Part 23 Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles

Part 23

It is very desirable that these new inst.i.tutions should be inspected, like other asylums, by the Commissioners in Lunacy; they should be inspected and reported upon to the Local Government Board.

Among the advantages likely to result from the adoption of the scheme thus briefly sketched out, may be mentioned that those inst.i.tutions which, like Earlswood, have been founded by benevolent individuals for the middle cla.s.s and the stratum beneath it, will have much more room for the cla.s.s intended, and that the troublesome and expensive canva.s.s, now become such an intolerable nuisance, will in all probability be done away with.

The Act 16 and 17 Vict., c. 97, defines "lunatic" to include "every person being an idiot," and the second section obliges justices to provide accommodation for pauper lunatics. Section 30 of the same Act empowers justices to build additional asylums where necessary, and should they fail to do so, the Home Secretary, on the recommendation of the Commissioners, may enforce it. Further, the Act 25 and 26 Vict., c.

43, empowers boards of guardians to send pauper children to schools certified by the Local Government Board, and the word "school" is defined by section 10 to extend to any inst.i.tution for the instruction of idiots. Lastly, the Act 31 and 32 Vict., c. 122, permits guardians, with the consent of the Local Government Board, to send an idiotic pauper to an asylum or establishment for the reception and relief of idiots maintained at the charge of the county rate or by public subscription.

These enactments, however, do not oblige the justices to provide training schools for idiots, or to make distinct provision for them and lunatics. They are, no doubt, permitted to do so, but the expense involved would be so great that it can hardly be expected such a course will be pursued, unless a.s.sisted by grants from the imperial exchequer.

The permission to send idiots to idiot schools supported by the rates or by charity, amounts practically to nothing, because they are so few in number, and are crowded already.

Legislation, therefore, is required to subst.i.tute "shall" for "may,"

and to lessen the burden which would fall upon the rates, if the right course for the good of the idiots and imbeciles is to be thoroughly carried out in England and Wales.

We cannot close this chapter without remarking on the satisfactory change of sentiment which has taken place in regard to this deplorable cla.s.s. There may be times when, desiring to see "the survival of the fittest," we may be tempted to wish that idiots and imbeciles were stamped out of society. But, as Mr. Darwin has somewhere said, there is a compensation for the continued existence of so pitiable a population in our midst, in the circ.u.mstance that our sympathies are called forth on their behalf; a commentary on the precept that those who are strong should help the weak. The change in feeling above mentioned cannot be more strongly ill.u.s.trated than by imagining for a moment that, at the present day, any leading divine should give utterance to the following sentiments uttered by the great German Reformer. "Idiots," says he, "are men in whom devils have established themselves, and all the physicians who heal these infirmities as though they proceeded from natural causes are ignorant blockheads, who know nothing about the power of the demon.

Eight years ago, I myself saw a child of this kind which had no human parents, but had proceeded from the devil. He was twelve years of age, and in outward form exactly resembled ordinary children.... But if any one touched him, he yelled out like a mad creature, and with a peculiar sort of scream. I said to the princes of Anhalt, with whom I was at the time, '_If I had the ordering of things here, I would have that child thrown into the Moldau, at the risk of being held its murderer._' But the Elector of Saxony and the princes were not of my opinion in the matter."

ADDENDUM.

Mr. Millard has prepared the following tabular statement, which shows at a glance the information a reader is likely to require in recommending asylums for this unfortunate cla.s.s.

ASYLUMS FOR IDIOTS AND IMBECILES.

------------+---------------+---------------+------------------------- METROPOLITAN| | | PAUPER | | | ASYLUMS: | | | Leavesden, }|Adult idiots, |Through the }| Herts. }|imbeciles and |boards of }|Residence in Middles.e.x.

Caterham, }|harmless |guardians. }| Surrey. }|lunatics. | }| | | | Darenth, |Youthful idiots| Ditto. | Ditto.

VOLUNTARY INSt.i.tUTIONS FOR IDIOTS AND IMBECILES.

| | |Millard. Secretary, Mr.

In two or three counties there are branch asylums connected with the county lunatic asylums, where pauper imbeciles and harmless lunatics are placed; but training schools for pauper idiots are not provided, except in Middles.e.x.

FOOTNOTES:

[224] Particulars respecting Switzerland and Germany were obtained for the Charity Organization Committee by Drs. Ireland and Beach.

[225] It is due to the late Dr. Poole, of Montrose, to state that so early as 1819 he drew attention to the education of idiots in an article in the _Edinburgh Encyclopaedia_.

[226] Dr. Ireland has now removed from Larbert to Preston Lodge, Prestonpans, near Edinburgh, and receives imbeciles into his house.

CHAPTER IX.

SCOTLAND.

Our reference in a previous chapter to the singular superst.i.tions connected with the treatment of the insane in Scotland, renders it unnecessary to do more than point out in this place the substratum of popular opinion and feeling, upon which the infusion of new ideas and a scientific system of treatment had to work. To some extent it was the same in other countries, but judging from the records of the past, as given or brought to light by writers like Heron, Dalyell, and Dr.

Mitch.e.l.l, no country ever exceeded Scotland in the grossness of its superst.i.tion and the unhappy consequences which flowed from it. When we include in this the horrible treatment of the insane, from the prevalent and for long inveterate belief in witchcraft, we cannot find language sufficiently strong to characterize the conduct of the people, from the highest to the lowest in the land, until this monstrous belief was expelled by the spread of knowledge, the influence of which on conduct and on law some do not sufficiently realize.

The lunatic and the witch of to-day might aptly exclaim--

"The good of ancient times let others state; I think it lucky I was born so late."

As regards the property of the insane, the Scotch law, from a remote period, appears to have been that the ward and custody of it belonged to the prince as _pater patriae_. In the beginning of the fourteenth century, the keeping and custody of persons of "furious mind," by a statute of Robert I., devolved upon their relatives, and, failing them, on the justiciar or sheriff of the county. The custody of "fatuous persons" is said to have been committed to the next agnate (nearest male relative on the father's side), while that of the "furious" was entrusted to the Crown, "as having the sole power of coercing with fetters."[227]

An Act pa.s.sed in 1585, c. 18, in consequence of abuses in regard to the nominations of tutors-at-law, provided that the nearest agnate of the lunatic should be preferred to the office of tutor-at-law. The practice was originally to issue one brieve, applicable to both furiosity and fatuity. The statute just mentioned continues the _regula regulans_, as to the appointment of tutors-at-law for lunatics.

Pa.s.sing over two centuries, I must observe that in 1792 Dr. Duncan (the physician mentioned at p. 122 of this work), then President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, laid before that body a plan for establishing a lunatic asylum in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. That plan, after due consideration, met with the unanimous approval of the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, and a subscription was at once set on foot to carry it into execution, nearly every Fellow of both Colleges contributing something. But enough money was not then raised to start the project in a practical way. Fourteen years afterwards, the attention of the legislature was directed to the provision for the insane in Scotland, when (in 1806) an Act (46 Geo. III., c. 156) was pa.s.sed for appropriating certain balances arising from forfeited estates in that country to two objects, not apparently allied--the use of the British fisheries and the erecting a lunatic asylum in Edinburgh--ichthyology and psychology. The Act provided, among other clauses, that the Barons of Exchequer should pay out of the unexhausted balance or surplus of the moneys paid to them in 1784, by the Act 24 Geo. III., c. 57 (relating to forfeited estates placed under the board or trustees), the sum of 2000 to the city of Edinburgh towards erecting a lunatic hospital. A royal charter was obtained in 1807, and subscriptions were raised not only from Scotland, but England, and even India, Ceylon, and the West Indies.

Madras alone subscribed 1000. The idea of the originators of the inst.i.tution was a charitable and very far-reaching one. They made provision for three cla.s.ses--paupers, intermediate, and a third in which the patient had a servant to attend him. It may be mentioned that the establishment of the Retreat of York and its success were constantly referred to in appealing to the public for subscriptions. The building which is now the "East House" was opened in 1813, and the plan of that building was greatly superior to the prison-like arrangement of some of the asylums built twenty or thirty years afterwards. From the beginning the teaching of mental disease to students was considered, as well as the cure and care of the inmates. The management was a wise one. There were three governing bodies--the "ordinary managers," for transacting the ordinary business; the "medical board" of five, consisting of the President and three Fellows of the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons; and the "extraordinary managers," consisting of official and representative men in and about Edinburgh, who had, along with the ordinary managers, the election of the board every year. At first there was a lay superintendent and visiting physicians.

Then there was an Act "regulating mad-houses in Scotland" (55 Geo. III., c. 69), pa.s.sed in the year 1815--that important epoch in lunacy legislation in the British Isles--brought in by the Lord Advocate of Scotland (Mr. Colquhoun), Mr. W. Dundas, and General Wemyss, and which received the royal a.s.sent, after several amendments from the House of Lords, June 7, 1815.

This Act provided that sheriffs should grant licences for keeping asylums; that no person should keep one without a licence; that the money received for licences should form part of the rogue money in the county or stewartry, and that out of it all the expenses required for the execution of the Act should be defrayed; that inspectors should be elected within a month after the pa.s.sing of the Act, and thereafter should annually inspect asylums twice a year--four by the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh from their ordinary resident members, and four by the faculty of physicians and surgeons in Glasgow from their ordinary resident members; that sheriffs should ascertain whether patients are properly confined; that the sheriff should make an order for the reception of lunatics, upon a report or certificate signed by a medical man (no statutory form was ordered for the medical certificates or the warrants of the sheriffs; a medical man signing a certificate without due examination of the patient was to forfeit 50); that the sheriff or stewart might set persons improperly detained at liberty; that a licence might be recalled upon report made to the sheriff by two of the inspectors; that the sheriff might make rules for the proper management of asylums; that the Act should not extend to public hospitals, nor to single patients; that the Procurator Fiscal should enforce the Act and recover penalties. The friends of patients were required to pay an annual fee 2 2s.

Such were the main provisions of this Act, which proved to be an important advance in the right direction, though far from perfect. It was amended by 9 Geo. IV., c. 34, and 4 and 5 Vict., c. 60. The three Acts were repealed and other provisions made by the 20 and 21 Vict., c.

71, an "Act for the Regulation, Care, and Treatment of Lunatics, and for the Provision, Regulation, and Maintenance of Asylums."

I may add here, though antic.i.p.ating the future course of events, that the General Board of Commissioners in Scotland was established by the Acts 20 and 21 Vict., c. 71, and 21 and 22 Vict., c. 54, both Acts being amended by 25 and 26 Vict., c. 54, and 27 and 28 Vict., c. 59, the latter continuing the appointment of Deputy Commissioners, and making provisions for salaries, etc. The statutes now in force in Scotland are the 20 and 21 Vict., c. 71; 21 and 22 Vict., c. 89; 25 and 26 Vict., c.

54; 27 and 28 Vict., c. 59; Act for the protection of property of persons under mental incapacity, 12 and 13 Vict., c. 51; Act providing for the custody of dangerous lunatics in Scotland, 4 and 5 Vict., c. 60 (repealed and other provisions made by fore-mentioned Acts); Act to amend the law relating to lunacy in Scotland and to make further provision for the care and treatment of lunatics, 29 and 30 Vict., c.

51; Act to amend the law relating to criminal and dangerous lunatics in Scotland, 34 and 35 Vict., c. 55 (1871).

But we must retrace our steps to pursue the course of legislation a little more in detail.

On the 3rd of February, 1818, a Bill for the erecting of district lunatic asylums in Scotland for the care and confinement of lunatics, brought in by Lord Binning and Mr. Brogden, was read the first time. A few days after, a pet.i.tion of the n.o.blemen, gentlemen, freeholders, justices for the peace, Commissioners of Supply, and other heritors of the county of Ayr was presented against it, setting forth that the pet.i.tioners, "from the first moment that they were made acquainted with the principle and provisions of the proposed Bill, were deeply alarmed for their own interests and those of Scotland in general, by the introduction of a measure uncalled for and inexpedient, novel in its application and arrangement, and subst.i.tuting regulations of compulsion, to the exclusion of the more salutary exertions of spontaneous charity, and this, too, at a time when, by the gradual progress of enlightened philanthropy, so many admirable inst.i.tutions have been so lately established in various parts of Scotland by voluntary contributions; and that the pet.i.tioners are most willing to pay every just tribute of respect to the humane views which may have dictated the proposed measure, but they are satisfied that it must have owed its origin to exaggerated and false representations of the state of the lunatics in Scotland, and an unjust and groundless a.s.sumption of a want of humanity in the people of Scotland toward objects afflicted with so severe a calamity. The House cannot fail to remark that the proposed Bill recognizes a systematic a.s.sessment, which it has been the wise policy of our forefathers to avoid in practice, and that, too, to an amount at the discretion of Commissioners ignorant of local circ.u.mstances, and perhaps the dupes of misinformation; entertaining, as the pet.i.tioners do, deep and well-grounded repugnance to the means proposed for carrying this measure into execution, partly injudicious and partly degrading to the landholders of Scotland, for it does appear to be a humiliating and, the pet.i.tioners may venture to say, an unconst.i.tutional Act, which would place the whole landholders in Scotland in the situation of being taxed for any object and to any amount at the discretion of any set of Commissioners whatever; the pet.i.tioners therefore, confiding in the wisdom of the House, humbly pray that the proposed Bill for providing places for the confinement of lunatics in Scotland may not pa.s.s into law."

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