that when a petition is 
 presented to a law-making body, asking for relief, it should state some 
 grievance for which there is no existing remedy, either under the com- 
 mon or the statute law of the State. So long, therefore, as laws can 
 he formed to redress alleged wrongs, there is no proper ground upon 
 which the Legislature can intervene " ' (page 7, Sen. Com. Rep.), 
 
 Against this we submit that it is precisely because there are no 
 effective remedies against abuse, in other words, that the State 
 Board of Charities has not the power, and the Commissioner of 
 Lunacy neither the will, the ability, nor the power to redress 
 wrongs, that the Committee on Asylum Abuses of the New York 
 Neurological Society based its complaint (Exhibits E, and S). 
 
 And it is precisely because laws can he formed to redress alleged 
 wrongs that the same committee appealed to the Senate in order to 
 
 ' Italics our own. 
 
20 
 
 procure an investigation which might not only test the truth of the 
 allegations of said petition, but also suggest legal safety-guards against 
 the occurrences of abuse complained of in the same. 
 
 Again (page 8, Sen. Com. Rep.), the Commissioner in Lunacy states 
 the annual asylum reports to be j97'ima facie evidence of their work- 
 ings. This statement is as lucid and correct as most other state- 
 ments of this official (Exhibits T and TJ). Suppose that a defaulting 
 bank cashier were to assert that his garbled and falsified accounts 
 were prima facie evidence of the workings of the bank, and rendered 
 an investigation of the safe-contents superfluous, what would the de- 
 positors say ? This Commissioner in Lunacy, who has neglected the 
 duties of his office to an almost criminal degree, has every reason to 
 rest satisfied with the present defective and irresponsible state of 
 things. It is a question, however, whether the citizens of this State 
 propose to endure it much longer ! 
 
 As regards the statement of the commissioner, that the language 
 of the petition is " indefinite, diffuse, and repetitious," we will con- 
 tent ourselves with referring the reader to the petition on the one 
 hand, as well as to some specimens of the definite, non-difi"use, and 
 non-" repetitious " language employed by the Commissioner in Lunacy 
 in his official documents on the other (Exhibit T). 
 
 The commissioner next objects to the statement of your com- 
 mittee that asylums are more or less secluded from public scrutiny. 
 He refers to the number of visitors shown through tlie asylums of 
 this State in rebuttal. Without dilating on the notorious fact that 
 these visitors pass through a few " show " wards in a hurried man- 
 ner, and that relatives, if permitted to see a violent patient (which 
 is rarely the case), do not see him in his ward but in some other 
 room, we shall content ourselves with proposing the following prob- 
 lem to the impartial reader : 
 
 If asylums can he so rigidly secluded from the scrutiny of the 
 Commissioner in Lunacy, an officer endowed vnth full power to ex- 
 amine every part of every asylum, that he fails to discover under- 
 ground cells v^orthy of the worst days of bedlam in one (Exhibit R), 
 of vermin svxirTning through the wards, and pistol halls in the bodies 
 of patients, fired into them by the 3fedical Superintendent, in another 
 (Exhibit S), and of undergraduate physicians in a third (Exhibit 
 F), how rigidly can their worst features be concealed from the scruti- 
 ny of the casual visitor' P 
 
 With this question we can afford to leave that subject. 
 
 The qommissioner next resorts to the same quibble already utilized 
 
21 
 
 by the Senate Committee in disposing of the question of restraint 
 records. He asserts that such records are kept in all Slate asylums. 
 He well knew that this statement would have been false if made 
 with regard to all asylums of the State, to which the petition dis- 
 tinctly referred. The records of his own ofl&cial investigation of the 
 Bloomingdale Asylum showed that in at least one — and that the 
 largest private asylum — no such records were kept. Your committee 
 questions whether such records were kept in all the State asylums 
 even, before the agitation of the subject. 
 
 Another statement of the commissioner (page 10), relating to 
 night visits, is simply laughable. It shows his unwillingness to per- 
 form his duty, or his inability to carry it out properly — perhaps 
 both. At all events, this statement contains one of the few direct 
 answers to the questions of our petition. It shows, beyond the pos- 
 sibility of quibbling, that the commissioner never attempted to 
 make night visits in our State asylums, as far as his recollection 
 goes, and does not at present make night visits in any asylum of 
 the State. In England and Scotland night visits are made, with the 
 best results as regards management, and not a single bad result as 
 regards the patients. 
 
 In reply to the question on the same page, as to his medical 
 abilities, the Commissioner in Lunacy evades the issue by leaving 
 the matter with the Governor who appointed and the Senate which 
 confii-med him. 
 
 Among the statements made by the Superintendents, in rebuttal 
 of the allegations of the petition, we find a very characteristic one 
 on page 13 (Sen. Com. Rep.). Here Dr. Nichols states that the 
 superintendents of the State of New York are ajt least as good as 
 those of any other State. Now, your committee precisely holds that 
 the entire average of American asylum superintendents is, scientifi- 
 cally speaking, a low one. We limited our charges to those of this 
 State merely because, in petitioning a legislative body of this State, 
 it would have been absurd for us to speak of asylums outside of the 
 State limits. 
 
 In concluding this prefatory portion of the report, your commit- . 
 tee would subjoin a few remarks on the manner in which the major- 
 ity of the superintendents acted on the occasion of our petition. 
 
 It is a notorious fact that the superintendent present at the read- 
 ing of the paper in which the petition partly had its origin, although 
 repeatedly called on by the then President of the New York Neu- 
 rological Society, did not venture to discuss the subject before a med- 
 
22 
 
 ical audience. It is equally unquestionable that not one of the 
 publications ' criticising the medical and administrative management 
 of our asylums, although published in the leading special medical 
 journals of this country, scattered widely in the shape of reprints, 
 and endorsed in the main by eminent transatlantic and cisatlantic 
 journals, has been answered. Nor has even an attempt at an answer 
 been made save in the way of a pei-sonal attack. 
 
 The representatives of the asylum circle, on the appearance of the 
 petition, instead of courting an investigation, resorted to every expe- 
 dient that could be devised to check it. Probably on no other occa- 
 sion have there been made such systematic and persistent attempts 
 to intimidate signers of a petition, and to defame, or misrepresent, 
 its originators, * and there is no one element in the case so regrettable 
 as that in the Senate Committee on Public Health these men found 
 the necessary support. 
 
 ' The following appearing prior to the examination (?) by the Senate 
 Committee : 1. " Governmental Supervision of the Insane," Mslj 1, 1875, by 
 H. B. Wilbur, M.D. 2. " Buildings for the Insane," 1877 (read before the Sa- 
 ratoga Conference of Charities), by H. B. Wilbur, M.D. 3. " Extracts from the 
 Twentieth Annual Report of Commissioners of Lunacy of Scotland, for the 
 year 1877," with an introduction by H. B. Wilbur, M.D. (no date). 4. ''Man- 
 agement of the Insane in Great Britain," by H. B. Wilbur, M.D., 1877. 5. "Re- 
 form in Scientific Psychiatry," Ain. Journal of Mental and Nervous Diseases, 
 April, 1878, E. C. Spitzka, M.D. ; read before the New York Neurological So- 
 ciety, March 4, 1878. (i. ' ' Merits and Motives of the Movement for Asylum 
 Reform," E. C. Spitzka, M.D. ; reprinted from Journal of Mental and Nervous 
 Diseases, October, 1878. 7. "The Non-Asylum Treatment of the Insane'' 
 (read, by mvitation, before the Medical Society of the State of New York, and 
 reprinted from the Transactions), by Wm. A. Hammond, M.D., 1879. The fol- 
 lowing have appeared since : 1. " The Construction, Organization, and Equip- 
 ment of Hospitals for the Insane," by W. A. Hammond, M.D.; read before the 
 Connecticut Medical Society, May 29, 1879. 2. Lunacy Reform : I. " Histori- 
 cal Considerations," Archives of Med. , Oct. , 1879, E. C. Seguin, M.D. 3. Lun- 
 acy Reform : II. "Insufficiency of the Medical Staffs of Asylums," Ibid., Dec, 
 1879, E. C. Seguin. M.D. 
 
 =■ Thus Dr. Carlos A. Macdonald states (p. 16, S. C. R.) : " I met Dr. Wil- 
 lard Parker not long since, and in conversation with him about it (the peti- 
 tion; note of committee), he said that he had not signed a petition making 
 such allegations ; having a copy of the petition, Dr. Wey, of Elmira, read it 
 to him, and then he said, "I never signed that jjetition " (Exhibit V.). 
 The same superintendent states, somewhat in conflict with the assertions of 
 the Commissioner in Lunacy, that the latter has made night inspections at his 
 asylum. No statement of bad results is made by Dr. Carlos A. Macdonald, 
 and the question arises why were they not made elsewhere, or if the commis- 
 sioner had reason to anticipate bad results, why did he make them at all. 
 
23 
 
 Your committee does not find it necessary to refer to the fact 
 that these strictures do not apply to all the superintendents of the 
 State, or to all the medical officers of asylums. Nor did the original 
 petition, or any of its signers, who wei-e present at Albany, say any- 
 thing that could be so construed. In fact frequent occasion was 
 taken to insist that the charges were not personal, and that such as 
 involved the capability of individuals were not general, as a perusal 
 of the Senate Committee's Report will show. It is merely iu justice 
 to the one superintendent, who gave a fair and unbiassed testimony, 
 to mention the fact that Dr. Cleaveland fearlessly acknowledged the 
 crib to be an injurious appliance in many cases, that he had discon- 
 tinued its use, and that the Commissioner in Limacy, on some occa- 
 sions at least, did not visit his asylum without warning. 
 
 The position advocated by the unjustly and coarsely maligned 
 petition is a strong and unimpregnable one. Already its influence 
 is felt throughout the State. After its appearance, and in conse- 
 quence of that appearance, Consulting Boards have been appointed 
 for one State (Poughkeepsie), and two County Asylums, instruments 
 for scientific research been purchased by the Superintendent of one 
 State Asylum and by the Commissioners of Charities and Correction 
 for the two asylums under their charge. The Utica crib has had its 
 essential portion (the grated lid) removed at another;^ and with re- 
 gard to this one instrument of restraint at least, it can be safely pre- 
 dicted that before long, in the State of New York, the Utica crib 
 will have had its day. 
 
 Even in those asylums whose condition was most questionable, 
 prior to the appearance of the petition, many changes are being 
 slowly made for the better, possibly in anticipation of a bona fide 
 investigation which may occur under the auspices of a more sincere 
 legislative inquiry, or the force of a healthy and properly enlightened 
 public opinion. 
 
 Whatever the motive of those making these reforms, whether the 
 result of honest conviction, or of fear, and however persistent and 
 unscrupulous the efforts made by some to rob the New York Neuro- 
 logical Society of the credit it deserves, namely, of having directly 
 or indirectly caused these reforms to be instituted, this Society, al- 
 though temporarily interrupted in its main object through the coali- 
 
 ' Ward's Island. The local visiting Committee of the State Charities Aid 
 Association having strongly condemned it subsequent to the New York Neu- 
 rological Society's petition. 
 
24 • 
 
 tion of elements of a questionable character, points with some satis- 
 faction to the good work already accomplished. It accepts this as 
 the augury of a more thorough and lasting reform in the near future, 
 and as a justification of a further continuance in its labors, 
 
 T. A. McBride, M.D., Chairman. 
 Edward C. Spitzka, M.D. 
 Ed. C. Harwood, M.D. 
 William J. Morton, M.D. 
 E. C. Seguin, M.D. 
 Landon Carter Gray, M.D. 
 William A. Hammond, M.D. 
 
 Committee on Asylum Abuses of the 
 New York Neurological Society. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 State op New York, 
 CIty anb County op New York, 
 
 EXHIBIT A. (Referred to, p. 5.) 
 
 Edward Constant Seguin, a resident of New York City, being duly sworn, 
 deposeth : 
 
 That one evening in the month of December, 1878, he called at the Presi- 
 dent's house, Columbia College, corner of Fourth Avenue and Forty-ninth 
 Street, and there saw Dr. F. A. P. Barnard, President of Columbia College. 
 
 Deponent bore with him a copy of a petition emanating from the New 
 York Neurological Society, addressed to the State Legislature, and praying 
 for a strict inquiry into the management of all institutions for the care of the 
 insane in the State of New York. That Dr. Barnard stated (in the hall of the 
 house) that he had friends with him, with whom he was closely engaged, and 
 could not spare the time to speak with deponent. Deponent then simply 
 stated the object and origin of the petition ; he did not in any manner urge 
 Dr. Barnard to sign the document, but asked him to take it, read it at his 
 leisure, and sign it if he approved its object. Dr. Barnard did take the peti- 
 tion from deponent, kept it in his possession three, if not four days, and re- 
 turned it to deponent with his signature appended, and with a note. This 
 note, unfortunately, has been lost, but to the best of deponent's recollection it 
 expressed the fact of the signature and some reservations as to certain points 
 in the petition. 
 
 Deponent further avers that Dr. Barnard's first hasty denial of the truthful- 
 ness of his signature (in a letter to Hon. Hamilton Fish, Junior, then a mem- 
 ber of the Legislature), and his subsequent letters to the Committee on Public 
 Health (Mr. Goebel, Chairman), making the statement that he did not remem- 
 ber the acts of reading and signing the petition, and conveying the impression 
 that if he had signed the document it was under misapprehension, and at the 
 solicitation of deponent; that all these statements, which have been made 
 very public^ were not, with the exception of the mere matter of recollection, 
 true in spirit or in fact. 
 
 Deponent repeats, in the most solemn manner, that Dr. Barnard did sign the 
 petition, signed it after keeping it three days at least, and that he (deponent) 
 did not have an opportunity to urge Dr. Barnard to sign the document. In- 
 
26 
 
 deed, deponent well knew tliat a man of Dr. Barnard's intellectual calibre would 
 not sign an important document at any one's solicitation witliout properly 
 reading and comprehending it. 
 
 [Signed] E. C. Sksuin. 
 
 Sworn and subscribed to before ) 
 me this 20th of December, 1879, f 
 
 E. D. Grakt, 
 
 Notary Public^ New York Go. 
 
 EXHIBIT B.' (Referred to, p! 6.) 
 
 State of New Yoek, Senate Chamber, 
 Albany, April 26, 1879. 
 
 Dear Sir : — On the 20tli of March a petition was presented to the Legis- 
 lature, in which charges of mal-administration are made against the various 
 lunatic asylums of the State, and against the State Commissioner in Lunacy. 
 This petition was referred to the Committee on Public Health. Your name 
 is appended to the petition. The committee are ready to examine yon on the 
 matter, and request that you will appear before them on the eighth day of 
 May, at three o'clock, to state what personal knowledge you have of asylums 
 and of the manner in which the State Commissioner in Lunacy has discharged 
 his duties, and the' facts on which you have made the allegations set forth in 
 the petition. The committee request an early reply. 
 
 ; Yery truly yours, 
 
 L. S. GOEBEL, 
 A. J. GrOODWIN, 
 
 Committee on Public Health. 
 Edward C. Spitzka, M.D. 
 
 EXHIBIT C.2 (Referred to, p. 10.) 
 
 {From the stenograjphic report of the evidence taken before the State Com- 
 mifssioner in Lunacy in the case of Mrs. Norton against the Blooming dale 
 Asylum.'] 
 
 Mrs. Cochrane says she saw Jane Eaton and Jane Gordon, nurses in 
 
 Bloomingdale, forcibly feeding a patient. They had a wooden wedge which 
 
 they put into her mouth, and then they fed her with a spoon. (Fol. 93.) 
 
 Dr. Choate says it is done by attendants in asylums. (Fol. 119.) 
 
 Jane Eaton, a nurse, puts on the camisole without instructions from the 
 
 physician. (Fol. 125.) Was told to use force in feeding. (Fol. 127.) Used 
 
 ' Attention is called to the words, "personal knowledge." and to the in- 
 ference which the Senate Committee seems to have made, that the signers of 
 the petition were not justified in questioning the efficiency of the Commissioner 
 in Lunacy unless they had accompanied that officer on histoars of inspection; 
 truly a demand characteristic of this Senate Committee. — Note of Committee. 
 
 - Testimony excluded by Senate Committee. 
 
a spoon as a wedge to force open the mouth. " The most difficult person I 
 ever had to feed." (Fol. 183. ) 
 
 The doctor was never present when she was fed. (Fol. 133. ) 
 The nurse does not always report to the physician when she uses the 
 camisole. Has seen blood come from Mrs. N 's mouth when she was feed- 
 ing her. (Fol. 138.) 
 
 Was taken naked from her room to the bath-room. (Fol. 146.) 
 
 The doctor says forcible feeding is delegated to an attendant. (Fol. 150. ; 
 
 EXHIBIT D. (Referred to, p. 11.) 
 
 Office of Wir. C. Browning & Co. , 
 
 Wholesale Clothiers, 502 and 504 Broadway, 
 New York, December 27, 1879. 
 
 Dr. Edward C. Harwood, 44 West Forty-ninth Street, City : 
 
 Dear Sir — About one year since you presented to me a memorial and 
 petition, asking my signature to same, to be sent to the Legislature of State of 
 New York, petitioning that body to appoint a committee to investigate the 
 Lunatic Asylums of this State. I read the m.emorial myself and signed 
 same, and then presented same to Wm. C. Browning, head of the firm of 
 W. C. Browning & Co., Broadway, and told him, as near as I could re- 
 member, what said memorial was for. 
 
 He signed same. I then went through the house and obtained between 
 fifty and sixty signatures to same, telling each person the purport of the me- 
 morial and what it was for. 
 
 A short time since I saw a report, purporting as coming from that ' Com- 
 mittee, setting things in a very different light from the facts that I have 
 stated in regard to the signatures obtained in said house. 
 
 I also have just read again a copy of the memorial which Mr. Brown- 
 ing and myself signed, and find it same as first. My signature, Mr. Wm. 
 C. Browning'' s, and all tlie balance in house were obtained by myself (Mr. Wm. 
 C. Browning was my employer), and I had a gentleman with me who was 
 present all the time, and in conclusion would say you are at liberty to pub- 
 lish this if you wish. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 A. R. Yan Ness. 
 
 EXHIBIT E. (Referred to, p. 11.) 
 
 Office of W>i. C. Browning & Co. , 
 
 Wlwlesale Clothiers, 502 and 504 Broadway, 
 
 New York, December 30, 1874. 
 
 Dr. Ed. C. Harwood : 
 
 My Dear Sir — About a year since I signed a petition, at the request of 
 Mr. A. R. Van Ness, asking the Legislature to appoiut a committee to in- 
 vestigate our lunatic asylums. 
 
 ' See Report of Committee on Public Health, page 48. 
 
28 
 
 Some time after this was done a Dr McDonald' called to see me, and 
 said he wanted to know what abuses I knew existed in the lunatic asylum. 
 I told him I did not know of any. He said I had signed a petition which 
 set forth that from my own personal knowledge 1 knew abuses existed. I re- 
 plied that if such was the case it was a mistake, as I did not know of such 
 a fact, nor did I think I had signed such a petition ; but I had signed a 
 petition at the request of a friend who told me such abuses did exist, ask- 
 ing for a committee to be appointed to investigate into the management of 
 said asylums. 
 
 He further asked me if I thought the other parties in my employ who 
 had signed the petition knew of their own personal knowledge that such 
 abuses existed. I replied they signed the same petition and under the same 
 circumstances that I did. Trusting this will explain the matter, I am 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 W. C. BKOWNiNa. 
 
 ^ote to above : — With reference to this reported statement of Dr. Blac- 
 donald I would say that it was wholly unjustifiable, as nowhere in the 
 petition is it stated that the signers know any of the facts involved of 
 their own personal knowledge. 
 
 Ed. C. Hakwood, M.D, 
 
 EXHIBIT F. (Referred to, p. 14.) 
 
 Department of Public Charities and Correction. 
 Commissioner's Office, No. 66 Third Avenue, 
 New York, December 17, 1879. 
 
 E. C. Seguin, M.D. : 
 
 Sir — In reply to your favor of 1st inst., I beg to state that the follow- 
 ing gentlemen were undergraduates when appointed assistant physicians : 
 C. N. Gorgas, John Bowen, Thomas J. Naylor, Emil Mayer, at Lunatic 
 Asylum, BlackwelPs Island; and W. L. Harriman, N. L. Atkinson, H. V. 
 Day, W. Washburn, L. F. Pitkin, at Insane Asylum, Ward's Island. 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 [Signed] Joshua Phillips, 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 The facts in the above letter were obtained from Dr. A. E. Macdonald 
 by the Commissioners. I have seen Dr. Macdonald's report to the Commis- 
 sioners giving these names. The appointments were made between 1876 and 
 1878. 
 
 E. C. Seguin, M.D. 
 
 'A reference to page 48 of the Senate Committee's Renort will show 
 that this name is erroneously spelled ; it should be Dr. Macdonald (the 
 Superintendent of the Ward's island Asylum). — livte of iSub- Committee. 
 
EXHIBIT G. (Referred to, p. 29.) 
 
 From an Editorial of the Jownal of Mental and Nervous Diseases. Edited 
 by Drs. Jewell and Bannister, of Chicago. April, 1878. 
 
 "But we now have in mind the exceptionally high requirements implied in 
 the case of those charged with the medical care of the insane, and per contra 
 the exceptionally low state of truly scientific psychiatry in this country. 
 There can be no possible doubt that too little zeal on behalf of the scientific 
 a.spect of this noble department of medicine has been shown by American 
 alieniflta as a body." 
 
 EXHIBIT H. (Referred to, p. 29.) 
 
 From same Journal. Editorial, July, 1879. 
 
 *' We have something more than a fear that asylums as a whole will not 
 bear a close scientific and business scrutiny. A long time since we called 
 attention to the enormous expense of building and maintaining our asylums. 
 In particularizing, we gave a review of figures from its own reports of the 
 financial management of the asylum at Utica, N. Y., which seemed ' then, as 
 it does now, to require explanation. Subsequently the Medical Record called 
 on its chief to' explain his own figures. But to this day no explanation has 
 been publicly made, nor has any apparent heed been given to the matter. 
 People will form their own notions as to the reason or motive for such silence 
 in the face of such a dubious financial showing. And we can, as outsiders, 
 assert that the public has formed opinions as to the motives for withholding 
 the explanation which the case so plainly demands." 
 
 EXHIBIT J. (Referred to, p. 16.) 
 
 From VircTiow-HirscKs Jahresbericht fur das JaTir 1 874. Abtheilung fiir 
 Psychiatrie (von Professor Westphal). Bd. II., Heft 1, p. 108, refer- 
 ring to : "Pathology of Insanity. By John P. Gray, M.D., Superin- 
 tendent of the New York State Lunatic Asylum, from the American 
 Journal of Insanity for July, 1874." 
 
 " Der beneidenswerthe Verfasser kennt ganz genau die histologischen 
 Veranderungen des Gehirns bei Geisteskranken. lUustrirt durch Photogra- 
 phien mikroscopischer Praperate, in denen Referent wenigstens so gut wie 
 gar nichts von dem sieht was sie zeigen soUen." '^ 
 
 ^ Amply verified since by the revelations made to Comptroller Olcott ; see 
 the latter's report (Exhibit Z). 
 
 " The irony in the first part can hardly be rendered in the translation : 
 *' The enviable author knows, with complete accuracy, the histological changes 
 of the brain of the insane — illustrated by microphotographs, in which the 
 reviewer can, to say the least, see as little as noftiing of that which they are 
 intended to show." These are the same microphotographs which have been 
 stated to exhibit artificial precipitates such as can be produced by the action of 
 absolute alcohol on healthy human and animal brains. — Note of SSuh- Comm ittee- 
 
30 
 
 EXHIBIT K. (Eef erred to, p. 16.) 
 
 Frmi the Journal of Mental Scien e {the organ of the British Medico-Psycholo- 
 gical /Society), July, 1878. Editorial notice. 
 
 " Under the above title, Dr. Spitzka publishes an address to the New York 
 Neurol ogicrJ Society, iu the April number of the Journal of Mental and Nerv- 
 ous Diseases^ in which he criticises most severely, many people would say in- 
 temperately, the work of American asylum physicians, and the policy of the 
 American Association uf Asylum Superintendents. There is much truth, 
 however, in what Dr. Spitzka says, and we think our American brethren 
 would do well to take heed to this and many other indications that a more 
 liberal and open mode of conducting their asylums, and managing their asso- 
 ciation, is requii-ed For example, we have never sympathized with 
 
 the exclusive and unscientific spirit which shuts out assistant medical ofiicers 
 of asylums from the privilege of membership. We hold it to be a mistake in 
 policy, a misfortune in practice, and unjustifiable on any ground. Dr. 
 Spitzka's article is also a plea for the appointment of visiting physicians to 
 American asylums, who shall enjoy the position and means of studying disease 
 which the visiting physicians of hospitals enjoy " 
 
 EXHIBIT L. (Referred to, p. 17.) 
 
 From " Bucknill on Asylums in America,'''' p. 38 (referring to the State Asy- 
 lum at Utica). 
 
 " The asylum contains six hundred and fifty patients, and I 
 
 was pleased to find that not one patient was either under restraint or in se- 
 clusion. I observed one young man in a state of great excitement, suffering 
 indeed under the restlessness of the most acute mania. He was under the 
 sole charge of two attendants, who were carefully walking about with him, 
 holding him on each side,^ and I could not refrain from asking Dr. G-ray why 
 he did not order him into mechanical restraint, as it appeared to me just the 
 •'ase in which it would be justifiable, if in any. Dr. Gray replied that he did 
 not use restraint, but I found him indisposed - to talk on the subject, as he 
 admitted that his practice was not in conformity with the opinions of his pro- 
 
 • ' The insincerity of the exhibition to which Dr. Bucknill was treated at 
 Utica is not the only fact illustrated, but it is also shown that the very patients 
 treated with restraint at this asylum, to this day, can be very well treated 
 without. — Note of Committee. 
 
 ' The Committee on Asylum Abuses fully understands the reasons why 
 Dr. Bucknill's informant was indisposed to speak on the subject. They were 
 something widely different from what Dr. Bucknill charitably interpreted 
 them to be. " Embarrassed" would have been, perhaps, the better word. — 
 Note of Committee. 
 
31 
 
 fessional brethren, and he evidently preferred to treat his own patients as he 
 thought best, without opening a blazing question.' As no one was in re- 
 straint in this asylum, neither was there any one in seclusion 
 
 " On a visit to another institution, which I shall not indicate,'-' I was in- 
 troduced to a young man who was described to me as the supreme authority ; 
 his colleagues, engaged in business, leaving almost all the power in his hands. 
 He was Vi politician, in the American sense of the word, which is not compli- 
 mentary, and had begun his official career as night watch in a hospital,' and 
 the institution over which he held sway presented a remarkable contrast to 
 
 that of Utica."* How is it, then, that the insane poor of these 
 
 most important cities are left in a condition which no American, true to 
 his country's honor, can think of, if he knows it, without regret or dissatis- 
 faction ? The explanation which I have heard is that the politics of the cities 
 are more corrupt than those of the States, and tend to the selection of coarser 
 instruments of the popular will ; and, if this be so, the most helpless and 
 heavQy afflicted of their citizens have more to fear from the degradation of 
 authority to its lowest level than any other class, for they have no power in 
 the social scramble." 
 
 EXHIBIT M. (Referred to, p. 17.) 
 
 From same work, p. 65. 
 
 " But unless I am much mistaken, the superintendents of asylums in 
 America have a heavy task before them, which will indeed require a deter- 
 mined effort before they can say that they possess the confidence of the public 
 
 ' Says Dr. Wilbur ("Management of the Insane in Great Britain ") : " On 
 the contrary. Dr. Gray has for years been a loud-mouthed opponent of the 
 doctrine, as the pages of the American Journal of Insanity, and the proceed- 
 ings of the American Association of Asylum Superintendents of Insane Asy- 
 lums will show. He has neglected no opportunity to reprobate or ridicule the 
 views of its advocates. He has defended the use of restraining apparatus in 
 his annual reports, and he has freely used it at the asylum under his charge. 
 His favorite method is a crib bedstead, of which he has some thirty or more 
 in his wards ; but he does not hesitate to employ muffs, wristlets, straps, belts, 
 strong waists, and camisoles, as a means of controlling patients, and not alone 
 for surgical reasons It was not strange that Dr. Gray, out of re- 
 spect to the opinion of his distinguished visitor, kept his restraining appa- 
 ratus in the background And patients have been kept in the crib 
 
 bedsteads at Utica for ruonths at a time." 
 
 ^ The Sub-Committee of the New York Neurological Society will do so, 
 however. It is the City Insane Asylum, on Ward's Island, that is reierred to. 
 
 ^ It may be of interest to the reader to know that the facts are exactly 
 as stated by Dr. Bucknill. The same per=^on described above is still a com- 
 missioner, and was at one time the President of the Commission. —i^To^e of 
 Sub- Co^nmittee. 
 
 ■* This cannot be remotely, even, construed as showing superiority in 
 medical management, but only of a greater amount of financial resources. 
 We must take into account, too, the systematic deception practised on Dr. 
 Bucknill. — Note of Committee. 
 
32 
 
 in the same degree to which of late years it has been extended in England to 
 the management of our county asylums and hospitals for the insane. With 
 us the management of our asylums is open and patent ; abuses occur, as they 
 will occur, everywhere ; but they are remedied, and, if need be, punished 
 in the most public manner, and the records of them are displayed to the 
 eyes of the world. It is thus that the American journals, in replying to The 
 LanceCs leading article on American asylums, have been able to cite so many 
 instances of disaster in our asylum work. But where shall we look* for any 
 record of wrong-doing or misfortune, which, in the nature of things, must 
 take place in American asylums also ? So far as I know it does not exist. 
 There is in America no central authority to prosecute and punish such" 
 wrong, and no public record of circumstances to lament and avoid. 
 
 ' ' Putting altogether out of consideration opinions and sentiments which 
 were expressed to me privately, few things struck me more forcibly in 
 America than the painful sensibility to public opinion wbich was manifested 
 both at the conclave of medical superintendents, which I had the great 
 pleasure to attend, and in the published transactions of that held last year. 
 I think I may truly say that nothing of the kind exists with us, and few 
 things would surprise me more than to hear a debate at one of the annual 
 meetings of our Medico-Psychological Association upon the necessity of pre- 
 venting or curtailing the transmission of the letters of patients in 
 asylums either to their friends or to public authorities, or a discussion in 
 which it was maintained that the absence on leave or the discharge of un- 
 cured patients was undesirable on account of the accusations and complaints 
 which such persons were liable to make about their treatment ; and, as a final 
 instance of this difiEerence of feeling, I may mention that the Lancet Com- 
 mission, which will be generally welcome to English asylums in proportion to 
 its ability and thorough faithfulness, has been deprecated in the American 
 Jownal of Insanity SiS an "insult to the Commissioners in Lunacy and the 
 medical staff of every English hospital." 
 
 " Pondering these things, and many others with, which I should not 
 be justified in occupying space, I have been able to come to no other con- 
 clusion than that the great stumbling-block of the American superintendents 
 is their most unfortunate and unhappy resistance to the abolition of mechani- 
 cal restraint. I was told everywhere, except at Utica, that this question was 
 settled in America, and that it would be useless and futile to reopen it. I 
 was informed that, after many minor discussions, a great and final discussion 
 of the whole question had taken place in 1874 at Nashville, and that the 
 superintendents had there unanimously decided that the abolition of 
 mechanical restraint was utterly impracticable, and that the statements 
 of the English on the subject were not to be relied on. I was again 
 and again informed that the system of non-restraint had proved quite a 
 failure in England, and that we were rapidly returning to the old practices. 
 As such statements were not very agreeable to me, and especially as I found 
 that ray contradiction could be met by the published opinions of some two 
 or three English superintendents, who, although no prophets in their own 
 country, are eagerly quoted abroad, I resorted to the somewhat vulgar ex- 
 pedient of offering a bet as an expression, or, if you will, metre of my belief. 
 
, . . . The bet was not a thoughtless thing, and it certainly was not considered 
 a rash one ; for although I repeated it both privately and before many superin- 
 tendents at Auburn, it was not accepted, and it certainly stopped the talk 
 about a relapse. My ofifer was a wager of one hundred pounds that any 
 American superintendent should go to England and should have free access 
 to all public asylums there, and that iu a search of one month he would not 
 be able to find one patient therein in any form of mechanical restraint." 
 
 EXHIBIT N. (Referred to, p. 17.) 
 
 State op New York, / . 
 
 City and County of New York, [ • • 
 
 Edward Charles Spitzka, a resident of the City of New York, being duly 
 sworn deposeth : That in regard to the statement of Dr. A. E. Macdonald, 
 published on page thirteen of a document entitled, Report of the Committee 
 on Public Health Relative to Lunatic Asylums, transmitted to the Legislature 
 May twenty-second, 1879, the following is a substantially correct and true 
 account. Shortly after his return from Europe, deponent was enabled — 
 through the kindness and at the invitation of Doctor James G-. Kieman, at 
 that time to all intents and purposes superintending the medical management 
 of the City Asylum for the insane on Ward's Island — to make numerous 
 autopsies on subjects dying with mental disease. These autopsies deponent 
 made from the end of the year 1875 to the beginning of the year 1877, when 
 increasing engagements prevented his attending personally, and such organs as 
 deponent desired were sent to him by several of the assistant physicians. Dur- 
 ing the year 1876 Dr. A. E. Macdonald suggested to deponent that it would be 
 very advantageous to deponent, as well as to the institution under the super- 
 intendency of the said A. E. Macdonald, for deponent to fill the position of 
 " special pathologist " at that institution. Deponent long demurred from 
 taking any steps to obtain what deponent had every reason to consider a per- 
 fectly worthless and empty title, but the said A. E. Macdonald repeatedly 
 pressing deponent to make a formal application, deponent finally consented 
 as a matter of complaisance, and because the said A. E. Macdonald represented 
 to him that with the title of " special pathologist " the deponent would have 
 that right to make post-mortems officially, which at the time he only enjoyed 
 as a matter of privilege. Deponent then obtained two letters of recommen- 
 dation, at Dr. A. E. Macdonald's suggestion, from Drs. Roosa and Janeway, 
 which letters he handed to the said A. E. Macdonald. The precise date de- 
 ponent is unable to recall, not considering the occurrence at that time of 
 enough importance, present or prospective, to make a note- of it. Without 
 taking any further steps, deponent continued making the autopsies at the 
 asylum mentioned, and in the spring or summer of 1876 requested Dr. A. E. 
 Macdonald to consider deponent's application, made at the said A. E. Mac- 
 donald's request as aforesaid, as withdrawn. Deponent's reason for with- 
 drawing was that he had learned that the holding a position at a given asy- 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 lum would debar him from the privilege of committing patients to such an 
 asylum, under the law of the State, Chapter 446, Title 1st, Art, 1-3. The 
 said A. E. Macdonald then requested him to continue utilizing the patholo- 
 gical material of the asylum under his charge, and further asked deponent to 
 furnish brief abstracts of such pathological findings as would fill up his 
 annual reports. This deponent did, and said findings, in several cases, are 
 published in the said A. E. Macdonald's annual asylum reports for the years 
 1875 and 1876, with formal acknowledgments. At the middle of the year 
 1877, deponent declined to make any more autopsies or to receive any more 
 material from the Ward's Island Asylum for the Insane, as he was then en- 
 gaged in preparing a criticism of the asylum system of the United States, as 
 the result of a growing conviction, and did not wish to be placed in an am- 
 biguous position, as deponent would have been placed if he had published 
 strictures based in part on over a hundred thorough personal inspections of 
 the Ward's Island A.sylum, at the time when he made autopsies by favor in 
 said institution. If, therefore, Dr. A. E. Macdonald is correctly represented 
 in stating that deponent was a candidate for a po.'>ition at his asylum, and 
 that deponent "was rejected on my (Dr. A. E. Macdonald's) recommenda- 
 tion," deponent must state most solemnly that this is a gross misrepresenta- 
 tion of deponent's position, because, first, deponent was not a candidate at 
 the time when so "rejected ;" second, that he never was a candidate at any 
 time except in consequence of the urgent and repeated solicitations of the 
 said A. E. Macdonald ; third, that he never could have been induced to per- 
 mit the use of his name as a candidate, and at the said A. E. Macdonald's 
 request, unless he had been assured, as deponent was assured, that his ap- 
 pointment was a foregone conclusion ; and, finally, deponent never knew, nor 
 would he have knowingly permitted the said A. E. Macdonald, or any one 
 else whom deponent could not even remotely regard in the light of a com- 
 petent judge, to pass on his "antecedents and qualifications." as Dr. A. E. 
 Macdonald, on the forty-eighth page of the document alluded to, claims to 
 have done. Deponent asserts aU and every representation regarding depo- 
 nent by the said A. E. Macdonald as an unscrupulous and inexcusable mis- 
 representation of the true facts. The same person might have represented 
 each and every physician in the State of New York as a disappointed apijli- 
 cant for an asylum position on the same grounds as he stated deponent 
 to be such a disappointed applicant, namely, none whatever. Deponent 
 further alleges, that the statement of Dr. Nichols on page twelve of the 
 same document, referring to deponent as making " inquiry in regard to be- 
 coming connected with an institution for the insane is utterly unfounded." 
 Deponent further alleges that his testimony is imperfectly rendered in 
 the Senate Report aforesaid, that the documentary evidence he had with him 
 he was not permitted to exhibit, that he was not permitted to give his 
 evidence properly, and that instead of admitting, as the Senate Committee 
 claims, that he had only visited one, and that a City Asylum, deponent 
 testified to having visited, 1st, the Ward's Island Asylum; 2d, the Flat- 
 bush Asylum ; 3d, the Htnte Emigrant Asylum ; and 4th, the Bloomingdale 
 Asylum, which latter, in company of Drs. McDonald and Goldsmith, he saw 
 v«y thoroughly. The* Dr. McDonald here mentioned is Dr. Wm. H. Mo- 
 
35 
 
 Donald, not to be confounded with the Dr. A. E. Macdonald referred to in 
 other portions of this affidavit. 
 
 E. C. Spitzka, M.D. 
 
 Affirmed to before me this 7th ) 
 day of January, 1880. J 
 
 John H. Timmerman, 
 
 Notary Public, New Fork County. 
 
 EXHIBIT O. (Referred to, p. 18.) 
 
 New York, 130 East Fiftieth Street, 
 December 28, 1879. 
 Dr. T. a. McBride, 
 
 Chairman of Committee on Asylum Abuses of the New York Neurological 
 Society. 
 Dear Doctor : — The accompanying is a letter addressed by Dr. A. E. 
 Macdonald, Superintendent of the Insane Asylum on Ward's Island, to 
 William "W. Strew, M.D. , late Superintendent of the asylum on BlackweU's 
 Island. It is placed at my disposal by Dr. Strew, and I in turn have the 
 honor of placing it at the disposal of the committee of which you are Chair- 
 man. 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 Edward C. Spitzka, M.D. 
 
 Copy of Letter. 
 
 New York City Asylum for Insane, 
 A. E. Macdonald, M.D., Medical Superintendent, 
 New York, September 29, 1879. 
 DeAB Doctor : — I should strongly advise you to have nothing to do with 
 Dr. Smith. 
 
 He was an inefficient assistant here, and I have good reason to believe 
 that, so far from being the innocent signer of the petition, which he claims, 
 he was really active in the endeavor to procure signatures to it. Dr. Pitkin 
 can give you some points about him. 
 
 I hope you wUl preserve this letter, as it may be useful some time. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 A. E. Macdonald. 
 
 .EXHIBIT P. (Referred to, p. 18.) 
 City and County of New York, ss. : 
 
 I, James G. Kiernan, of the City and County of New York, being duly 
 sworn, do depose and say that I never at any time of my life wrote an anony- 
 mous letter to any one ; further, that the exhibit, if made as claimed in the 
 State Senate Committee on Public Health's Report, relative to lunatic asy- 
 lums, of an anonymous letter purporting to come from myself must have been 
 a falsification, if not something worse. 
 
88 
 
 I further depose and say that every signature which I obtained to the 
 petition praying for an investigation into lunatic asylum management in this 
 State was bona fide, and that I either read or explained the main points of 
 the petition to every signer individually, or left the petition in their hands, in 
 order that they might read it themselves. 
 
 I further depose and say that the statement of Dr. A, E. Macdonald, 
 representing myself as deceiving Dr. Charles E. Smith into the belief 
 that the petition would get me an asylum position is utterly false as it 
 is on its face absurd. Dr. Charles R. Smith read the petition, expressed his 
 approbation thereof, and did this in presence of witnesses who can testify as 
 to the truth of my statements. 
 
 I further depose and state that the so-called • ' anonymous letter from Dr. 
 Kiernan " was not exhibited when I was under examination before the Senate 
 Committee on Public Health, nor were any questions asked me relating to it. 
 
 I further depose and say that the exhibit of my testimony, as published 
 in the report of said committee, is mutilated to such an extent as to be unre- 
 cognizable, that such points as were particularly damaging to at least one of 
 the superintendents are entirely omitted, and that when I was proceeding to 
 give detailed evidence, not only of mismanagement, but of criminal neglect 
 occurring in a city asylum with which I had been connected, I was interrupted 
 by Senator Goodwin, who stated that the Committee had heard enough. 
 
 James G. Keernan, M.D. 
 
 Sworn to before me this 23d ) 
 day of December, 1879. f 
 
 John H. Timjmerman, 
 
 Notary Public, New York County. 
 
 EXHIBIT Q. (Referred to, p. 18.) 
 Affidavit. 
 
 On page 33 of the Report of the Committee on Public Health Relative to 
 Lunatic Asylums, No. 64, I find the following testimony and transaction re- 
 corded : " Q. If you understood that Dr. Eaeman had written an anonymous 
 threatening letter to the Ward's Island Superintendent, in reference to this 
 matter of investigation, you would stiU have the same respect for his opin- 
 ions ? A. Any anonymous communication written by a person would serve 
 to weaken my respect for him ; I think I would have a great lack of respect 
 for any man who would write anonymous letters. (Dr. Macdonald offered an 
 anonymous letter by Dr. Kiernan.) Q. Do you know that Dr. Kiernan pub- 
 licly stated that the object he wished to accomplish for himself by this peti- 
 tion was an appointment to an asylum ? A. Any personal motive of that kind 
 would weaken my respect in a man or in his testimony ; I trusted that Dr, 
 Kieman's motives were pure." 
 
 In reference to the above I hereby declare and certify that no anonymous 
 or other letter was shown me at that time, or at any time, nor did I see any 
 such letter in any one's hands, or in the room, or know that Buoh a letter was 
 introduced as a part of the testimony or otherwise. 
 
37 
 
 Furthermore, I am made to say, "I trustee? that Dr. Kicman's motives 
 were pure ; " thus seeming, after seeing or examining such a letter, to change a 
 former opinion, and speak in a condemnatory way of Dr. Kieman. The facts 
 are to the contrary. After listening to several questions, some hypothetically 
 and some explicitly reflecting upon Dr. Kieman, I said, in a general way, and 
 waiving discussion about a question, about which I was not informed, '* I trust 
 Dr. Kiernan's motives are pure ;" thus sustaining, rather than condemning him. 
 
 The above quotation constitutes a serious misrepresentation of my words, 
 and introduces an incident of which I have no knowledge. 
 
 W. J. Morton, M.D., 
 December 16, 1879, 33 E. Thirty-third Street, New York. 
 
 Subscribed to before me this 18th ) 
 day of December, 1879. \ 
 
 James G. McMurrat, 
 
 Notary Public, County of N. Y. 
 
 EXHIBIT K. (Referred to, pp. 19 and 20.) 
 
 From the address of Senator McCarthy before the New Tork State Senate. — 
 
 Argiis, March 7, 1879. 
 
 "And since his appointment to this ofl&ce he has regularly visited the County 
 Insane Asylum of Onondaga County, and this last year he made a report, 
 dated May 15, to the State Board of Charities, in which he says : " The in- 
 stitution is in excellent order, and the patients well cared for and comforta- 
 ble, a physician visits daily, and there are hired attendants, both male and 
 female." 
 
 " Some time during August or September last one or two members of the 
 State Board of Charities visited the institution, and finding a portion of it in 
 a very bad condition, called upon the Board of Supervisors to appoint a com- 
 mittee to examine into the matter. Such committee, consisting of three Super' 
 visors, together with Messrs. Letchworth and Hoyt, President and Secretary 
 of the State Board of Charities, visited this asylum and made the following 
 report: ' 
 '•'■ ^ To the Honorable Board of Supervisors of Onondaga County : 
 
 " ' Gentlemen — In response to the resolution of your Board of Decem- 
 ber 4, 1878, relating to the department for the insane of the Onondaga County 
 Poor House, the undersigned, a committee of the State Board of Charities, 
 and a committee of your Board, submitted this preliminary report. 
 
 ' ' ' The committee have carefully examined the Poor House and the depart- 
 ment for the insane, and have also taken considerable testimony bearing on 
 the subject. We find the building for the insane badly arranged for the pur- 
 pose, with many dark, damp, and unventilated rooms ; that the whole estab- 
 
 ' This documentary evidence was in the hands of one of the petitioners, 
 and inasmuch as Messrs. Goodwin and Goebel were acquainted with it their 
 voting against Senator McCarthy's resolution shows how our other evidence 
 would have been treated. — Note of Committee. 
 
38' 
 
 lishment is greatly crowded ; and that there is a lack of proper attendants. 
 The Committee, impressed with the urgent necessity for immediate relief, 
 recommend as follows : 
 
 * ' '2d. — As a temporary expedient the dungeons in both asylum buildings 
 should be immediately demolished 
 
 " ' 3d. — In view of the facts thus far developed by the inquiry, the commit- 
 tees are of the opinion that no expenditure, looking to the 'permanent occu- 
 pancy of these buildings for the care of the insane^ is desirable 
 
 All of which is respectfully submitted. 
 
 W. P. LeTCHWOBTH, ) /-Vv,«*»,V//.^/>y/7,., 
 
 President of the State Board of Charities. ( ^^7/" # j 
 Chas. S. Hoyt, •' \ ffAAZ 
 
 Secretary of the State Board of Charities. ) ^J O/ianties. 
 
 H. W. Clarke, ) Committee of the 
 W. H. H. Gere, S Board of Su- 
 E. V. King. ) pervisors.'' 
 
 " ' A committee of the Board of Supervisors on County Buildings, after visitj 
 ■ ing the Poor House, next visited the Asylum for Insane Persons, and an editor 
 of one of the Syracuse daily papers, who accompanied them, wrote as follows : 
 ' ' ' They next visited the Asylum for Insane Persons. They passed through 
 the various wards and halls and found nothing that was of a very objection- 
 able nature. After passing through the upper parts of the building they con- 
 tinued their tour of investigation, and descended into a sort of sub-cellar of 
 the building. Here a sight met their gaze, and a state of affairs was discovered 
 that they were utterly unprepared fm^ and that utterly astounded them. In 
 this cellar, which was as dark as night, with a stray gleam of light occasionally 
 struggling through crevices and slight openings, were found fivepens, constructed 
 of heavy plank, with plank doors that had a small aperture in the centre. 
 The doors were unlocked and opened in obedience to the committee's demand. 
 The rays of their lanterns were thrown into the interior , and there, crouched in 
 straw upon the floor, or grouped shuddering in the farthest corners, were naked 
 and half -clad human beings. The stench that arose from these dungeons was 
 of the most repulsive and sickening character, and the atmosphere was of the 
 most stifling nature. There was n/> light ^ no ventilation and no sanitary con- 
 veniences.'' " 
 
 EXHIBIT S. (Referred to pp. 19 and 20.) 
 
 [Extract from a pamphlet entitled Management of the Insane in Great Britain, 
 by H. B. Wilbur, M. D. , Superintendent of the State Asylum for Idiots, 
 Syracuse, N. Y., embodying quotations from the official reports of the 
 Priso7i Commission for 187Q .] 
 
 There is a Commissioner in Lunacy in this State, whose duty "it is to ex- 
 amine into and report annually to the Legislature the condition of the 
 insane and the management and conduct of the asylums, public and 
 
39 
 
 private, and other institutions for their care and treatment." To quote 
 from his last annual report, " The State Commissioner of Lunacy visits 
 when and where he pleases, often at night as well as by day." His custom 
 is, however, to give fair notice of his coming, and he becomes the guest of 
 the medical officers. 
 
 In his report for 1875 he gave an unqualified indorsement of all the 
 State asylums for the insane. He had visited from time to time the Asylum 
 for Insane Convicts afc Auburn, and he commended the management of that 
 directly and by implication. It occurred, however, that the " Prison Com- 
 mission" of last year made an investigation of the management of that 
 establishment, and I quote from the testimony ' taken in regard to it. 
 
 Dr. McDonald,'^ who was appointed Superintendent in the spring of 
 1876, thus testified: 
 
 ''I found the institution in a decidedly unsanitary condition; I think 
 I never saw its equal in that respect, presenting an appearance of 
 squalor and destitution beyond anything I have ever seen in any pauper es- 
 tablishment or poor-house;" "the bath-rooms and water-closets were a 
 sbench to the nostrils ; " " the beds literally swarmed with bugs ; " " the food 
 badly cooked and badly served ; three-fourths of the patients were suffering 
 from dyspepsia and bad diet; " 3 " the bread was sour, the flour being of an 
 inferior quality ; the cells dingy and dirty ;" " no provision for extra diet for 
 the sick or feeble was made, except a weak tea ;" " there were very few of 
 the modem remedies used in asylums ; about the only one was hydrate of 
 chloral. " 
 
 As to punishments. — ' ' Punishments were the order of the day when I 
 came there ; I have a patient there to-day who has a pistol-ball in his arm, 
 that was shot in by my predecessor, and another in his hip ; I found one 
 patient with handcuffs upon his hands fastened behind him; I am told 
 patients were paddled ; one of my present attendants says that he has seen 
 my predecessor black the eye of a patient, and he did not think anything of 
 doing it himself." 
 
 One of the attendants testified to paddling patients, handcuffing them, and 
 chaining one in a crib. 
 
 Another testifies that this " paddling " was done even in the case of a female 
 patient, by the direction of the assistant physician. He describes the paddle 
 as " a piece of thin oak stick, about as thick as a piece of heavy sole-leather, 
 and about two and one-half inches wide, with a handle." This is applied to 
 the naked body. He also testified that a man was chained up, shackled and 
 handcuffed night and day for about two months. 
 
 'Among the documentary evidence excluded. — N'ote of Sub- Committee. 
 
 ^ Dr. Carlos McDonald ; not to be confounded with the Dr. A. E. Mac- 
 donald referred to in Exhibits D, E, F, N, O, P, Q, X.—Mte of Sub- Com- 
 mittee. 
 
 ■ * The suggestion forces itself instantly on the mind of the reader that 
 the Commissioner of Lunacy would have found a fitter sphere for the exer- 
 cise of his gastronomical theories of insanity by paying some attention to his 
 unfortunate wards, instead of libelling the not yet insane farming population 
 of our State, as in 'Exhibit U. 
 
40 
 
 The Superintendent habitually carried a revolver. There were no records, 
 medical or other\vise, kept of the daily life of the patients. 
 
 The above items are a few points selected from whole pages of testimony 
 to the same effect, and showing the grossest mismanagement in an asylum 
 that the public would naturally suppose would receive more attention at the 
 hands of the Commissioner of Lunacy than any other. 
 
 I perhaps should add, as a partial apology for the Commissioner of 
 Lunacy, or, at all events, to give him the consolation that companionship 
 affords, that at the very time when these abuses were committed at this in- 
 stitution, the American Association of Superintendents of Insane Asylums 
 met at Auburn. They spent a half-day in inspecting its wards, and then 
 passed resolutions' which contained the following language : "That their 
 visit had been peculiarly interesting, as giving most obvious evidences of 
 good management." 
 
 EXHIBIT T. (Referred to, p. 20.) 
 
 Front fhe official report of the State Commissioner in Lunacy, in the case of the 
 People of the State of New York on complaint of Jonathan T. Norton 
 against the Society of the New York Hospital. — {American Journal of In- 
 sanity^ January^ 1877.) 
 
 (Italics our own.) 
 
 Page 353 : " The exact limits of occultation of her memory, and the vary- 
 ing degrees of obscurity exhibited by it during the passage of an umbra or 
 penumbra over her ^mental horizon.^ form curious phases of disordered action 
 in the processes of recollection, and impart to her testimony a character very 
 difficult to weigh in the balance of intellectual veracity." 
 
 Page 368 : "Because we know that insanity permanently enfeebles the 
 mind, and that an act of self -introspection involving memory becomes thence- 
 forth more difficult., and because also, in the effort to perform it, the mind is 
 apt to fall into the oldest worn channels of thought — those, in fact, which were 
 most used during the period of its greatest insane activity." 
 
 " If this be the law governing the action of healthy minds, are we author- 
 ized to assume that this law wholly suspends its action in disordered minds ? 
 Or, in other words, can we assume that the memory gathers strength from 
 the weakness of the organ which gives it expression ? I can find no author- 
 ity for such an expression." 
 
 Page 382 : " It is not surprising that the public should deem it impossible, 
 when relatives of an insane person cannot endure his presence at home, 
 
 ' The passing of ' ' resolutions " endorsing the management of the par- 
 ticular asylum whose guests the Association members are, is a matter of 
 routine nowadays. — Note of Sub- Committee. , 
 
41 
 
 that strangers should be kinder and more forbearing with him in the privacy 
 of an asylum. It is idle to criticise this as sheer ignorance; it is wiser to 
 confess that it is a feeling of human nature which we must respect, because 
 born of our affections, while at the same time it is our duty to (dlay the dis- 
 trust whicJi spririr/s from it, pakticularly when any accidents occur to the 
 insane.^^ 
 
 Page o87 : •' I am myself often amazed at the facility with which mana- 
 gers confide the delicate task of caring for the insane to the persons I meet 
 with in asylums as attendants." 
 
 EXHIBIT TJ. (Referred to, p. 20.) 
 
 Extracts from the fourth annual report of the Commissioner in Lunacy^ Jan- 
 uary^ 1877. 
 
 (Italics our own.) 
 
 Page 9 : " Persons really cured of their insanity do not revert with pleas- 
 ure to the days of their mental disorder. They do not dwell like hypochon- 
 driacs over their ills and plagues. It is a dream which they do not care to re- 
 call. Happy, grateful, trembling over the enjoyment of their restored pow- 
 ers, they are not the ones to dabble with the feet of memory in the turbid 
 waters of a disturbed mind and passions, or to summon a public audience to 
 the recital of scenes belonging to the night side of nature. Persons who are 
 constantly reviewing the phenomena of their past insanity give the strongest 
 evidence of being uncured. " 
 
 Page 16 : " Wherever men centre and aggregate, the most ordinary friction 
 of life becomes insensibly straining to the brain. The sympathy of crowds 
 is a recognized fact. The communication of like results upon individual mem- 
 bers is the first step in individual declension. The weakest fall first, but all 
 eventually droop until they come to wear a recognized type of excitability, 
 which is associated with the border-land of insanity. Nor is it possible to 
 compute the effects upon generations of men arising from the habitual con- 
 sumptions of such narcotics as tobacco and alcohol, which have now become 
 real necessities of life to thousands. If any friction can more insidiously un- 
 dermine the nervous system of man than that produced by the foregoing 
 social idols, we have yet to learn what it is. Vice has its periods of satiety 
 and disgust, but with narcotics the game is always one of increasing fascina- 
 tion, and always fatal to the player. J^one draw a prize in it save disease or 
 death. In fact, a man in the clutches of these habits is digging his own grave 
 daily, with fetters on every function of his body and every faculty of his 
 mind. He is always less than he might be, because he is always discounting 
 his capital in life, instead of restricting himself to the use of its natural in- 
 terest alone. Thus, while living in the present, he borrows from the future. 
 
42 
 
 Page 16 : " But with drunkards and debauchees who pauperize their fami- 
 lies by first pauperizing themselves, the descent of their progeny into idiocy, 
 imbecility, and the jny Had phases of SGrofuki^ is rapid and decisive." 
 
 Page 16 : " Poor food, physiologically speaking, and monotony of diet, 
 become so through its narrow, and therefore ignorant range of selection, is 
 another very fertile source of degeneracy in the laboring population, parti-- 
 cularly of the agricultural districts. Observation reveals the fact that for 
 many months in the year the diet of the farmer consists of old salted meats 
 and one or two starchy vegetables. Wheat in the shape of fine flour is the 
 comraon cereal used, to which, by way of variety, buckwheat — an inferior ele- 
 ment of food — is superadded. This latter would scarcely be employed were it 
 not for the amount of molasses which it invites the use of as a sauce, and the 
 consequent temptation to consume it in excessive quantities. It is well estab- 
 lished by our commercial statistics that Americans consume more sugar per 
 capita than any people on the globe. Pwk, molasses^ and hucJcwheat foim tJie 
 tripod upon which, in the Noi'thern States, the demon of degeneracy builds his 
 shnnein ahnost every farmefs household. Parent and child alike worship at it, 
 with traditional reverence for its cheapness and great facility for stowage. Mean- 
 while, over the whole family broods the perpetual nightmare of dyspepsia, 
 obscure invalidism, and those multiple judgments born in the flesh, yet executed 
 through the moral nature, which call for the physician rather than the priest 
 Tfiey are only chimeras distilled from the vicious products of imperfect digestion, 
 and easily dispelled by physical remedies. The marvel does not so much reside in 
 their occurrence as in the pei'sistence of those habits of life which produce them,. 
 Some call them ''■judgments^'^ others call them ^'■crudities j " but, in either case, 
 the condition of the blood shows itself in the character, and, inasmuch as 
 society is deeply concerned in the results which flow from phases of char- 
 acter, the subject is sufficiently public to justify comment. 
 
 "In this day of commercial dispersion of all forms of food there can be 
 neither necessity nor apology for living habitually upon salted meats, and 
 thus converting into a staple article that which should be partaken of only 
 as an auxiliary one. If our farming and mechanic population would eschew 
 liquor and live cleanly without and within, there v/ould be fewer invalids, • 
 paupers, criminals, and lunatics. There is practically little or no nutriment 
 in old salted meats, the brine of which ultimately extracts all the albumi- 
 nates and phosphates, leaving behind little besides strings of fibrin and chon- 
 drine indurated to the consistency of parchment by long contacts with salts aw^Z 
 potash. And as for poi'k, its deleterious influence on the glandular system, 
 whenever habitually used, is a fact too well known to require either argument to 
 sustain or commentary to illustrate it. Cursed in the Scriptures by direct as 
 icell as indirect condemnation, its ujie may be considered pernicious under any 
 circumstances, but particularly so when that use is made habitual and exclu- 
 sive This is why farmers' wives and children show the ill- 
 consequences of such a diet as pork, salted fish or meats, and buckwheat ear-' 
 lier than do the father or grown brothers, who are much out of doors, and 
 also visit other tables than their own, and so get the benefit of a little change. 
 
 '• If farmers, instead of stripping their farms of products for table use, in 
 order to bring them to market, would live on some of them at home — if they 
 
43 
 
 would discard as habitual articles of food those which we have just com- 
 mented on as pernicious, and take more fresh meats and fish, milk and eg-g-s, 
 graham flour instead of fine wheat, together with oatmeal and rich cheese, and 
 for vegetables, not potatoes or rice alone, or beans or peas, but carrots, onions, 
 cabbage, cauliflower, tomatoes, salads, and corn-meal, together with acid 
 fruits, most of which foregoing articles may be grown on any farm in this State, 
 there would be less dyspepsia, less ill-health and indoor iinliappiness, less degen- 
 eracy of children^ less sceofula, less consumption, Sind. finally, less insanity." 
 
 EXHIBIT V. (Referred to, foot-note, p. 22.) 
 
 Letter from Dr. B. C. Seguin to Dr. Willard Parker, Junior, Dr. Willard 
 Parker, Senior, being at the time very ill. 
 
 41 West Tw^entieth Street, 
 New York, December 18, 1879. 
 My dear Doctor : 
 
 A very unjust and misleading document, called a Senate Report on the 
 .petition for an inquiry into the management of asylums, which was sent to 
 the Legislature last winter, has been widely circulated. 
 
 Among a number of false statements is one which gives the reader the 
 impression that your father, Dr. Willard Parker, was not heartily with us, 
 and leaves it doubtful if he signed the petition. 
 
 Will you do me the favor to answer, at the earliest moment convenient to 
 you, the following questions : 
 
 1. Did not Dr. Willard Parker sign the petition ? 
 
 2. Am I wrong in recalling his energetic expressions to the effect that 
 asylums needed overhauling? 
 
 3. After the Senate Committee's summons, was he not still with us, and 
 was he not indignant at being summoned as a witness when he was a peti- 
 tioner, praying for information ? 
 
 4. Does he not now fully sympathize with the movement for asylum re- 
 form. Sincerely yours, 
 
 E. C. Seguin. 
 
 Answer of Dr. Willard Parker, Jr., to above letter. 
 
 December 18, 1879. 
 Dear Seguin: 
 
 My father did sign the petition you refer to; was, and is still, strong 
 in his convictions that many of our asylums need "overhauling" ; was in- 
 dignant at the subpoena, and so expressed himself in a letter to the commit- 
 tee, and is now in hearty sympathy with the expressed object of to-night's 
 meeting. In great haste, yours, 
 
 W. Parker, Jr. 
 
44 
 
 EXHIBIT W. (Eef erred to, p. 11.) 
 
 BKOOKLYN, 129 PlERREPONT STREET, 
 
 December 24, 1879. 
 J. A. McBride, M.D., 
 
 Chairman of the Committee on Asylum Abuses : 
 My deak Sir — In the printed report of the Senatorial Committee on 
 Asylum Abuses, it was stated that, from among the hundreds of registered 
 physiciaus of Brooklyn, there was only one whose signature was affixed to 
 the petition to the Legislature. Had the honorable committee of our State 
 Senate possessed a Medical Register, and had their desire for accurate infor- 
 mation been sufnciently strong to impel them to turn over the pages of this 
 book, they would have been gratified at the discovery that some dozen or 
 more names of those appended to the petition were those of Brooklyn's best 
 known physicians, and they would not have made a statement which ran 
 some risk of being regarded as reckless and unwarrantable. As I obtained 
 these particular signatures, and am personally responsible for them, it is sim- 
 ple justice to myself, to my professional colleagues who are interested with 
 me in this movement, and to our cause, that I should make this statemert. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Landon Carter Gray, M.D. 
 
 EXHIBIT X. (Referred to, p. 11.) 
 
 New York, Dec. 26, 1879. 
 Dear Dr, : 
 
 Although no longer a member of the committee, I still take great inter- 
 est in its work, and will aid in this work to the best of my ability, if that aid 
 is acceptable. In this view, I submit the accompanying deposition, ' as well 
 as the following lines. I regret that so much of myself has to appear here- 
 in ; but, the tactics of the Superintendent, assisted by the member of the 
 Senate Committee examining, and who, for the occasion, acted as the un- 
 blushing attorney of the superintendents, force me to do as I have done. 
 This, more particularly, because the distorted account of my testimony has 
 evidently induced certain superficial critics to assume that the charges of 
 your committee were based on personal malice. Historically, this is false. It 
 is a matter of accessible record that I had not even the pretext of a griev- 
 ance against any superintendent prior to the day on which Dr. E. C. Spitzka 
 read the paper, in consequence of the acceptance of which the Committee 
 on Asylum Abuses was appointed ; that I was dismissed from my position un- 
 der Dr. A. E. Macdonnld, because of the very moderate part which I took in 
 the discussion, I demonstrated before the Senate Committee. They have 
 not seen fit to publish my testimony on that point, just as they have not 
 scrupled to suppress many other things which I said, and which, if published, 
 would have deprived the superficial critics above alluded to of the pretext 
 (which to them, I think, must have been a welcome one) for condemning the 
 
 ' Exhibit P. 
 
45 
 
 petitioners who went to Albany, as neglecting to furnish evidence based on 
 personal knowledge. 
 
 I had prepared a report of the testimony which I gave at Albany, the 
 day after I gave it, at Dr. Spitzka's suggestion, as I agreed with him that 
 from the manner in which the Senate Committee had acted while we were 
 under examination, and that the stenographer was observed to neglect taking 
 the testimony at certain points, and to be utterly incompetent to follow the 
 speakers at others, that we might expect, at most, a fragmentary report. It 
 turns out that the report was not only fragmentary, but mendacious in fact. 
 Thus, on page 47 of the report I am represented as stating that " on one oc- 
 casion I was asked to give the death certificate of a patient who had died in this 
 asylum ; I refused to do this." Thus making it appear as if I had been en- 
 trapped into admitting that I had been guilty of insubordination. The fact 
 is this : I testified that " I was asked by a superintendent to sign a bogus 
 death certificate, assigning any ordinary somatic affection as the cause of 
 death, in the case of Odenwald, a patient who had perished from violence, 
 and that my refusal, and the refusal of an undergraduate, who was asked the 
 same thing, forced on a coroner's inquiry, to defeat the occurrence of which 
 the bogus certificate would have been necessary." 
 
 This is only one of many distortions. 
 
 There is another important matter to which I testified from the most in- 
 timate personal knowledge. Page 5 (the Senate Committee on Public Health) 
 reports as follows : " Outside of the State asylums, it appears that but one 
 undergraduate is employed, and that he obtained his place by examination as 
 to qualifications by the authorized medical examining committee of the institu- 
 tion in which he is employed. " Without repeating the testimony which I gave, 
 I desire to state the following : The gentleman, who was a candidate for a 
 position at the same time as myself, and myself, were sent around to the res- 
 idences of Drs. Loomis, Wood, and Sands. Dr. Wood was not at home. Dr. 
 Sands was engaged, and Dr. Loomis told me that he had so recently examined 
 me (as a candidate for graduation in :; medical school) that there was no ne- 
 cessity for repeating the performance. Now, I wish particularly to state that 
 the examining board composed of these gentlemen is not to blame. They 
 are merely acting under higher orders. 
 
 This is the examination which a superintendent on page 13 of the Senate 
 Committee's Report refers to as " more of an examination " than that passed 
 by "many graduates." The same superintendent, a few lines lower down, 
 states that he "never heard it stated that superintendents were not versed 
 in the anatomy of the nervous system, except in this petition and the news- 
 paper comments upon it." I can contradict this, and within the corrobora- 
 tive knowledge of many members of your committee, as well as of the 
 Medico-Legal and New York Neurological Societies, at whose March meet- 
 ings, in the year 1878, two long papers were read criticising superintendents 
 from every scientific point of view, at which this superintendent was present, 
 and was unable to answer a single point in the two papers named. 
 
 After I left the Senate Committee's room (much I regret it now), after 
 being interrupted in my testimony by Senator Goodwin, and at the urgent 
 suggestion of Dr. Spitzka, who held that it was beneath our dignity to play 
 
46 
 
 any further part in the prearranged comedy enacted by the Senate Commit- 
 tee, Dr. A. E. Macdonald is represented as making certain statements (page 
 48, S. C. Rep.). 
 
 It maybe well to state that, previous to our leaving the room, Dr. Macdon- 
 ald rose to cross-examine us. Dr. Spitzka abruptly refused to permit him to 
 do so. I, however, offered to let this or any other superintendent cross-ex- 
 amine me if he would consent to let me cross-examine him in return, both 
 being under oath. This he declined, or rather Senator Goodwin did it for 
 him — I think very wisely. 
 
 In his final peroration Dr. A. E. Macdonald makes several statements, 
 which are all of them without any exception utterly false. As regards his 
 statement that Dr. Spitzka was a "rejected applicant for a position at his 
 asylum," I will state of my own knowledge that the position in question was 
 merely an honorary one, and that Dr. Macdonald on several occasions requested 
 me to suggest the position to Dr.- Spitzka, and after my doing so, urged it on 
 Dr. Spitzka in my presence. Furthermore, in regard to this superintendent's 
 denial that I had assisted him in writing the best paper on insanity he had 
 ever written, a statement that is correct, though it escaped me in the heat of 
 
 the moment and under the irritation of a cross-examination of the most un- 
 
 * 
 precedented character, I submit the following quotation from the paper re- 
 ferred to. It is entitled " General Paresis," by A. E. Macdonald (from the 
 American Journal of Insanity, April, 1877); on page 3 is the following state- 
 ment: " I have accordingly, during the past two years and a half, with the 
 assistance of Dr. James G. Kiernan, of the asylum staff, engaged in the col- 
 lection of material for the notes which I submit this evening." 
 
 How does this compare with the statement that " he (Dr. Kiernan) simply 
 performed the clerical work, which was an apothecary's duty — no more " ? No 
 apothecary in the employ of the Commissioners of Charities and Correction 
 ever dreamt that it was his duty to write (clerically or otherwise) the scien- 
 tific articles of the physicians over him. I was not, as the acknowledgment 
 shows, an apothecary when the paper was written, though I was such when it 
 was read. I made all or nearly all the examinations of patients, collected the 
 bibliographical quotations, and in doing so now find that I had made a mis- 
 quotation, which I do not think the" " writer" himself is aware of, though I 
 can easily point it out. 
 
 I would not have violated the professional amenities so far as to make 
 these statements, if it were not necessary to do so in order to controvert 
 falsehoods reflecting on my sincerity and truthfulness. 
 
 I quote further from Dr. Macdonald's report for 1875: "For a time I 
 have been without any assistants at all. It has been fortunate for me that 
 in the latter contingency, I have had the aid of Dr. James G. Kiernan, the 
 apothecary of the asylum, whose former service as assistant physician, and 
 whose industry and ability rendered him a valuable ally." From the report 
 
 for 1874. "Drs. James G. Kiernan and M. J. Madigan 
 
 They have been especially painstaking in the preparation of the statistics 
 which accompany this report, no small labor in any case, and much increased 
 in the present instance from the unsatisfactory condition of the records 
 from which the tables had to be compiled." 
 
47 
 
 If you consider it desirable that these facts be put in the shape of an 
 affidavit, I am ready to do so. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 J. G. KlERNAN, M.D. 
 
 Dr. T. A. McBbide, 
 
 Chairman Committee on Asylum Abuses. 
 
 I, James G. Kieman, M.D., of the City of New York, being duly sworn, 
 do depose and say that every statement of the f oreg-oing letter is true and a 
 fun and exact account of the circumstances mentioned therein. 
 
 James G. Kiernan, M.D. 
 
 Sworn to before me this 7th ) 
 day of January, 1880, f 
 
 John H. Timmerman, 
 
 Notary Public, New York County. 
 
 EXHIBIT Y. (Eef erred to, p. 11.) 
 
 [This exhibit is made as showing on what grounds many of the petitioners 
 signed, and what letters were sent by them in reply to the summons of 
 the Senate Committee [Ex. B]. It has been submitted to the Com- 
 mittee by Dr. E. C. Harwood, and is a copy of a letter sent to Albany.] 
 
 Law Offices of Hull & Myers, 
 No. 31 Park Row, Rooms 36, 37 and 38, 
 New York, May 1st, 1879. 
 
 Hon. L. S. Goebel, ) cJ^ymmittee on Public Health: 
 Hon, a. T. Goodwin, ) 
 
 Gentlemen : — Yours of the 26th ult. received. Two considerations in- 
 fluenced me in appending my signature to the petition before your Honor- 
 able Committee relating to lunatic asylums : First, the statements appear- 
 ing from time to time in the public press with reference to those who have 
 been (unfortunately) committed to asylums without just cause, the treat- 
 ment received by some of the inmates at the hands of their keepers, and 
 the recent exposure of the Syracuse afEair. 
 
 . Second, the views expressed by a physician, in whose views I have full 
 confidence, as to the ro.anner in which management should be conducted. 
 
 Personally I cannot testify to anything bearing on the manner in which the 
 State Commissioner in Lunacy has discharged his duties, nor as to the inter- 
 nal workings of asylums. I deem the appointment of investigating com- 
 mittees to examine into the workings and management of all our State insti- 
 tutions a matter of public utility, and if for no other reason I should have 
 signed the petition now before you. I do not know the intention of the 
 Committee, but I venture to suggest that a practical way in which to investi- 
 gate the working of the institutions would be by personal visitations by the 
 
48 
 
 Committee among them at a time when those in charge should not be in- 
 formed of jour intended visit, and also by summoning before you and 
 ■ examining those who have been inmates and discharged therefrom, either by 
 an order of the court, or as restored. Their names and residences could 
 easily be obtained from the records of the institution, and I doubt not that 
 some would be found who would not be so beside themselves but that they 
 could give such experience of their treatment as would interest your Com- 
 mittee, and no less the public, in whose service you are engaged. 
 
 If your Honorable Committee believe I can give any information of any 
 value to them (which I doubt) I am ready to appear at the time appointed on 
 receipt of further notice. 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 John G-. H. Meyeks. 
 
 EXHIBIT Z. 
 
 [From the Annual Report of the Comptroller of the State of New York. 
 Transmitted to the Legislature, January 8, 1879.] 
 
 Another case deserving criticism has been brought to light in one of the 
 State institutions which publishes a Journal of Insanity. ' This paper has 
 been published for many years, and from an account rendered to this depart- 
 ment, at my request, I learn that since 1850 its bills have been paid out of 
 the funds of the iastitution to the amount of $17,092.42. Up to 1856 the in- 
 stitution received from the paper .$670.53. Since 1856, or for twenty-two 
 years, the treasurer reports no receipts from the paper, but says : "I have 
 understood and believe that they have been spent in editorial services and 
 the purchase of books for the asylum libraries." It would seem, then, that 
 one at least of our charitable institutions not only has large miscellaneous 
 receipts, the vouchers for the expenditures of which never come to this de- 
 partment, but that it has receipts the amount of which its own treasurer 
 cannot state, and the vouchers to account for which he never sees. It 
 would be difficult to properly stigmatize such loose management. These 
 instances would seem to indicate that much can be done in our institutions 
 looking toward economy and prudent management. 
 
 My report for 1877 contained the following: " I would recommend for 
 your consideration the policy of abolishing all local boards of trustees, - and 
 the erection of a system by which the different institutions shall be managed 
 by one controlling power. As it is, the responsibility for loose and expensive 
 management is notcentered in any one. If we are to look for improvement, it 
 can only be found in establishing a fixed and definite responsibility, in place of 
 the present plan, where there is practicallyTio accountability." 
 
 I respectfully renew this recommendation. 
 
 F. P. Olcott, 
 
 ComptroUer. 
 
 ' It is almost superfluous to mention that this refers to the Utica 
 Asylum. — Note of Sub- Committee. 
 
 ' This excellent suggestion, if carried out, would strike at the root of 
 countle&s other evils. — Note of Suh- Committee. 
 
49 
 
 EXHIBIT AA. (Referred to, p. 11.) 
 
 State of New Yokk, ( 
 
 City and County of New York, [ 
 
 Thomas A. McBride, M.D., being duly sworn, deposes and says ; That he 
 circulated a Joti« Jide copy of the petition to the Legislature for asylum in- 
 vestigation in the New York Club, in the fall and winter of 1878-1879, and 
 obtained many signatures to it ; that among the signatures afl&xed to this pe- 
 tition were those of James Struthers, James M. Dunbar, and J. Nelson Tappan ; 
 that Dr. A. E. Macdonald stated in the rei^ort of the Senate Committee, to 
 whom the said petition was referred, that he was authorized to withdraw the 
 signatures of these gentlemen, because, in the case of two of them (Messrs. 
 Struthers and Dunbar), the petition which they had signed was one praying 
 for an increase in the comforts of the insane, and not one demanding an in- 
 vestigation ; and in the other case (J. Nelson Tappan) the petition had been 
 signed under the misapprehension that it was a club paper. Now, the said 
 Thomas A. McBride, on the contrary, deposes and says that he explained the 
 purport of the petition to the above gentlemen, and saw two of them affix 
 their signatures; and he deposes further that each of the above-named gentle- 
 men have informed him since that they were induced to withdraw their signa- 
 tures on the representations made to them by Dr. A. E. Macdonald, that there 
 was no necessity for such an investigation, and that the object of the petition 
 was to satisfy personal malice and envy ; and Dr. McBride further deposes 
 that he saw the signature of J. Nelson Tappan affixed to a bona fide copy of 
 the original petition ; that it was not signed late at night ; that it was not 
 signed at the same time by thirteen others under the impression that it was 
 a club paper as is stated in the Senate report ; and further deponent saith not. 
 
 T. A. McBkide, M.D. 
 
 Siibscribed and sworn to be- 
 fore me, this 6th day of 
 January, A.D. 1880. 
 
 S. B. COODALE, 
 
 Notary PvbHc, New York County. 
 
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