LUNATIC ASYLUMS IN NEW ZEALAND.
BEPORT ON THE LUNATIC ASYLUMS, BY DB. SKAE, INSPECTOR. ' ' i When the office of Inspector of Asylums was created by Sir J. Vogel loud were the outcries at what was considered a most useless piece of wasteful extravagance. The most complete and effective answer to such complaints is to be found in the descriptions of the various asylums in the Inspector's report. The report tells in plain, uncolored language the exact condition and management of each asylum. To every right-thinking mind, the picture drawn by Dr. Skae is, horrible; but horrible as it is, we cannot help suspecting that even this picture does not show us all the miseries of a colonial asylum. There are in New Zealand eight lunatic asylums, containing room for 270 patients; but into this space are crammed no less than 783 patients—nearly three-persons for every .one there is room for. Owing to this fact the Inspector everywhere finds that the xooms are seriously overcrowded, are usually foul and wholly unfit.for lunatics. Canterbury, which everywhere and always boasts of its wonderful charitable institutions, puts 121 men into a place built for 60; the. dayroom also serving as a bedroom —day and night is ia full of lunatics who eat and sleep there.
Till the beginning of this century lunatics were most cruelly treated. Atßethlem, in London, patients ware chained to the wall by iron chains fixed to iron waistbelts. They were treated like wild beasts. People, after paying a shilling each, visited-the asylum in shoals to see the lunatics, whom the:keepers often struck with whips, or stirred up with sticks, that visitors might see and be amused at their frantic rage. The treatment was brutal —-maniacal patients were held under water till they beeame uncohsckras, and after undergoing all the horrors of death by drowning, they were restored to life. This treatment was said to be very efficacious in quieting raving madmen. Many patients were flogged, others were compelled to walk blindfold along a corridor and fell unexpectedly from great heights into tanks of cold water; the fright was supposed •to do them good. Others were fastened into .rotatory chairs, which were whirled round with immense rapidity; indeed, one of them whirled so fast that one patient was whirled into eternity. Read this extract from a book describing what took place in the last century:—"ltems from the constable's.account of Great Staughton, Huntingdonshire. Paid in charges—Taking up a distracted woman, watching and whipping her next day, Bs. 6d.; spent on nurse, London, to see if she was with child before she was whipped, three of them, 25." Imagine Inspector Atcheson sending in such a bill, and the Colonial Treasurer asking the House to pass it in the Estimates. Formerly almost all patients were confined to strong rooms, _or were handcuffed or kept in seclusion or imprisoned in strait waistcoats. Now all is changed. In England and Scotland every effort is made to make the patients happy and comfortable. They are well fed, well housed, well looked after. Personal restraint is rarely needed. Patients are made to work. Faults are corrected and little rewards given for good behavior. Kindness, comfort, and work are the three chief factors in the treatment. Now let our readers study this picture, drawn from Dr. Skae's report of the life he or she might lead if he or she were by some unhappy fate shut up in an asylum:—The lunatic is shown into a room 22ft. by 16ft:, in which are crowded eighteen lunatics and three-keepers, making twenty-two in all ; it has two windows strongly barred with iron, some backless benches, with bare walls and floor, and a most offensive close smell. Day after day is spent in this miserable prison, or in the dull narrow airing court. If refractory the patient is shut up with five other patients of filthily dirty habits in a tiny room without a particle of ventilation. If still worse, the patient would be put into a room, the floor of which slopes to one corner " so as to permit the urine being carried away," with a fixed and stinking privy in the corner. In this mo"stawfuldamp,dark,fetiddenhewould spend the weary hours ; food would be handed .to him by his gaolers thrqugh a narrow, slit in the wall, and if not soon eaten would be taken away. Imagine so horrible a punishment as imprisonment in such a cell. ■, This fearful state of things actually obtains in the Wellington Asylum. It is misery enough to be afflicted with madness, but when to madness is added such a frightful imprisonment, it is high time that the sane population should demand that treatment so degrading and so brutal should be at once and for ever stopped. It is a marvel that such dens should ever have been built, but still greater is the marvel that the visitors of the Asylum should not have denounced such proceedings in the strongest and most emphatic terms. The report shows that patients are handcuffed, tied up in strong jackets, and kept- in seclusion for the most trivial offences. Well may Dr. Skae exclaim that tbey are treated on the " wild beast theory of insanity." In one asylum patients receive a bath every Saturday morning ; nine of them are washed in the same water, which proceeding Dr. Skae naively remarks " cannot be pleasant for the ninth." Some day a number of these poor creatures will be roasted to death in their prisons, for no provision is taken against fire. In another asylum the drinking water, though abundant, is often drumly. Patients are rarely made to work. Dr. Skae asks, "How can patients be expected to derive any benefit from spending twelve hours in absolute idleness during the day, and the other twelve hours in their beds?" Many patients are clad in rags ; their bedding is filthy ; they have no hair brushes. Most of the patients in Auckland eat with their fingers. Bugs abound in the dormitories. Apparently keepers, matrons, and attendants do whatever they please, the medical officers having little control; The total cost of these asylums was £33,540 in 1876. In several a most wasteful expenditure has prevailed. In the Wellington Asylum the average number of lunatics resident was 72 ; the expenditure on spirits and tobacco was £430. In Hokitka, with 50 lunatics, it was £8 ss. Had the Wellington expenditure resembled that of Hokitika, it would have been £l2 instead of £430. The average cost per head per annum varies greatly:—Auckland, £29 2s. s£cl.; Napier, £28175.; Otago, £3O 7s. 7d.; Christchurch, £49 18s. 6d.; Hokitika, £55 18s. 2d.; Nelson, £43 7s. Bd.; Wellington, £59 10s. The cost of maintaining a patient in Wellington was more than double that in Auckland and Nelson, and almost double the cost in Otago. Dr. Skae points out the very" numerous and weighty objections again3t one large central asylum. Nothing could be more unwise and harmful than the building of one huge asylum for the colony. All modern experience, tends to show that very large asylums are apt to prove curses instead of blessings. . Dr. Skae has most carefully performed his duties. He has not hesitated about pointing out the many evils existing. His report is thoroughly businesslike and practical. We cannot doubt that the lunatics will be made comfortable, that the asylums throughout the colony will now be managed like first-class asylums at Home, and that New Zealand generally will be benefited by the work of the Inspector of Asylums.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZTIM18770811.2.17.4
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5112, 11 August 1877, Page 1 (Supplement)
Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,246LUNATIC ASYLUMS IN NEW ZEALAND. New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5112, 11 August 1877, Page 1 (Supplement)
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
No known copyright (New Zealand)
To the best of the National Library of New Zealand’s knowledge, under New Zealand law, there is no copyright in this item in New Zealand.
You can copy this item, share it, and post it on a blog or website. It can be modified, remixed and built upon. It can be used commercially. If reproducing this item, it is helpful to include the source.
For further information please refer to the Copyright guide.