LUNATIC ASYLUM. LUNATIC ASYLUM: abode provided for the insane, with a view to their restraint and cure. The first hospitals for the insane of which history or tradition makes mention, were the sacred temples in Egypt. In these, it is said, the disease was mitigated by agreeable impressions received through the senses, and by a system resembling and rivalling the highest development of moral treatment now practiced. Monasteries appear to have been the representatives of such retreats in the mediæval Christian times; but restraint and rigid asceticism characterized the management. Out of conventual establishments grew the Bethlems, or Bedlams, with which our immediate ancestors were familiar (see BEDLAM). But apart from such receptacles, the vast majority of the insane must have been neglected; in some countries, reverenced as specially stricken of God; in others, tolerated, or tormented, or laughed at, as simpletons or buffoons; in others, imprisoned as social pests, even executed as criminals. In a few spots which had reputation for sanctity, or where miraculous cures of nervous diseases were supposed to have been effected, such as Gheel and St. Suaire, communities were formed, of which lunatics, sent with a view to restoration, formed a large part: they resided in the houses of the peasants, and partook of their labor and enjoyments: see GHEEL. Asylums, properly so called, date from the commencement of the 19th c.; and for many years after their institution, though based on benevolent views, they resembled jails both in construction and in the mode in which they were conducted, rather than hospitals. Until very recently, a model erection of this kind was conceived necessarily to consist of a vast block of building, the centre of which was appropriated to the residence of the officers, the kitchen and its dependencies, the chapel, etc., from which there radiated long galleries, in which small rooms, or cells, were arranged on one or both sides of a corridor or balcony, having at one extremity public rooms, in which the agitated or non-industrial inmates, as the case might be, spent the day, while the more tractable individuals were withdrawn to engage in some pursuit, either in workshops, clustered round the central house, or in the grounds attached, which were surrounded by high walls, or by a ha-ha. The population of such establishments, when they were appropriated to paupers, ranged from 100 to 1,400 patients. These were committed to a staff composed of a medical officer, matron, and attendants, to whom were directly intrusted the management, discipline, and occupation of the insane, in accordance with regulations or prescriptions issued by the physician. A gradual but great revolution has taken place in the views of psychologists as to the provisions and requirements for the insane during seclusion. As a result of this change, asylums, especially for the wealthy classes, are assimilated in their arrangements to ordinary dwelling. houses; while it is proposed to place the indigent in LUNATIC ASYLUM. cottages in the immediate vicinity of an infirmary, where acute cases, individuals dangerous to themselves or others, or in any way untrustworthy, could be confined and actively treated, as their condition might require. In all such establishments, whether now entitled to be regarded as cottage asylums or not, the semblance and much of the reality of coercion has been abolished; the influence of religion, occupation, education, recreation; the judicious application of moral impressions; and the dominion of rational kindness and discriminating discipline, have been superadded to mere medical treatment, and substituted for brutal force, terror, and cruelty.— See INSANITY.-Esquirol, Des Maladies Mentales, t. ii.; Guislain, Sur l'Alienation Mentale; Browne on Asylums, etc.; Conolly on Construction of Asylums. Late statistics show 112,700 insane and imbecile persons in the United Kingdom; 108,100 in Germany; 93,000 in France; 80,000 in Russia; 44,000 in Italy; 35,000 in Austria: and 13,000 in Spain and Portugal. In the United States (1890) there were 106,254 insane and 95,571 feeble. minded; total 201,825. Of the insane 53,264 were males and 52,990 females; 99,719 were white, of whom 64,419 were native and 35,300 foreign born; 6,535 were colored, of whom 3,013 were males and 3,522 females. Of the feeble-minded 52,940 were males and 42,631 females; 84.997 were white, of whom 75,910 were native and 9,087 foreign born; 10 574 were colored, of whom 5,788 were males and 4,786 females. Of all classes there were an average of 1,697 insane and 1,526 feeble-minded in each 1,000,000 of population. Of the insane 74,028 (38,330 males and 35,698 females) were in the several asylums, public and private; native born white 43,328, foreign born white 26,401, total white 69,729; colored 4,299. Of those in hospitals 34,480 were afflicted with mania; 11,132 with melancholia, 1,416 with monomania, 1,176 with paresis, 19,889 with dementia, 1,534 with epilepsy, and 443 with dipsomania. The insane and feeble-minded were distributed by States as follows: Ala. insane 1,469 (feeble-minded 2,187); Ariz. 59 (13); Ark. 789 (1,671); Cal. 3,594 (880); Colo. 326 (192), Conn. 2,056 (1,208); Del. 197 (220); D. C. 1,576 (261); Fla. 351 (500); Ga. 1,815 (2,191); Ida. 82 (55); Ill. 6,638 (5,249); Ind. 3,290 (5,568); Io. 3,197 (3,319); Kan. 1,793 (2,039); Ky. 2,729 (3,635); La. 910 (1,173); Me. 1,299 (1,591); Md. 1,646 (1,549); Mass. 6,103 (2,929): Mich. 3,723 (3,218); Minn. 2,204 (1,451); Miss. 1,103 (1.756); Mo. 3,417 (3,881); Mont. 187 (52); Neb. 932 (959); Nev. 175 (22); N. H. 960 (779); N. J. 3,163 (1,631); N. M. 66 (127); N. Y. 17,831 (7,337); N. C. 1,725 (3,597); N. D. 221 (135); O. 7,599 (8,034); Ok. 7 (34); Ore. 618 (283); Penn. 8,480 (8,718); R. I. 792 (488); S. C. 912 (1,805); S. D. 310 (285); Tenn. 1,845 (3,590); Tex. 1,668 (2,763); Utah 165 (183); Vt. 823 (901); Va. 2,406 (3,090); Wash. 376 (140); W. Va. 1,079 (1,430); Wis. 3,510 (2,402); Wy. 38 (14). The table which follows gives the names, locations, and inmates (1890) by sex and birth, of all the public and private insane asylumns of the United States. (See IDIOCY.) |