VIII
For the first few weeks after my arrival at the sanatorium, I was cared
for by two attendants, one by day and one by night. I was still
helpless, being unable to put my feet out of bed, much less upon the
floor, and it was necessary that I be continually watched lest an
impulse to walk should seize me. After a month or six weeks, however, I
grew stronger, and from that time only one person was assigned to care
for me. He was with me all day, and slept at night in the same room.
The earliest possible dismissal of one of my two attendants was
expedient for the family purse; but such are the deficiencies in the
prevailing treatment of the insane that relief in one direction often
occasions evil in another. No sooner was the expense thus reduced than
I was subjected to a detestable form of restraint which amounted to
torture. To guard me at night while the remaining attendant slept, my
hands were imprisoned in what is known as a "muff." A muff, innocent
enough to the eyes of those who have never worn one, is in reality a
relic of the Inquisition. It is an instrument of restraint which has
been in use for centuries and even in many of our public and private
institutions is still in use. The muff I wore was made of canvas, and
differed in construction from a muff designed for the hands of fashion
only in the inner partition, also of canvas, which separated my hands,
but allowed them to overlap. At either end was a strap which buckled
tightly around the wrist and was locked.
The assistant physician, when he announced to me that I was to be
subjected at night to this restraint, broke the news gently—so gently
that I did not then know, nor did I guess for several months, why this
thing was done to me. And thus it was that I drew deductions of my own
which added not a little to my torture.
The gas jet in my room was situated at a distance, and stronger light
was needed to find the keyholes and lock the muff when adjusted. Hence,
an attendant was standing by with a lighted candle. Seating himself on
the side of the bed, the physician said: "You won't try again to do
what you did in New Haven, will you?" Now one may have done many things
in a city where he has lived for a score of years, and it is not
surprising that I failed to catch the meaning of the doctor's question.
It was only after months of secret puzzling that I at last did discover
his reference to my attempted suicide. But now the burning candle in
the hands of the attendant, and a certain similarity between the
doctor's name and the name of a man whose trial for arson I once
attended out of idle curiosity, led me to imagine that in some way I
had been connected with that crime. For months I firmly believed I
stood charged as an accomplice.
The putting on of the muff was the most humiliating incident of my
life. The shaving of my legs and the wearing of the court-plaster brand
of infamy had been humiliating, but those experiences had not
overwhelmed my very heart as did this bitter ordeal. I resisted weakly,
and, after the muff was adjusted and locked, for the first time since
my mental collapse I wept. And I remember distinctly why I wept. The
key that locked the muff unlocked in imagination the door of the home
in New Haven which I believed I had disgraced—and seemed for a time to
unlock my heart. Anguish beat my mind into a momentary sanity, and with
a wholly sane emotion I keenly felt my imagined disgrace. My thoughts
centered on my mother. Her (and other members of the family) I could
plainly see at home in a state of dejection and despair over her
imprisoned and heartless son. I wore the muff each night for several
weeks, and for the first few nights the unhappy glimpses of a ruined
home recurred and increased my sufferings.
It was not always as an instrument of restraint that the muff was
employed. Frequently it was used as a means of discipline on account of
supposed stubborn disobedience. Many times was I roughly overpowered by
two attendants who locked my hands and coerced me to do whatever I had
refused to do. My arms and hands were my only weapons of defense. My
feet were still in plaster casts, and my back had been so severely
injured as to necessitate my lying flat upon it most of the time. It
was thus that these unequal fights were fought. And I had not even the
satisfaction of tongue-lashing my oppressors, for I was practically
speechless.
My attendants, like most others in such institutions, were incapable of
understanding the operations of my mind, and what they could not
understand they would seldom tolerate. Yet they were not entirely to
blame. They were simply carrying out to the letter orders received from
the doctors.
To ask a patient in my condition to take a little medicated sugar
seemed reasonable. But from my point of view my refusal was
justifiable. That innocuous sugar disc to me seemed saturated with the
blood of loved ones; and so much as to touch it was to shed their
blood—perhaps on the very scaffold on which I was destined to die. For
myself I cared little. I was anxious to die, and eagerly would I have
taken the sugar disc had I had any reason to believe that it was deadly
poison. The sooner I could die and be forgotten, the better for all
with whom I had ever come in contact. To continue to live was simply to
be the treacherous tool of unscrupulous detectives, eager to
exterminate my innocent relatives and friends, if so their fame could
be made secure in the annals of their craft.
But the thoughts associated with the taking of the medicine were seldom
twice alike. If before taking it something happened to remind me of
mother, father, some other relative, or a friend, I imagined that
compliance would compromise, if not eventually destroy, that particular
person. Who would not resist when meek acceptance would be a confession
which would doom his own mother or father to prison, or ignominy, or
death? It was for this that I was reviled, for this, subjected to cruel
restraint.
They thought I was stubborn. In the strict sense of the word there is
no such thing as a stubborn insane person. The truly stubborn men and
women in the world are sane; and the fortunate prevalence of sanity may
be approximately estimated by the preponderance of stubbornness in
society at large. When one possessed of the power of recognizing his
own errors continues to hold an unreasonable belief—that is
stubbornness. But for a man bereft of reason to adhere to an idea which
to him seems absolutely correct and true because he has been deprived
of the means of detecting his error—that is not stubbornness. It is a
symptom of his disease, and merits the indulgence of forbearance, if
not genuine sympathy. Certainly the afflicted one deserves no
punishment. As well punish with a blow the cheek that is disfigured by
the mumps.
The attendant who was with me most of the time while I remained at the
sanatorium was the kindly one already mentioned. Him I regarded,
however, as a detective, or, rather, as two detectives, one of whom
watched me by day, and the other—a perfect double—by night. He was an
enemy, and his professed sympathy—which I now know was genuine—only
made me hate him the more. As he was ignorant of the methods of
treatment in vogue in hospitals for the insane, it was several weeks
before he dared put in jeopardy his position by presuming to shield me
against unwise orders of the doctors. But when at last he awoke to the
situation, he repeatedly intervened in my behalf. More than once the
doctor who was both owner and superintendent threatened to discharge
him for alleged officiousness. But better judgment usually held the
doctor's wrath in check, for he realized that not one attendant in a
hundred was so competent.
Not only did the friendly attendant frequently exhibit more wisdom than
the superintendent, but he also obeyed the dictates of a better
conscience than that of his nominal superior, the assistant physician.
On three occasions this man treated me with a signal lack of
consideration, and in at least one instance he was vicious. When this
latter incident occurred, I was both physically and mentally helpless.
My feet were swollen and still in plaster bandages. I was all but mute,
uttering only an occasional expletive when forced to perform acts
against my will.
One morning Doctor No-name (he represents a type) entered my room.
"Good morning! How are you feeling?" he asked.
No answer.
"Aren't you feeling well?"
No answer.
"Why don't you talk?" he asked with irritation.
Still no answer, except perhaps a contemptuous look such as is so often
the essence of eloquence. Suddenly, and without the slightest warning,
as a petulant child locked in a room for disobedience might treat a
pillow, he seized me by an arm and jerked me from the bed. It was
fortunate that the bones of my ankles and feet, not yet thoroughly
knitted, were not again injured. And this was the performance of the
very man who had locked my hands in the muff, that I might not injure
myself!
"Why don't you talk?" he again asked.
Though rather slow in replying, I will take pleasure in doing so by
sending that doctor a copy of this book—my answer—if he will but send
me his address.
It is not a pleasant duty to brand any physician for cruelty and
incompetence, for the worst that ever lived has undoubtedly done many
good deeds. But here is the type of man that has wrought havoc among
the helpless insane. And the owner represented a type that has too long
profited through the misfortunes of others. "Pay the price or put your
relative in a public institution!" is the burden of his discordant song
before commitment. "Pay or get out!" is his jarring refrain when
satisfied that the family's resources are exhausted. I later learned
that this grasping owner had bragged of making a profit of $98,000 in a
single year. About twenty years later he left an estate of
approximately $1,500,000. Some of the money, however, wrung from
patients and their relatives in the past may yet benefit similar
sufferers in the future, for, under the will of the owner, several
hundred thousand dollars will eventually be available as an endowment
for the institution.
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