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Astounding Disclosures! Three Years In A Mad House

Creator: Isaac H. Hunt (author)
Date: 1851
Publisher: Isaac H. Hunt
Source: Patricia Deegan Collection
Figures From This Artifact: Figure 2  Figure 3

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103  

JOSHUA L. TURNER called and sworn. In favor of hospital.

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MRS. JOHNSON, Matron, sworn.

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COMPLAINTS RESUMED.

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JAMES TIBETTS called and sworn. In 1847 I saw Morse whip a patient with a strap of leather. Morse, an attendant, said he had the strap to cast them up with. Struck three hard blows.

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CHARITY TIBBETTS recalled. I have known attendants to refuse to give the food furnished to their patients. Butterfield told me that some eight barrels of meat had green around the bone, and marrow black. I never saw such food on any other persons table. I have seen mouldy bread put into puddings for patients.

108  

JOSEPHINE TAYLOR called and sworn. Now employed in hospital in kitchen. Food not same in all galleries. Poorest in lower gallery and cottage.

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CATHERINE DAY called and sworn. Worked in kitchen. Went year ago last January. Left last May, same as Josephine Taylor.

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KEZIAH SANBORN called and sworn. Washer and ironer in hospital at present time. Cooked 13 months in south wing. Have served up tainted meat for lower gallery. Sent it to patients and attendants. Attendants would not eat it. Never saw such puddings.

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Now, I would like to ask the reader -- the public generally, have I made out a case against the Maine Insane Hospital? Have I supported my petition by evidence sufficiently strong to justify its presentation to the Legislative body of a sovereign state? As Dr. Simonton's report has gone before the public, I do hereby desire to review that document, in order to show the public its thin places, fallacies, false-hoods and deceptions. I readily admit that a small portion of it is true, but the color of the whole is black, deceptive, falsehearted, prepared and designed to bolster up and cover the rotten iniquities of that vile and horrid Institution!

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Report: That they have given the subject a careful and searching examination, of many weeks duration, during which they have examined numerous witnesses on their oath, and have sought truth from every available source of information. The various charges may be grouped into two general classes:

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I. As they relate to Mr. Hunt's personal case.

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II. As they relate to other cases.

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I deny the assertion that there was full and competent witnesses, inasmuch there were not less than twenty reliable persons, not mad men, or mad women, but good and substantial persons, who could testify to very important circumstances of abuses in the case.

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In this lodge, it was charged that a patient by the name of Eastman "was burnt to death." The testimony on this case was much, and very conflicting; the substance of it is this: His attendant found Mr. Eastman one evening with his leg in the close stool, and thrashing his body, mostly naked, upon the stone floor. He removed the patient to other apartments, where inspection of the body showed recent wounds on those parts -- the hips and shoulders -- most exposed to chafing on the floor. The patient lived a few days after this occurrence. Was the lodge on this occasion too hot? All the testimony concurred that it was, and such was the unanimous opinion of the committee.

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Cyrus Gilman, the attendant, who usually had charae of this lodge, but was not in charge of it at that time, has since repeatedly said that he has no doubt at all, but he scraped the burnt flesh of Eastman from that stone floor, but, he did not wish to swear positively that such was the case.

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Under this group of charges was another, quite similar, viz; that a portion of the female patients have suffered wrong, though less in degree, from causes which rendered the lodge unsuitable. It appears that a small brick building called "the cottage," similar in structure, and having precisely the same mode of warming as the lodge, has been used for some years, and still is used, for the more furious class of female patients. And it appeared in evidence that this cottage had been sometimes too warm , and again too cold, for the comfort at least of patients.

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Now I have an item on the "Cottage." This building is upon the same plan of heating as the "Lodge." A Miss Wilshire, of Canaan, says that she has walked for hours and hours during the night, to keep from being burnt! I would like to ask: is there a man who would suffer a relative of his to be incarcerated in such a hideous oven-furnace ! Calcutta black hole?

120  

Another charge which properly belongs to this group, was, that the shower bath had been used upon the patients as a punishment. The sense of the committee was negatively, nine to three. The charge was, that a patient had been showered because he broke some crockery, -- evidence was, that the showering was used as a medical means, to relieve the paroxysm of insanity which led to the commission of the act.

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For the above facts I will refer you to what will follow:

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By far the largest group of charges, and in the judgment of the committee, the best sustained, was found in the treatment of patients by their attendants. Upon the general, naked proposition -- "Have there been abuses by attendants?" the vote was unanimous in the affirmative. The proposition was then propounded -- "Have there been abuses by any person now employed at the Hospital?" The answer was "yes" -- that Simon S. Bartlett was that person, that he ought to have discharged from all connection with the hospital, -- all as the unanimous sense of the committee. "Have the officers of the hospital sufficiently watched after, and investigated the conduct of said Bartlett?" Six yeas, seven nays.

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