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Memorial Of Miss D. L. Dix To the Senate And House Of Representatives Of The United States

Creator: Dorothea L. Dix (author)
Date: August 8, 1850
Source: Available at selected libraries

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In New Hampshire, a committee of the legislature was named in 1832, whose duty it was to collect and report statistics of the insane. Returns were received from only one hundred and forty-one towns: in these were returned the names of one hundred and eighty-nine persons bereft of their reason, and incapable of taking care of themselves; ninety men and ninety-nine women. The number confined was seventy-six, twenty-five of whom were in private houses, seven in cells and cages, six in chains and irons, and four in the jails. Of the number at liberty, many had, at various times, been confined. Many of the facts represented by this committee are too horrible to repeat, and would lead many to the belief that they could not be correct, were they not so undeniably authenticated. The committee remark that from many towns no returns had been made, and conclude their report with the declaration "that they could not doubt that the numbers of the insane greatly exceeded the estimates rendered."

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Where were these insane? "Some were in cells or cages; some in out-buildings. garrets, or cellars; some in county jails, shut up with felons and criminals; some in almshouses, in brick cells, never warmed by fire, nor lighted by the rays of the sun." The facts presented to this committee not only exhibit severe unnecessary suffering, but utter neglect, and in many cases actual barbarity.

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Most of the cases reported, I could authenticate from direct investigation. One very insane woman was confined all winter in a jail without fire; and from the severity of the cold, and her fixed posture, her feet were so much injured that it was deemed necessary to amputate them at the ankle, which was accordingly done.

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"Another female was confined in a garret, where from the lowness of the roof, and the restrained position, she grew double, and is now obliged to walk with her hands, as well as her feet, upon the floor." I recollect eight cases corresponding with this, produced from similar causes, in other States. A man was confined in a cellar for many years without clothing, and couching in a heap of wet straw, which was from time to time renewed; another in a similar condition is chained in an out-building; another is at this time (1846) chained to the floor in an out-building, glad to pick the bones thrown into his kennel, like a beast: one with sufficient property, and formerly correct in life, active and happy. This case was reported to the committee in 1832, who, summing up their report, state, that "in the extremity of disease, the maniac is withdrawn from observation, and is forgotten. His voice, in his raving, grates not upon the ear of the happy. They who have the custody of the wretched being are too prone to forget their duty, and his claims upon them for kindness and forbearance. Their sympathy is exhausted and their kindness becomes blunted by familiarity with misery. They give up the feelings of the friend for the apathy of the jailer." They adopt a common error, that the maniac is insensible to suffering; that he is incurable; and therefore there is no use in rendering the cares his situation demands.

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A committee reported (in 1836) to the legislature of New-Hampshire, that their whole number of returns was 312: the number of towns returned having insane, was 141; the whole number of inhabitants in all the towns returned, was 193,569. The number returned as confined, including all in cages, jails, close rooms, by chains and hand-cuffs, &c., was 81. From these statistics, carefully collected, it appears that one in every six hundred and twenty is insane. The committee of 1836 conclude their report as follows: "Neither the time nor the occasion requires us to allude to instances of the aggravated and almost incredible suffering of the insane poor which have come to our knowledge. We are convinced that the legislature require no high-wrought pictures of the various gradations of intense misery to which the pauper lunatic is subjected; extending from his incarceration in the cold, narrow, sunless, and fireless cell of the almshouse, to the scarcely more humane mode of 'selling him at auction,' as it is called, by which he falls into the hands, and is exposed to the tender mercies, of the most worthless of society, who alone could be excited by cupidity to such a revolting charge. Suffice it on this points your committee are satisfied that the horrors of the present condition of the insane poor of New Hampshire are far from having been exaggerated; and of course they find great unwillingness on the part of those having charge of them to render correct accounts, or to have these repealed to the public."

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The report of the nine trustees for the hospital, for 1847, states, that from authentic sources they are informed that "in eight of the twenty- four towns in Merrimack county, having an aggregate population of twelve thousand, there are eighteen insane paupers; part supported upon the town farms, and part set up and bid off at auction from year to year, to be kept and maintained by the lowest bidder." According to the data afforded above, there must be in the State several hundred insane supported on the poor-farms, or put up at auction, annually.

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