XVI
The superintendent now realized that I was altogether too energetic a
humanitarian to remain in a ward with so many other patients. My
actions had a demoralizing effect upon them; so I was forthwith
transferred to a private room, one of two situated in a small one-story
annex. These new quarters were rather attractive, not unlike a bachelor
apartment.
As there was no one here with whom I could interfere I got along
without making any disturbance—that is, so long as I had a certain
special attendant, a man suited to my temperament. He who was now
placed over me understood human nature. He never resorted to force if
argument failed to move me; and trifling transgressions, which would
have led to a fight had he behaved like a typical attendant, he either
ignored or privately reported to the doctor. For the whole period of my
intense excitement there were certain persons who could control me, and
certain others whose presence threw me into a state bordering on rage,
and frequently into passions which led to distressing results.
Unfortunately for me, my good attendant soon left the institution to
accept a more attractive business offer. He left without even a
good-bye to me. Nothing proves more conclusively how important to me
would have been his retention than this abrupt leave-taking which the
doctor had evidently ordered, thinking perhaps that the prospect of
such a change would excite me. However, I caused no trouble when the
substitution was made, though I did dislike having placed over me a man
with whom I had previously had misunderstandings. He was about my own
age and it was by no means so easy to take orders from him as it had
been to obey his predecessor, who was considerably older than myself.
Then, too, this younger attendant disliked me because of the many
disagreeable things I had said to him while we were together in a
general ward. He weighed about one hundred and ninety pounds to my one
hundred and thirty, and had evidently been selected to attend me
because of his great strength. A choice based on mental rather than
physical considerations would have been wiser. The superintendent,
because of his advanced age and ill health, had been obliged again to
place my case in the hands of the assistant physician, and the latter
gave this new attendant certain orders. What I was to be permitted to
do, and what not, was carefully specified. These orders, many of them
unreasonable, were carried out to the letter. For this I cannot justly
blame the attendant. The doctor had deprived him of the right to
exercise what judgment he had.
At this period I required but little sleep. I usually spent part of the
night drawing; for it was in September, 1902, while I was at the height
of my wave of self-centered confidence, that I decided that I was
destined to become a writer of books—or at least of one book; and now
I thought I might as well be an artist, too, and illustrate my own
works. In school I had never cared for drawing; nor at college either.
But now my awakened artistic impulse was irresistible. My first
self-imposed lesson was a free-hand copy of an illustration on a cover
of Life. Considering the circumstances, that first drawing was
creditable, though I cannot now prove the assertion; for inconsiderate
attendants destroyed it, with many more of my drawings and manuscripts.
From the very moment I completed that first drawing, honors were
divided between my literary and artistic impulses; and a letter which,
in due time, I felt impelled to write to the Governor of the State,
incorporated art with literature. I wrote and read several hours a day
and I spent as many more in drawing. But the assistant physician,
instead of making it easy for me to rid myself of an excess of energy
along literary and artistic lines, balked me at every turn, and seemed
to delight in displaying as little interest as possible in my newly
awakened ambitions. When everything should have been done to calm my
abnormally active mind, a studied indifference and failure to protect
my interests kept me in a state of exasperation.
But circumstances now arose which brought about the untimely
stifling—I might better say strangulation—of my artistic impulses.
The doctors were led—unwisely, I believe—to decide that absolute
seclusion was the only thing that would calm my over-active brain. In
consequence, all writing and drawing materials and all books were taken
from me. And from October 18th until the first of the following
January, except for one fortnight, I was confined in one or another
small, barred room, hardly better than a cell in a prison and in some
instances far worse.
A corn cob was the determining factor at this crisis. Seeing in myself
an embryonic Raphael, I had a habit of preserving all kinds of odds and
ends as souvenirs of my development. These, I believed, sanctified by
my Midas-like touch, would one day be of great value. If the public can
tolerate, as it does, thousands of souvenir hunters, surely one with a
sick mind should be indulged in the whim for collecting such souvenirs
as come within his reach. Among the odds and ends that I had gathered
were several corn cobs. These I intended to gild and some day make
useful by attaching to them small thermometers. But on the morning of
October 18th, the young man in charge of me, finding the corn cobs,
forthwith informed me that he would throw them away. I as promptly
informed him that any such action on his part would lead to a fight.
And so it did.
When this fight began, there were two attendants at hand. I fought them
both to a standstill, and told them I should continue to fight until
the assistant physician came to the ward. Thereupon, my special
attendant, realizing that I meant what I said, held me while the other
went for assistance. He soon returned, not with the assistant
physician, but with a third attendant, and the fight was renewed. The
one who had acted as messenger, being of finer fibre than the other
two, stood at a safe distance. It was, of course, against the rules of
the institution for an attendant to strike a patient, and, as I was
sane enough to report with a fair chance of belief any forbidden blows,
each captor had to content himself with holding me by an arm and
attempting to choke me into submission. However, I was able to prevent
them from getting a good grip on my throat, and for almost ten minutes
I continued to fight, telling them all the time that I would not stop
until a doctor should come. An assistant physician, but not the one in
charge of my case, finally appeared. He gave orders that I be placed in
the violent ward, which adjoined the private apartment I was then
occupying, and no time was lost in locking me in a small room in that
ward.
Friends have said to me: "Well, what is to be done when a patient runs
amuck?" The best answer I can make is: "Do nothing to make him run
amuck." Psychiatrists have since told me that had I had an attendant
with the wisdom and ability to humor me and permit me to keep my
priceless corn cobs, the fight in question, and the worse events that
followed, would probably not have occurred—not that day, nor ever, had
I at all times been properly treated by those in charge of me.
So again I found myself in the violent ward—but this time not because
of any desire to investigate it. Art and literature being now more
engrossing than my plans for reform, I became, in truth, an unwilling
occupant of a room and a ward devoid of even a suggestion of the
aesthetic. The room itself was clean, and under other circumstances
might have been cheerful. It was twelve feet long, seven feet wide, and
twelve high. A cluster of incandescent lights, enclosed in a
semi-spherical glass globe, was attached to the ceiling. The walls were
bare and plainly wainscotted, and one large window, barred outside,
gave light. At one side of the door was an opening a foot square with a
door of its own which could be unlocked only from without, and through
which food could be passed to a supposedly dangerous patient. Aside
from a single bed, the legs of which were screwed to the floor, the
room had no furniture.
The attendant, before locking me in, searched me and took from me
several lead pencils; but the stub of one escaped his vigilance.
Naturally, to be taken from a handsomely furnished apartment and thrust
into such a bare and unattractive room as this caused my already heated
blood to approach the boiling point. Consequently, my first act was to
send a note to the physician who regularly had charge of my case,
requesting him to visit me as soon as he should arrive, and I have
every reason to believe that the note was delivered. Whether or not
this was so, a report of the morning's fight and my transfer must have
reached him by some one of several witnesses. While waiting for an
answer, I busied myself writing, and as I had no stationery I wrote on
the walls. Beginning as high as I could reach, I wrote in columns, each
about three feet wide. Soon the pencil became dull. But dull pencils
are easily sharpened on the whetstone of wit. Stifling acquired traits,
I permitted myself to revert momentarily to a primitive expedient. I
gnawed the wood quite from the pencil, leaving only the graphite core.
With a bit of graphite a hand guided by the unerring insolence of
elation may artistically damn all men and things. That I am inclined to
believe I did; and I question whether Raphael or Michael Angelo—upon
whom I then looked as mere predecessors—ever put more feeling per
square foot into their mural masterpieces. Every little while, as if to
punctuate my composition, and in an endeavor to get attention, I
viciously kicked the door.
This first fight of the day occurred about 8 A.M. For the three hours
following I was left to thrash about the room and work myself into a
frenzy. I made up my mind to compel attention. A month earlier,
shattered glass had enabled me to accomplish a certain sane purpose.
Again this day it served me. The opalescent half-globe on the ceiling
seemed to be the most vulnerable point for attack. How to reach and
smash it was the next question—and soon answered. Taking off my shoes,
I threw one with great force at my glass target and succeeded in
striking it a destructive blow.
The attendants charged upon my room. Their entrance was momentarily
delayed by the door which stuck fast. I was standing near it, and when
it gave way, its edge struck me on the forehead with force enough to
have fractured my skull had it struck a weaker part. Once in the room,
the two attendants threw me on the bed and one choked me so severely
that I could feel my eyes starting from their sockets. The attendants
then put the room in order; removed the glass—that is, all except one
small and apparently innocent, but as the event proved well-nigh fatal,
piece—took my shoes and again locked me in my room—not forgetting,
however, to curse me well for making them work for their living.
When the assistant physician finally appeared, I met him with a blast
of invective which, in view of the events which quickly followed, must
have blown out whatever spark of kindly feeling toward me he may ever
have had. I demanded that he permit me to send word to my conservator
asking him to come at once and look after my interests, for I was being
unfairly treated. I also demanded that he request the superintendent to
visit me at once, as I intended to have nothing more to do with the
assistant physicians or attendants who were neglecting and abusing me.
He granted neither demand.
The bit of glass which the attendants had overlooked was about the size
of my thumb nail. If I remember rightly, it was not a part of the
broken globe. It was a piece that had probably been hidden by a former
occupant, in a corner of the square opening at the side of the door. At
all events, if the pen is the tongue of a ready writer, so may a piece
of glass be, under given conditions. As the thought I had in mind
seemed an immortal one I decided to etch, rather than write with
fugitive graphite. On the topmost panel of the door, which a few
minutes before had dealt me so vicious a blow, I scratched a seven-word
sentiment—sincere, if not classic: "God bless our Home, which is
Hell."
The violent exercise of the morning had given me a good appetite and I
ate my dinner with relish, though with some difficulty, for the choking
had lamed my throat. On serving this dinner, the attendants again left
me to my own devices. The early part of the afternoon I spent in vain
endeavors to summon them and induce them to take notes to the
superintendent and his assistant. They continued to ignore me. By
sundown the furious excitement of the morning had given place to what
might be called a deliberative excitement, which, if anything, was more
effective. It was but a few days earlier that I had discussed my case
with the assistant physician and told him all about the suicidal
impulse which had been so strong during my entire period of depression.
I now reasoned that a seeming attempt at suicide, a "fake" suicide,
would frighten the attendants into calling this doctor whose presence I
now desired—and desired the more because of his studied indifference.
No man that ever lived, loved life more than I did on that day, and the
mock tragedy which I successfully staged about dusk was, I believe, as
good a farce as was ever perpetrated. If I had any one ambition it was
to live long enough to regain my freedom and put behind prison bars
this doctor and his burly henchmen. To compel attention that was my
object.
At that season the sun set by half-past five and supper was usually
served about that time. So dark was my room then that objects in it
could scarcely be discerned. About a quarter of an hour before the
attendant was due to appear with my evening meal I made my
preparations. That the stage setting might be in keeping with the plot,
I tore up such papers as I had with me, and also destroyed other
articles in the room—as one might in a frenzy; and to complete the
illusion of desperation, deliberately broke my watch. I then took off
my suspenders, and tying one end to the head of the bedstead, made a
noose of the other. This I adjusted comfortably about my throat. At the
crucial moment I placed my pillow on the floor beside the head of the
bed and sat on it—for this was to be an easy death. I then bore just
enough weight on the improvised noose to give all a plausible look. And
a last lifelike (or rather deathlike) touch I added by gurgling as in
infancy's happy days.
No schoolboy ever enjoyed a prank more than I enjoyed this one. Soon I
heard the step of the attendant, bringing my supper. When he opened the
door, he had no idea that anything unusual was happening within. Coming
as he did from a well-lighted room into one that was dark, it took him
several seconds to grasp the situation—and then he failed really to
take it in, for he at once supposed me to be in a semi-unconscious
condition from strangulation. In a state of great excitement this brute
of the morning called to his brute partner and I was soon released from
what was nothing more than an amusing position, though they believed it
one of torture or death. The vile curses with which they had addressed
me in the morning were now silenced. They spoke kindly and expressed
regret that I should have seen fit to resort to such an act. Their
sympathy was as genuine as such men can feel, but a poor kind at best,
for it was undoubtedly excited by the thought of what might be the
consequences to them of their own neglect. While this unwonted stress
of emotion threatened their peace of mind, I continued to play my part,
pretending to be all but unconscious.
Shortly after my rescue from a very living death, the attendants picked
me up and carried my limp body and laughing soul to an adjoining room,
where I was tenderly placed upon a bed. I seemed gradually to revive.
"What did you do it for?" asked one.
"What's the use of living in a place like this, to be abused as I've
been to-day?" I asked. "You and the doctor ignore me and all my
requests. Even a cup of water between meals is denied me, and other
requests which you have no right to refuse. Had I killed myself, both
of you would have been discharged. And if my relatives and friends had
ever found out how you had abused and neglected me, it is likely you
would have been arrested and prosecuted."
Word had already been sent to the physician. He hurried to the ward,
his almost breathless condition showing how my farce had been mistaken
for a real tragedy. The moment he entered I abandoned the part I had
been playing.
"Now that I have you three brutes where I want you, I'll tell you a few
things you don't know," I said. "You probably think I've just tried to
kill myself. It was simply a ruse to make you give me some attention.
When I make threats and tell you that my one object in life is to live
long enough to regain my freedom and lay bare the abuses which abound
in places like this, you simply laugh at me, don't you? But the fact
is, that's my ambition, and if you knew anything at all, you'd know
that abuse won't drive me to suicide. You can continue to abuse me and
deprive me of my rights, and keep me in exile from relatives and
friends, but the time will come when I'll make you sweat for all this.
I'll put you in prison where you belong. Or if I fail to do that, I can
at least bring about your discharge from this institution. What's more,
I will."
The doctor and attendants took my threats with characteristic
nonchalance. Such threats, often enough heard in such places, make
little or no impression, for they are seldom made good. When I made
these threats, I really wished to put these men in prison. To-day I
have no such desire, for were they not victims of the same vicious
system of treatment to which I was subjected? In every institution
where the discredited principles of "Restraint" are used or tolerated,
the very atmosphere is brutalizing. Place a bludgeon in the hand of any
man, with instructions to use it when necessary, and the gentler and
more humane methods of persuasion will naturally be forgotten or
deliberately abandoned.
Throughout my period of elation, especially the first months of it when
I was doing the work of several normal men, I required an increased
amount of fuel to generate the abnormal energy my activity demanded. I
had a voracious appetite, and I insisted that the attendant give me the
supper he was about to serve when he discovered me in the simulated
throes of death. At first he refused, but finally relented and brought
me a cup of tea and some buttered bread. Because of the severe choking
administered earlier in the day it was with difficulty that I swallowed
any food. I had to eat slowly. The attendant, however, ordered me to
hurry, and threatened otherwise to take what little supper I had. I
told him that I thought he would not—that I was entitled to my supper
and intended to eat it with as much comfort as possible. This nettled
him, and by a sudden and unexpected move he managed to take from me all
but a crust of bread. Even that he tried to snatch. I resisted and the
third fight of the day was soon on—and that within five minutes of the
time the doctor had left the ward. I was seated on the bed. The
attendant, true to his vicious instincts, grasped my throat and choked
me with the full power of a hand accustomed to that unmanly work. His
partner, in the meantime, had rendered me helpless by holding me flat
on my back while the attacking party choked me into breathless
submission. The first fight of the day was caused by a corn cob; this
of the evening by a crust of bread.
Were I to close the record of events of that October day with an
account of the assault just described, few, if any, would imagine that
I had failed to mention all the abuse to which I was that day
subjected. The fact is that not the half has been told. As the handling
of me within the twenty-four hours typifies the worst, but,
nevertheless, the not unusual treatment of many patients in a like
condition, I feel constrained to describe minutely the torture which
was my portion that night.
There are several methods of restraint in use to this day in various
institutions, chief among them "mechanical restraint" and so-called
"chemical restraint." The former consists in the use of instruments of
restraint, namely, strait-jackets or camisoles, muffs, straps, mittens,
restraint or strong sheets, etc.—all of them, except on the rarest of
occasions, instruments of neglect and torture. Chemical restraint
(sometimes called medical restraint) consists in the use of temporarily
paralyzing drugs—hyoscine being the popular "dose." By the use of such
drugs a troublesome patient may be rendered unconscious and kept so for
hours at a time. Indeed, very troublesome patients (especially when
attendants are scarce) are not infrequently kept in a stupefied
condition for days, or even for weeks—but only in institutions where
the welfare of the patients is lightly regarded.
After the supper fight I was left alone in my room for about an hour.
Then the assistant physician entered with three attendants, including
the two who had figured in my farce. One carried a canvas contrivance
known as a camisole. A camisole is a type of straitjacket; and a very
convenient type it is for those who resort to such methods of
restraint, for it enables them to deny the use of strait-jackets at
all. A strait-jacket, indeed, is not a camisole, just as electrocution
is not hanging.
A camisole, or, as I prefer to stigmatize it, a straitjacket, is really
a tight-fitting coat of heavy canvas, reaching from neck to waist,
constructed, however, on no ordinary pattern. There is not a button on
it. The sleeves are closed at the ends, and the jacket, having no
opening in front, is adjusted and tightly laced behind. To the end of
each blind sleeve is attached a strong cord. The cord on the right
sleeve is carried to the left of the body, and the cord on the left
sleeve is carried to the right of the body. Both are then drawn tightly
behind, thus bringing the arms of the victim into a folded position
across his chest. These cords are then securely tied.
When I planned my ruse of the afternoon, I knew perfectly that I should
soon find myself in a strait-jacket. The thought rather took my fancy,
for I was resolved to know the inner workings of the violent ward.
The piece of glass with which I had that morning written the motto
already quoted, I had appropriated for a purpose. Knowing that I should
soon be put in the uncomfortable, but not necessarily intolerable
embrace of a strait-jacket, my thought was that I might during the
night, in some way or other, use this piece of glass to
advantage—perhaps cut my way to a limited freedom. To make sure that I
should retain possession of it, I placed it in my mouth and held it
snugly against my cheek. Its presence there did not interfere with my
speech; nor did it invite visual detection. But had I known as much
about strait-jackets and their adjustment as I learned later, I should
have resorted to no such futile expedient.
After many nights of torture, this jacket, at my urgent and repeated
request, was finally adjusted in such manner that, had it been so
adjusted at first, I need not have suffered any torture at all. This
I knew at the time, for I had not failed to discuss the matter with a
patient who on several occasions had been restrained in this same
jacket.
On this occasion the element of personal spite entered into the
assistant physician's treatment of me. The man's personality was
apparently dual. His "Jekyll" personality was the one most in evidence,
but it was the "Hyde" personality that seemed to control his actions
when a crisis arose. It was "Doctor Jekyll" who approached my room that
night, accompanied by the attendants. The moment he entered my room he
became "Mr. Hyde." He was, indeed, no longer a doctor, or the semblance
of one. His first move was to take the straitjacket in his own hands
and order me to stand. Knowing that those in authority really believed
I had that day attempted to kill myself, I found no fault with their
wish to put me in restraint; but I did object to having this done by
Jekyll-Hyde. Though a straitjacket should always be adjusted by the
physician in charge, I knew that as a matter of fact the disagreeable
duty was invariably assigned to the attendants. Consequently
Jekyll-Hyde's eagerness to assume an obligation he usually shirked gave
me the feeling that his motives were spiteful. For that reason I
preferred to entrust myself to the uncertain mercies of a regular
attendant; and I said so, but in vain. "If you will keep your mouth
shut, I'll be able to do this job quicker," said Jekyll-Hyde.
"I'll shut my mouth as soon as you get out of this room and not
before," I remarked. Nor did I. My abusive language was, of course,
interlarded with the inevitable epithets. The more I talked, the more
vindictive he became. He said nothing, but, unhappily for me, he
expressed his pent-up feelings in something more effectual than words.
After he had laced the jacket, and drawn my arms across my chest so
snugly that I could not move them a fraction of an inch, I asked him to
loosen the strait-jacket enough to enable me at least to take a full
breath. I also requested him to give me a chance to adjust my fingers,
which had been caught in an unnatural and uncomfortable position.
"If you will keep still a minute, I will," said Jekyll-Hyde. I obeyed,
and willingly too, for I did not care to suffer more than was
necessary. Instead of loosening the appliance as agreed, this doctor,
now livid with rage, drew the cords in such a way that I found myself
more securely and cruelly held than before. This breach of faith threw
me into a frenzy. Though it was because his continued presence served
to increase my excitement that Jekyll-Hyde at last withdrew, it will be
observed that he did not do so until he had satisfied an unmanly desire
which an apparently lurking hatred had engendered. The attendants soon
withdrew and locked me up for the night.
No incidents of my life have ever impressed themselves more indelibly
on my memory than those of my first night in a strait-jacket. Within
one hour of the time I was placed in it I was suffering pain as intense
as any I ever endured, and before the night had passed it had become
almost unbearable. My right hand was so held that the tip of one of my
fingers was all but cut by the nail of another, and soon knifelike
pains began to shoot through my right arm as far as the shoulder. After
four or five hours the excess of pain rendered me partially insensible
to it. But for fifteen consecutive hours I remained in that instrument
of torture; and not until the twelfth hour, about breakfast time the
next morning, did an attendant so much as loosen a cord.
During the first seven or eight hours, excruciating pains racked not
only my arms, but half of my body. Though I cried and moaned, in fact,
screamed so loudly that the attendants must have heard me, little
attention was paid to me—possibly because of orders from Mr. Hyde
after he had again assumed the role of Doctor Jekyll. I even begged the
attendants to loosen the jacket enough to ease me a little. This they
refused to do, and they even seemed to enjoy being in a position to add
their considerable mite to my torture.
Before midnight I really believed that I should be unable to endure the
torture and retain my reason. A peculiar pricking sensation which I now
felt in my brain, a sensation exactly like that of June, 1900, led me
to believe that I might again be thrown out of touch with the world I
had so lately regained. Realizing the awfulness of that fate, I
redoubled my efforts to effect my rescue. Shortly after midnight I did
succeed in gaining the attention of the night watch. Upon entering my
room he found me flat on the floor. I had fallen from the bed and
perforce remained absolutely helpless where I lay. I could not so much
as lift my head. This, however, was not the fault of the straitjacket.
It was because I could not control the muscles of my neck which that
day had been so mauled. I could scarcely swallow the water the night
watch was good enough to give me. He was not a bad sort; yet even he
refused to let out the cords of the strait-jacket. As he seemed
sympathetic, I can attribute his refusal to nothing but strict orders
issued by the doctor.
It will be recalled that I placed a piece of glass in my mouth before
the strait-jacket was adjusted. At midnight the glass was still there.
After the refusal of the night watch, I said to him: "Then I want you
to go to Doctor Jekyll" (I, of course, called him by his right name;
but to do so now would be to prove myself as brutal as Mr. Hyde
himself). "Tell him to come here at once and loosen this jacket. I
can't endure the torture much longer. After fighting two years to
regain my reason, I believe I'll lose it again. You have always treated
me kindly. For God's sake, get the doctor!"
"I can't leave the main building at this time," the night watch said.
(Jekyll-Hyde lived in a house about one-eighth of a mile distant, but
within the hospital grounds.)
"Then will you take a message to the assistant physician who stays
here?" (A colleague of Jekyll-Hyde had apartments in the main
building.)
"I'll do that," he replied.
"Tell him how I'm suffering. Ask him to please come here at once and
ease this strait-jacket. If he doesn't, I'll be as crazy by morning as
I ever was. Also tell him I'll kill myself unless he comes, and I can
do it, too. I have a piece of glass in this room and I know just what
I'll do with it."
The night watch was as good as his word. He afterwards told me that he
had delivered my message. The doctor ignored it. He did not come near
me that night, nor the next day, nor did Jekyll-Hyde appear until his
usual round of inspection about eleven o'clock the next morning.
"I understand that you have a piece of glass which you threatened to
use for a suicidal purpose last night," he said, when he appeared.
"Yes, I have, and it's not your fault or the other doctor's that I am
not dead. Had I gone mad, in my frenzy I might have swallowed that
glass."
"Where is it?" asked the doctor, incredulously.
As my strait-jacket rendered me armless, I presented the glass to
Jekyll-Hyde on the tip of a tongue he had often heard, but never before
seen.
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