The answer of the New York neurological society to the document known as the Report of the Committee on public health relative to lunatic asylums.

  • New York Neurological Society.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The answer of the New York neurological society to the document known as the Report of the Committee on public health relative to lunatic asylums. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    so stultify themselves. It is to be regretted that the names of these physicians are not given. Yoxir committee will endeavor to obtain them. Individuals under torture have frequently confessed to hav- ing perpetrated crimes of which they were not in reality guilty. We shall see whether the rack of the Senate Committee of Public Health is more powerful than that of three hundred years ago. It is more difficult, probably, to get a confession of imbecility than one of criminality. In regard to other portions of the evidence, as printed in the re- port, your committee emphatically declares that it is inaccurate, im- perfect, and garbled. Take, for example, the pai't where the State Commissioner in Lu- nacy ostentatiously, and doiibtless according to prearrangement, ques- tions Dr. Nichols in regard to Dr. Hammond's statement that a pa- tient in Bloomingdale had died in a crib (Utica) soon after having been placed therein. And Dr. Nichols triumphantly replies : jSTo such case has occurred since the institution has been under my charge. This all seems very straight, but it is nevertheless directly calcu- lated to deceive. If information was desired on this point why did not Dr. Ordronaux question Dr. Hammond, who had made the assertion ? He had pxiblicly stated his willingness to give names, and the whole matter might easily have been inquired into if any real desire to get at the facts of the case had existed. In the course of his examination by Mr. Goodwin, Dr. Hammond, unaware of what had taken place between Dr. Ordronaux and Dr. Nichols, brought this matter up very unexpectedly to his questioner, who at once dropped the subject. The crib (Utica) being under discussion, Dr. Hammond was asked : Q. Do you know anything about the condition of the patients who were restrained ? '' A. No; but I know pretty positively, as well as I know any- thing else, that a patient died in a crib, in an asylum not far from New York City. Here was an opportunity for Mr. Goodwin to have gotten Dr. Hammond's authority for the statement, and to have learned the his- tory from the physician in whose practice the incident occurred. Although, as it happens, Dr. Nichols was not the Superintendent at the time the event took place, yet, for all that, it might have hap- pened during his administration, and he have been none the wiser; for when a physician went to his institution, by order of the Court,