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TO THE EDITOR OF THE PHILANTHROPIST.

THE professed object of the conductors of the Philanthropist lead me to believe that the state of the insane poor in this country is a subject which will not be deemed inconsistent with the general tendency of their benevolent undertaking.

Insanity is so great an affliction, that when alleviated by all the attentions which affluence can purchase, it must still claim the sympathy of every feeling mind. It is a disease which seems so to lurk in the secret recesses of the human frame, that its true cause and nature have hitherto eluded the vigilant inquiries of the physician and the moralist. But though we can do but little by the aid of medicine towards the cure of insanity, it is surely not the less our duty to use every means in our power to alleviate the complaint, or at least place the poor sufferer in a situation where nature may take her own course, and not be obstructed in the relief which she herself would probably bring to him. If we believe it wrong to hurt the feelings and irritate the passions of any of our fellow-creatures, harsh treatment is doubly criminal towards those whose minds are already a prey to the agitations of maniacal ravings or melancholy despondency.

Whoever will take the pains to inquire, I apprehend will find, that a very great proportion of the insane poor are placed under the care of the master of a parish workhouse, where, I fear, they will too generally be found condemned to abodes and to treatment, which must shock the most callous feelings.

Infirmaries and dispensaries are established in nearly all the considerable towns of England, in which, by the public munificence, the poor are provided with most of the necessary medicines for bodily disease: but unhappily the attention of the public has never been properly directed to the miseries which our indigent fellow-creatures, labouring under the far greater calamity of mental disorder, have so long, and do still continue to suffer.

I would not be thought to lay claim to any superior observation or benevolence on account of the interest which I feel on this subject; for I confess that this interest was in great measure accidentally excited by a conversation in a stagecoach, which led me to visit the workhouse of a city in the south of England. I was introduced by a humane and respectable friend to one of the guardians of the institution, who with great civility accompanied us to the house.

On inquiry for the nurse of the insane paupers, and stating the object of our visit, we were led into a small yard, at a short distance from the principal building, in which were four cells or rooms ranged on one side, and adjoining to each other. We descended into them by one step, and their size was sufficiently large for the accommodation of one inhabitant. At the further end of the cell was a platform of wood attached to the wall, which was intended for the patient's bed. In two of the cells all the light and air which could be admitted passed through an iron grating in the door, so that the air could not be excluded without entirely darkening the apart ment. In each of these cells a female was confined; but I cannot describe my feelings and astonishment, when I perceived that the poor women were absolutely without any clothes. The weather was intensely cold, and the evening previous to our visit the thermometer had, I believe, been sixteen degrees below the freezing point. One of these forlorn objects lay buried under a miserable covering of straw, without a blanket or even a horse-cloth to defend her from the cold. The situation of the other was no less deplorable: she was buried in straw in the corner of the cell on the left hand of the door, probably to be less exposed to intrusive observation. Her aspect bespoke much more bodily than mental disease, and she complained very much of the extreme cold. The grating of the door had been open, by her own desire, the whole of the preceding night; for she said, she could not breathe comfortably without the admission of fresh air. She complained bitterly of not being allowed clothes, and appealed to the nurse to say whether she had shewn any disposition to tear her clothes since she had attended upon her, which was a period of about twelve months. nurse confessed that she had not shewn any violent propensities since she had known her, but stated, that she understood the poor woman had had a violent paroxysm a short time previous to her being employed in that department. She further asserted, that during the whole time the master or mistress of the house had never visited the cells of these unhappy beings, and that, consequently, no trials had been made whether they might not, at least, in some degree, be restored to society.

The

In another cell, which only differed from those I have described, by having a small casement, which admitted light, a man was confined whose case appeared to be one rather of moral than mental affection; and if the account given of him

was correct, perhaps his punishment was not ill adapted to his improvement: for his situation was much less deplorable than that of his more innocent neighbours; and the only complaint he made to us was his being frequently annoyed by the visitation of rats. He had some clothes on, but his bed, like the others, was only straw, and his leg was chained to the wooden erection at the end of his cell.

*

It may naturally be asked, how the committee or guardians of this institution could permit the existence of such gross abuses and neglect: but those who are acquainted with the management of public establishments, will be aware how difficult and painful a duty it is to interfere with the directions of their appointed masters. They can generally give reasons for their conduct, which those who are only occasional visitors find it difficult to answer; and this difficulty on the part of visitors is particularly felt in the case of insane persons, the varieties, and danger of whose disease will generally furnish the attendant with plausible excuses. The guardian who accompanied us appeared much to regret the situation of these paupers, and assured us that several propositions had been made to the master for their improvement, but that he always objected to any alteration, on the ground that they would not wear clothes, and that it would be dangerous to admit them to any greater degree of liberty. But though we may palliate the conduct of the guardians of this institution, yet we cannot consider them as free from blame. It was their bounden duty to visit, to examine-and no human being ought for a moment to doubt whether a fellow-creature, of the more delicate sex too, should be confined in a cold apartment, without fire and without clothes, at a season when all the conveniences of life were barely sufficient to preserve in the human frame a comfortable degree of warmth. We cannot sufficiently regret that apathy or timidity of mind which represses vigorous exertion on such an occasion. Surely a mind actuated by the virtuous sympathies of our nature, would not have joined with comfort the warm social circle, or reposed his head on a soft pillow, whilst he knew that any one was enduring so many privations, and so much misery, which it was not only in his power, but was his duty to relieve.

Let not, however, the reader imagine that the scene of which I became accidentally a witness, and which I have here attempted to describe, is a solitary one. Too many parallels

* My friend's family provided them after our visit with flannel dresses, which they wore with great thankfulness, and invoked many blessings on the givers.

may be found to it in the different parts of our island. I have heard and read* of many other instances of the very inhuman treatment of insane paupers. One case I remember, which was related to me by a person of undoubted veracity it was briefly this. In a considerable village in the North of England there was a poor boy, whose conduct bespoke a mixture of idiotcy and mania: for many years he was in the habit of lounging about the village, and shewed no disposition to injure either himself or others. He was, however, occasionally mischievous and troublesome; in consequence of which some of the inhabitants complained to the parish officers, and desired his confinement. The poor fellow was therefore boarded in the town, under strict orders that he should not appear at large; probably to prevent his troubling his host, he was generally tied in bed during the day as well as night. The confinement to one posture, and the grossest inattention to common cleanliness, induced diseases too shocking for description. Death kindly came to the poor prisoner's relief, but the situation of his body at that time I will not further attempt to describe than by saying, that already,

"The living worm gnawed within him.”

I am not ignorant that the legislature has turned its attention to the subject of the insane poor, and that an act was passed in a late session to enable the magistrates in each county to provide suitable accommodation for this most destitute class of society. But, though I would not question the wisdom of parliament, might not the act have obliged, instead of permitting magistrates to provide suitable accommodation for the insane poor? Might it not usefully have required returns to be made from each county, stating what had been done in consequence of the act, and if nothing had been done, to return a statement of the actual number of the insane poor in such county, and what was their provision?

I know that many counties have not availed themselves of the power which the legislature has afforded them of ameliorating the condition of the most wretched class of human beings; a class which seems to derive but little benefit from the political blessings to which Englishmen are born, or from the light which the advancement of science has shed abroad, or from the addition which an increase of civilization, and perhaps an increase of christian benevolence, has given to the comforts of every other class of society.

S. T.

See Carr's Description of the Limerick House of Industry, in his Stranger in Ireland, compared with which, the account which I have here given is almost insignificant,

On the Progress and present State of the Practice of Vac

cination.

THE objects, which the general adoption of vaccine inoculation will accomplish for mankind, if time and experience shall confirm the promises of its benevolent discoverer, are so important, that every friend of humanity must have followed, with anxious hope, the progress of the practice, and rejoiced at the general result of the evidence in its favour. It is not easy, indeed, to calculate the sum of human misery that will cease to exist, when the prospect, which vaccination holds out to us, shall be realized. In its casual, or natural occurrence, as it is termed, the small-pox is not only the most loathsome distemper that visits the human frame, but the most fatal pestilence; sweeping off multitudes, during its prevalence, and destroying the sight, corrupting the habit, or otherwise inflicting disease, on great numbers of those, who escape its more destructive effects. The practice of inoculation had, it is true, already diminished those evils, among the individuals who resorted to it; but it had unfortunately augmented the evils, among the people in general, by the perpetual infection which it disseminated, and the artificial epidemic which it constantly kept up. In London, for instance, during the first thirty years of the eighteenth century, before inoculation could yet have had any effect, the proportionate number of deaths occasioned by small-pox, as stated in the bills of mor tality, was about seventy-four out of every thousand but, during an equal number of years at the end of the century, the number amounted to nearly one-tenth of the whole mortality, or ninety-five out of every thousand. So that, as far as we are able to judge from hence, the practice of inoculation, which in itself might be esteemed one of the greatest improve ments ever introduced into the medical art, has actually mul tiplied the ravages of the disease, which it was intended to ameliorate, in the proportion of above five to four. And the extent of the mischief inflicted on the survivors, is manifest from a statement, published by the Society for teaching the Indigent Blind, that nearly one-fourth of the persons admitted into that Charity have been deprived of their sight by the small-pox; not to mention the various forms of scrofula, and other diseases, which it frequently excites.

* See the Tables drawn up by Dr. Heberden, in his "Observations on the Increase and Decrease of different Diseases, &c." p. 36,

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