AN EGYPTIAN MADHOUSE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1183, 8 December 1883, Page 3

AN EGYPTIAN MADHOUSE.

The following frightful description of an Egyptian madhouse is taken from a letter by the Cairo correspondent of the Egyptian Gazette, written on August 11: —“It was quite by chance that I visited this veritable pandemonium upon earth last Sunday morning. I had a little spare time on my hands before lunch, after inspecting the Cholera Hospital of the Egyptian army, and so I expressed a desire to fathom the mystery of those four blank red walla, which stand away in the desert, to the right of the Abbaaeeyeb road in the direction of the last slopes of the Mokattira Hills. Grave suspicions were entertained by, many that the Government Lunatic Asylum at Abbaseeyeh was a hotbed of cholera, and (hat the disease within its walls was being concealed, No difficulty was made about my being admitted to the place. We were ushered through a deep dismal archway, into the recreation ground of the asylum where the mad people were wandering about in a solitary purposeless way. Turning to the left beneath an arcade we enter a dark doorway, just as the last of a herd of idiots was driven in before us. We look ten or fifteen strides along a sombrp passage, and on remhing the wall made a quarter turn to the right and stood facing a long lofty corridor lighted only by a few small windows near the ceiling, secured by iron bars. All along this corridor, at the base of the wall on the left hand, the lunatics sat squatted on their haunches in a long and almost interminable row. To all appearance they were a quiet, inoffensive miserable looking lot of creatures, literally clothed in sackcloth. Their only garments consisted of a coarse sackcloth shirt descending to their knees, with an aperture through which to pass the head, hnd sleeves falling half way to the elbow, They had not a particle of linen about them. On our right were the bedrooms; lofty, sdacioue, sombre apartments, entered through low doorways. The bedsteads were similar to those in use in the native hospitals and barracks iron frames and planks. The bedding and bed clothes were filthy in the extreme, and swarming with vermin. Each room was crowded with beds placed about an ar-n8 length from each other. The stench was intolerable, both in 1 10 apart raents and corridors. No regard was paid even to the most elementary notions of cleanliness. I...was accompanied by two officers of tlie Egyptian army and Dr Acland, all of whom will, I am sure, bear testimony to the truth of what I am stating. Some of the ma i people were in their rooms, lounging upon their filthy beds, or standing up beside them twisting their fingers or picking at their coarse sackcloth clothing in a listless kind of way. Occasionally wo came upon a lunatic chained hand and foot, wandering along through the corridor, or we would meet a quiet, peaceful-looking elderly man, who would stand and salute us with his hand.

on his breast at a respectful distance. At length we reached what I can oniy 1 describe as the chamber of horrors ; the apartment in which refractory patients . were mastered and treated. It was a lofty, spacious room with plenty of light. Here a most horrible sight greeted us All round the walls, at regular distances of about six feet, were arched cavities commencing at the ground and extending to a height of about two feet six inches. The extremities of a curved iron bar were firmly fixed in the masonry on either side of each cavity. Thepurpose of this arrangement was as follows : —When a man becomes violent he is placed with his legs bound and with his back against the iron bar, in a sitting position, his arms being fairly kslied to it. The cavity in the wail was supposed to prevent him injuring his head by swinging it backwards an j forward? or by dashing it from side to side against the masonary. As we entered this veritable torture chamber the first thing that met

our gaze was a recumbent figure surrounded by three or four attendants, Upon closer examination we discovered a machine bearing a close resemblance to a weighing machine on the bascule principle, only that the bottom part, that upon which the goods a e placed to be weighed, extended some three feet from the back piece. The top of this back piece was padded to (he depth of about a foot, the padded part being covered with red morocco leather. On the machine was seated a patient with the back of bis head against the padding, and his legs extended towards us. The three or four attendants by whom ho was surrounded were engaged in binding his arms to rings fixed behind the back of the machine. The left side of this wretched being’s head, at the height of the eyes, was covered with blood and his left eye was almost closed, all the parts surrounding it being much swollen and inflamed. While the attendants were engaged in tying him up, he was sobbing, the tears streaming down his cheeks, and he rocked his head gently from side to side, as if in pain, occasionally glancing towards us. While we stood gazing at the horrible sight he did not attempt to offer the least resistance Of course the injury which ho had sustained may have been self-inflicted, but it is equally likely, I think, that ho had been knocked down by one of the keepers. The appearance of this person was filthy in the extreme. The stench was insufferable. The kitchen, which was close at hand, was a gloomy, dirty sort of place. The women’s quarters were even worse than those of the men. They were very crowded, and their generally filthy condition is beyond description. Many of the women were hysterical, and two of them were naked. In the last room but on*, a dark, dismallooking chamber, with only the doorway to admit light and ventilation, in a dungeon, for it was nothing else, without a single article of furniture of any kind, two wretched women were lying on planks on the bare stones. The hands of one of them were quite cold, an i she had the appearance of being attacked with cholera in a most virulent form. The other woman was lying at the extreme end of the apartment, but my military friends being unable to stand the stench any longer we did not examine her. The persons who accompanied us in our visit did all they could to prevent us from entering this particular room. The Abbasseeyeh mud-house contains, I was assured by the gentleman who was kind enough to show us over the infamous establishment, nearly 300 lunatics, about eighty of whom are women and one or two children, and there is no classification in it whatever except in the case of males and females. Those who are violently mad and those only partially so, are all herded indiscriminately together. It seems that the only remedy that is found efficacious in cases of violent madness is the shower-bath.”