XVII
After fifteen interminable hours the strait-jacket was removed. Whereas
just prior to its putting on I had been in a vigorous enough condition
to offer stout resistance when wantonly assaulted, now, on coming out
of it, I was helpless. When my arms were released from their
constricted position, the pain was intense. Every joint had been
racked. I had no control over the fingers of either hand, and could not
have dressed myself had I been promised my freedom for doing so.
For more than the following week I suffered as already described,
though of course with gradually decreasing intensity as my racked body
became accustomed to the unnatural positions it was forced to take.
This first experience occurred on the night of October 18th, 1902. I
was subjected to the same unfair, unnecessary, and unscientific ordeal
for twenty-one consecutive nights and parts of each of the
corresponding twenty-one days. On more than one occasion, indeed, the
attendant placed me in the strait-jacket during the day for refusing to
obey some trivial command. This, too, without an explicit order from
the doctor in charge, though perhaps he acted under a general order.
During most of this time I was held also in seclusion in a padded cell.
A padded cell is a vile hole. The side walls are padded as high as a
man can reach, as is also the inside of the door. One of the worst
features of such cells is the lack of ventilation, which deficiency of
course aggravates their general unsanitary condition. The cell which I
was forced to occupy was practically without heat, and as winter was
coming on, I suffered intensely from the cold. Frequently it was so
cold I could see my breath. Though my canvas jacket served to protect
part of that body which it was at the same time racking, I was seldom
comfortably warm; for, once uncovered, my arms being pinioned, I had no
way of rearranging the blankets. What little sleep I managed to get I
took lying on a hard mattress placed on the bare floor. The condition
of the mattress I found in the cell was such that I objected to its
further use, and the fact that another was supplied, at a time when few
of my requests were being granted, proves its disgusting condition.
For this period of three weeks—from October 18th until November 8th,
1902, when I left this institution and was transferred to a state
hospital—I was continuously either under lock and key (in the padded
cell or some other room) or under the eye of an attendant. Over half
the time I was in the snug, but cruel embrace of a strait-jacket—about
three hundred hours in all.
While being subjected to this terrific abuse I was held in exile. I was
cut off from all direct and all honest indirect communication with my
legally appointed conservator—my own brother—and also with all other
relatives and friends. I was even cut off from satisfactory
communication with the superintendent. I saw him but twice, and then
for so short a time that I was unable to give him any convincing idea
of my plight. These interviews occurred on two Sundays that fell within
my period of exile, for it was on Sunday that the superintendent
usually made his weekly round of inspection.
What chance had I of successfully pleading my case, while my pulpit was
a padded cell, and the congregation—with the exception of the
superintendent—the very ones who had been abusing me? At such times my
pent-up indignation poured itself forth in such a disconnected way that
my protests were robbed of their right ring of truth. I was not
incoherent in speech. I was simply voluble and digressive—a natural
incident of elation. Such notes as I managed to write on scraps of
paper were presumably confiscated by Jekyll-Hyde. At all events, it was
not until some months later that the superintendent was informed of my
treatment, when, at my request (though I was then elsewhere), the
Governor of the State discussed the subject with him. How I brought
about that discussion while still virtually a prisoner in another place
will be narrated in due time. And not until several days after I had
left this institution and had been placed in another, when for the
first time in six weeks I saw my conservator, did he learn of the
treatment to which I had been subjected. From his office in New Haven
he had telephoned several times to the assistant physician and inquired
about my condition. Though Jekyll-Hyde did tell him that I was highly
excited and difficult to control, he did not even hint that I was being
subjected to any unusual restraint. Doctor Jekyll deceived everyone,
and—as things turned out—deceived himself; for had he realized then
that I should one day be able to do what I have since done, his
brutality would surely have been held in check by his discretion.
How helpless, how at the mercy of his keepers, a patient may be is
further illustrated by the conduct of this same man. Once, during the
third week of my nights in a strait-jacket, I refused to take certain
medicine which an attendant offered me. For some time I had been
regularly taking this innocuous concoction without protest; but I now
decided that, as the attendant refused most of my requests, I should no
longer comply with all of his. He did not argue the point with me. He
simply reported my refusal to Doctor Jekyll. A few minutes later Doctor
Jekyll—or rather Mr. Hyde—accompanied by three attendants, entered
the padded cell. I was robed for the night—in a strait-jacket. Mr.
Hyde held in his hand a rubber tube. An attendant stood near with the
medicine. For over two years, the common threat had been made that the
"tube" would be resorted to if I refused medicine or food. I had begun
to look upon it as a myth; but its presence in the hands of an
oppressor now convinced me of its reality. I saw that the doctor and
his bravos meant business; and as I had already endured torture enough,
I determined to make every concession this time and escape what seemed
to be in store for me.
"What are you going to do with that?" I asked, eyeing the tube.
"The attendant says you refuse to take your medicine. We are going to
make you take it."
"I'll take your old medicine," was my reply.
"You have had your chance."
"All right," I said. "Put that medicine into me any way you think best.
But the time will come when you'll wish you hadn't. When that time does
come it won't be easy to prove that you had the right to force a
patient to take medicine he had offered to take. I know something about
the ethics of your profession. You have no right to do anything to a
patient except what's good for him. You know that. All you are trying
to do is to punish me, and I give you fair warning I'm going to camp on
your trail till you are not only discharged from this institution, but
expelled from the State Medical Society as well. You are a disgrace to
your profession, and that society will attend to your case fast enough
when certain members of it, who are friends of mine, hear about this.
Furthermore, I shall report your conduct to the Governor of the State.
He can take some action even if this is not a state institution. Now,
damn you, do your worst!"
Coming from one in my condition, this was rather straight talk. The
doctor was visibly disconcerted. Had he not feared to lose caste with
the attendants who stood by, I think he would have given me another
chance. But he had too much pride and too little manhood to recede from
a false position already taken. I no longer resisted, even verbally,
for I no longer wanted the doctor to desist. Though I did not
anticipate the operation with pleasure, I was eager to take the man's
measure. He and the attendants knew that I usually kept a trick or two
even up the sleeve of a strait-jacket, so they took added precautions.
I was flat on my back, with simply a mattress between me and the floor.
One attendant held me. Another stood by with the medicine and with a
funnel through which, as soon as Mr. Hyde should insert the tube in one
of my nostrils, the dose was to be poured. The third attendant stood
near as a reserve force. Though the insertion of the tube, when
skilfully done, need not cause suffering, the operation as conducted by
Mr. Hyde was painful. Try as he would, he was unable to insert the tube
properly, though in no way did I attempt to balk him. His embarrassment
seemed to rob his hand of whatever cunning it may have possessed. After
what seemed ten minutes of bungling, though it was probably not half
that, he gave up the attempt, but not until my nose had begun to bleed.
He was plainly chagrined when he and his bravos retired. Intuitively I
felt that they would soon return. That they did, armed with a new
implement of war. This time the doctor inserted between my teeth a
large wooden peg—to keep open a mouth which he usually wanted shut. He
then forced down my throat a rubber tube, the attendant adjusted the
funnel, and the medicine, or rather liquid—for its medicinal
properties were without effect upon me—was poured in.
As the scant reports sent to my conservator during these three weeks
indicated that I was not improving as he had hoped, he made a special
trip to the institution, to investigate in person. On his arrival he
was met by none other than Doctor Jekyll, who told him that I was in a
highly excited condition, which, he intimated, would be aggravated by a
personal interview. Now for a man to see his brother in such a plight
as mine would be a distressing ordeal, and, though my conservator came
within a few hundred feet of my prison cell, it naturally took but a
suggestion to dissuade him from coming nearer. Doctor Jekyll did tell
him that it had been found necessary to place me in "restraint" and
"seclusion" (the professional euphemisms for "strait-jacket," "padded
cell," etc.), but no hint was given that I had been roughly handled.
Doctor Jekyll's politic dissuasion was no doubt inspired by the
knowledge that if ever I got within speaking distance of my
conservator, nothing could prevent my giving him a circumstantial
account of my sufferings—which account would have been corroborated by
the blackened eye I happened to have at the time. Indeed, in dealing
with my conservator the assistant physician showed a degree of tact
which, had it been directed toward myself, would have sufficed to keep
me tolerably comfortable.
My conservator, though temporarily stayed, was not convinced. He felt
that I was not improving where I was, and he wisely decided that the
best course would be to have me transferred to a public
institution—the State Hospital. A few days later the judge who had
originally committed me ordered my transfer. Nothing was said to me
about the proposed change until the moment of departure, and then I
could scarcely believe my ears. In fact I did not believe my informant;
for three weeks of abuse, together with my continued inability to get
in touch with my conservator, had so shaken my reason that there was a
partial recurrence of old delusions. I imagined myself on the way to
the State Prison, a few miles distant; and not until the train had
passed the prison station did I believe that I was really on my way to
the State Hospital.
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