Library Collections: Document: Full Text

This case was altogether the most interesting of those which I saw; but there was one poor idiot standing a great part of the time in a corner, to all appearance the very despair of art; even this poor creature however, upon being noticed and brought to the table, proved capable of distinguishing the letters of the alphabet. Most of the others had received as much instruction as has been described, and could count, draw lines and figures, write, perform various exercises, and point to different parts of the body, as the head, the eyes, the arms, the feet, &c., when named to them. In all these cases, and preeminently in that of Charles Emile. the crowning glory of the attempt is, that whilst the senses, the muscular powers, and the intellect have received some cultivation, the habits have been improved, the propensities regulated. and some play has been given to the affections; so that a wild, ungovernable animal, calculated to excite fear, aversion, or disgust, has been transformed into the likeness and manners of a man. It is difficult to avoid falling into the language of enthusiasm on beholding such an apparent miracle; but the means of its performance. are simple. demanding only that rare perseverance without which nothing good or great is ever effected; and suitable space, and local arrangements adapted to the conservation of the health and safety of the pupils to the establishment of cleanly habits; to presenting them with objects for the exercise of their faculties of sense, motion, and intellect; and to the promotion of good feelings and a cheerful active disposition. The idiot who is capable of playing and amusing himself is already, as M. Seguin observes, somewhat improved. I can but regret that I had not time to watch the progress of this interesting school from day to day, and to trace the growth of knowledge in the different pupils; as of the first ideas of form and color, into writing and drawing; the development of articulation and the power of verbal expression; the extension of memory to calculation; the subsidence of gross propensities, and the springing forth and flourishing of virtuous emotions in a soil where, if even under the most favorable circumstances the blossoms and fruits are few, but for philanthropic culture all would be noxious or utterly barren.

The schools fur the insane patients of the Bicetre, who are neither idiotic nor epileptic, exceed in interest, if possible, those of the Salpetriere. Male patients are better prepared in general than female patients to derive benefit from such instruction; they are also more attentive, and perhaps, more able to receive various instruction. I have never seen more exquisite penmanship than that of some of the male patients; the drawings of some of them were most beautiful; and I will not attempt to describe the effect of their singing, although I can never lose the impression of it. Here, too, as in the school at the Salpetriere, the most cheering thing of all was to see the evident comfort and happiness created by the various and not fatiguing occupations of the schools; to witness the satisfaction with which the afflicted, the paralysed, the utterly incurable, exhibited the performances which they yet retained the power to accomplish. if no other end were answered by the formation of schools, they ought to be established as recreative, palliative, remedial even, in every Lunatic Asylum.

There is no Asylum in which the good effect of occupation has been tried to greater extent, than at the Bicetre. The exertions of M. Ferrus long since procured for this purpose the farm on St. Anne, at some distance from the Asylum. Unfavorable weather and want of time contributed to prevent my visiting this farm, the extent of which is, I believe, about 150 acres. Its cultivation has realized the most sanguine expectations of the physicians as regards the bodily and mental improvement of the patients employed upon it; and, what is of far less consequence, has actually been profitable. A simple regard to the profit of occupation for the insane, will always limit the application of this most important remedy; and it is, therefore satisfactory that the farming at St. Anne has not been a source of loss. The patients in the schools, even some of the epileptic and idiotic, work when the weather permits it; and for some, who are employed nearly every day, there are evening classes. Thus every objection is removed, which can be raised against the instruction of the insane, even by those who regard economy as the first consideration. Out of 800 male patients, 200 receive instruction.