Library Collections: Document: Full Text


Modern Persecution, or Married Woman's Liabilities

From: Modern Persecution
Creator: Elizabeth P. W. Packard (author)
Date: 1873
Source: Available at selected libraries
Figures From This Artifact: Figure 1  Figure 2  Figure 3  Figure 4  Figure 5  Figure 6  Figure 7  Figure 8  Figure 9  Figure 10  Figure 11  Figure 12  Figure 13  Figure 14  Figure 15  Figure 16

Previous Page   Next Page   All Pages 


Page 80:

1705  

I have heard of one case where the patient had been dead one year, before the Doctor informed the friends of the death of their relative!

1706  

The prisoners are not allowed to write to their friends what kind of treatment they are receiving, and an attempt to do so clandestinely, is punished as an offense. The punishment for this offense is, they must have their term of imprisonment lengthened for it. I once knew the Doctor to threaten to keep one prisoner longer even for aiding another in getting a letter to her friends.

1707  

The indefinite time for which they are imprisoned renders this prison all the more dismal. If the prisoner could but know for how long a time he must suffer this incarceration it would be a wonderful relief. Then the Superintendent could not perpetuate it at his own option, as he now can and does.

1708  

These prisoners are much more at the mercy of their keepers than the penitentiary convicts. As it is now conducted I should choose the place of the convict in the penitentiary rather than the place of a patient in Jacksonville Insane Asylum. And yet there is not one in a hundred probably, of the patients who is treated as well as I was during the fourteen weeks I was imprisoned there.

1709  

The above statement, I stand responsible for as the truth as it was when I was there; and I now challenge the people of Illinois to bring forward proof, if it can be found to refute it. Indeed I court and invite the most rigid investigation, knowing that the result will only be a confirmation of this statement.

1710  

TIZRAH F. SHEDD.
Aurora, May, 1867.

1711  

CHAPTER XXXII.
Testimony of Eight Employees Taken by the Committee Under Oath.

1712  

The following is only a specimen of what the Investigating Committee received in great abundance from a large number of reliable witnesses, the whole of which is found in detail in the archives of the Library Room at the State-House, Springfield, Illinois, the mere abstract of which would make a ponderous volume. Within the limits of this book therefore I can only give a mere sample of what those faithful investigators collected for the perusal of future ages, showing that the present age had imperative reason for agitating the subject of Asylum Reform.

1713  

Testimony of Miss Kain, an Attendant.

1714  

Miss Kain testified, that she was forty-four years old, resided in Christian County, and was an attendant in hospital from about the middle of August, 1865, until the latter part of December, of the same year.

1715  

When she went there Dr. McFarland told her he wanted her to assist in taking charge of a ward, then in charge of an attendant who, although not officially reported to him, yet he knew to be cruel to patients. He told her she would hear a great many hard stories about the institution, but she must not believe a word of them.

1716  

A Mrs. Dorcas Ritter was the co-attendant of witness, in the Eighth Ward; and the first thing witness noticed was the cruelty of this Mrs. Ritter to the patients. Mrs. Ritter would not let them sit down, and if she found them so sitting, she would take them by the hair of the head and lift them on the seat, and if they resisted she would often shove them back against the wall and choke them, or compel them in some harsh way to comply.

1717  

The benches in the ward were straight backed and hard to sit upon; and Mrs. Ritter told witness, that if she allowed the patients to sit upon the floor and rest them, that Dr. McFarland would be mad, and which witness subsequently found to be true.

1718  

This Mrs. Ritter, for a slight offense upon the part of the patients, would give them what was called a cold bath, which punishment consisted in putting the patients in a bath-tub half or two-thirds filled with cold water, their hands and feet tied, and if they resisted, a straight jacket was placed upon them, their heads plunged under the water as long as it was safe to leave them, then lifted out for a few moments to allow them to breathe and cast the water from their stomach, and the same process continued as long as the patient was thought able to bear it.

1719  

Witness further swore, that this Mrs. Ritter told her she came near killing a patient named Miss D. Haven, and that Dr. Button, who chanced to be passing shortly after, observed that the patient looked sick, and on being informed that Mrs. Ritter had been giving her a bath, the Doctor told her how long it was safe to keep them under water, and if they kept them in until they vomited, there was danger of their dying. Witness further stated that in giving patients these baths they were generally plunged three or four times, until quite prostrate and unable to resist.

1720  

Miss Kain stated that this Mrs. Ritter remained in the institution about three or four weeks after Miss Kain went there, but that before Mrs. Ritter left, she administered these baths three or four times to different patients; and that Mrs. Ritter told her that the attendants were not allowed to administer these baths, without instructions from the Doctor, but that they sometimes did do it without such instructions, and the Doctor knew it; and that the Doctor and Miss Belle Bailey and Mrs. Haskett set them the example of giving the patients these baths, and "breaking them in," as they called it. Miss Kain swears that the patients were sick for several days, and sometimes two weeks, after receiving these baths.

Previous Page   Next Page

Pages:  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28  29  30  31  32  33  34  35  36  37  38  39  40  41  42  43  44  45  46  47  48  49  50  51  52  53  54  55  56  57  58  59  60  61  62  63  64  65  66  67  68  69  70  71  72  73  74  75  76  77  78  79  80  81  82  83  84  85  86  87  88  89  90  91  92  93  94  95  96  97  98  99  100  101  102  103  104  105  106  107  108  109  110  111  112  113  114  115  116  117  118  119  120  121  122  123  124  125  126  127  128  129  130  131  132  133    All Pages