LUNATIC INFERNO.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10063, 8 June 1910, Page 3

LUNATIC INFERNO.

An inspection which is now being made of the St. Petersburg hospitals and other municipal institutions has revealed an apalling state of affairs at the Novc-Znamensy Lunatic Asylum. Both the male and female departments are overcrowded; as many as 40 women are lodged in one room; there is no space between the beds; the patients fight each other from morning to night; and in the absence of efficient supervision perfect pandemonium exists. An extraordinary scene occurred when a cummission of the St. Petersburg municipality visited the asylum. They were received by the superintendent, Dr. Reformatsky, and on entering the male department was attacked bythe lunatics and compelled to beat a hasty retreat. Dr. Reformatsky stopped behind and endeavoured to calm the madmen, but the latter savagely fell upon him, and he was only rescued from their hands by the opportune arrival of some attendants. The Commission ascertained that the asylum was in a moat unsanitary condition, and in a shocking state of disrepair. The overcrowding extended to the attendants' quarters, where no fewer than a hundred children were congregated, and many of them were suffering from measles. The above revelations have caused great alarm in the capital.