[Report received from the Honorable Josiah Quincy, jr., Honorable Alfred Hitchcock ... and Horatio R. Storer ... commissioners appointed under the 91st chapter of the resolves of 1863, to make certain investigations of the subject of insanity, and the disposition of persons alleged to be insane.

  • Massachusetts. Commission on Lunacy.
Date:
1864]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Report received from the Honorable Josiah Quincy, jr., Honorable Alfred Hitchcock ... and Horatio R. Storer ... commissioners appointed under the 91st chapter of the resolves of 1863, to make certain investigations of the subject of insanity, and the disposition of persons alleged to be insane. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    The Commission had hoped to be able to state, as they have done concerning the hospitals, that after careful and conscien- tious inspection of the other establishments now used for the custody of the insane, they had discovered no special instance in which a citizen of the Commonwealth had been kept wrong- fully or improperly imprisoned. In this, however, they have been disappointed. They have already referred to the condition of the town poor-houses, and to cases of severity and cruelty that have there fallen under their observation. They have spoken only in general terms of these cases, because they are confident that the necessity of a sweeping change will have been made evident to the legislature, and that such will imme- diately be carried into effect. The fact that our visitation has been made will undoubtedly have caused an improvement in the treatment of the cases referred to, and the few days that must now necessarily elapse before the action of the legislature can be made operative, will, except in so far as affects the chance of their cure, be borne with comparative ease by patients who are really insane. But with the sane man, confined among maniacs and idiots, or in close solitary seclusion, the case is far different. To him, the delay of a few days, or even hours, may be vital; it may forever destroy his reason ; and to allow it would be an act of unpardonable cruelty upon the part of the Commonwealth. Such a case it is that the Commission would now bring to the notice of the legislature. At the present moment there is a man, Joseph Shepard, in close confinement at the Charlcstown Almshouse, whom the Commissioners have reason to believe is not insane. They express this opinion, after careful and repeated personal exami- nation of Mr. Shepard, and into all the circumstances of the case. They have urged upon the authorities of Charlestown that he should be removed from his present seclusion ; if not restored to liberty, at least restored to the wards of an asylum. But this course the authorities refuse, upon the ground that the expense to the city of Charlestown, in case of such removal, would be increased by at least a dollar, perhaps a dollar and a half, per week. The Commissioners do not assert that in the Charlestown cells the inmates are not well provided with food and shelter. In these respects they have no fault to find, nor