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Modern Persecution, or Married Woman's Liabilities

From: Modern Persecution
Creator: Elizabeth P. W. Packard (author)
Date: 1873
Source: Available at selected libraries
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2236  

The same party testify of one man who had an eye gouged out so that it hung upon his cheek, done by his attendant. Another man had his ribs broken from a kick given him by his attendant, when laying upon the floor. Another jumped upon his stomach, etc.

2237  

Another gentleman and lady of this city stand ready to testify that their son who was there three months, was taken out in an almost starved condition, and with many unmistakable marks of violence and torture inflicted upon him. He was so nearly starved to death, that a few days more of like treatment would have killed him. His entire body was covered with black and blue spots, and some wounds in a state of corruption. Ridges both upon his arms and legs showed he had had circulation so long impeded by confinement in the "crib" as to cause these marks to become indelible. He was suffering from chronic diarrhoea in its last stages, with no treatment to check it. His food was entirely inappropriate to his condition -- so unfit for human beings as to have poisoned his system -- so that all his finger and toe nails came off, having previously received their first serious injury from his rash attendants, by shutting them under the heavy crib, as they forced him into it, and shut it suddenly down upon him, while his fingers and toes were thus caught under it.

2238  

These parents assert that they believe there is no worse place in the universe where human beings can be placed than our insane asylums under their present management, with no law to protect the patients.

2239  

A man in Des Moines, who has been a clerk in the Asylum, for two years, asserts: There is no place in the world, in my opinion, where criminals are treated with greater cruelty than in Mt. Pleasant Asylum. He testifies he saw a young man suspended in the air, with his hands tied to a rope, and then whipped until the blood flowed from his body.

2240  

Another, who had been for years an attendant there, says, the attendants treat the patients very roughly, but the Doctor knows but little about it. He once saw an attendant knock a patient down with a chair. He says what I say in my book of the treatment at Jacksonville is true of Mt. Pleasant Asylum.

2241  

I hear almost universal complaint of the increased unwillingness of the Doctor to allow the friends to see their relatives, while in the asylum, and also complaints of want of food and false imprisonments.

2242  

The above facts of cruel treatment I gave him in substance over the names of the witnesses, accompanied by the following letter:

2243  

MOUNT PLEASANT, July 4, 1872.

2244  

JUDGE LOWE -- DEAR SIR -- I send herewith the testimony I promised you. These witnesses are competent and are ready and willing to be used in any manner you may desire for your great and arduous work. Mr. Walters is a Quaker minister, and the peace principles under which his son was educated at home conflicted sadly with the discipline of the asylum, which is punishment for exhibitions of insanity!

2245  

Judge Lowe, 'tis a fact, patients in our insane asylums are treated as criminals, not as unfortunates. But, sir, every obstacle which it is possible to interpose to prevent your knowing this fact will be thrown in your way.

2246  

The By-Laws of the institution will deny it. But in their application to practice they are "By-Lies," designed to deceive and blind the inquisitive public.

2247  

The physicians and keepers will deny it in words, but own it in practice. These "honor God with their lips, but their hearts are far from him," as a God of truth.

2248  

It is to prevent this being known as the asylum treatment that the patients are not allowed to converse with visitors -- that they have not been allowed to write to their friends -- that friends are so reluctantly admitted to converse with their friends in the wards -- that the employees are instructed not to tell outside of the asylum what passes within its walls.

2249  

Now, Judge Lowe, it stands to reason that if the patients were treated with reason, justice and humanity, they would not be so extremely anxious to conceal it. But it is because they are not treated reasonably that they are so afraid to have it known how they are treated.

2250  

Certainly these pad-locks ought to be removed from the lips of both patients and employees so that the public can know how the inmates are treated, and every attempt at concealment ought to be regarded as a suspicious omen, that there is something going on which ought not to be. Good deeds and good acts court the light. It is only the evil which seek darkness. And we may be almost always sure that deeds of darkness or concealment are evil deeds.

2251  

Legislators and trustees have hitherto let superintendents have things their own way almost entirely in the laws controlling them. Therefore this innovation of recognizing inmates of insane asylums as beings possessing human rights in common with other citizens, is a kind of new dispensation inaugurated, by restoring to them their long usurped Post-Office rights. And you, sir, are the man on whom the eyes of this republic are fastened to see that this single right is in no case ignored, and thereby the right of free communication be established between the patients and the outside world.

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