Another Failure Of The Lunacy Law Reformers
187 ART. III.? :Author: Henry Suthrland, M.D. On the 3rd of May last a futile attempt was made by certain misguided members of the House of Commons to effect a socalled reform in the lunacy laws of this country. The prime mover of this attempt has yet to learn that union is strength, and that to dissipate his powers upon two distinct subjects instead of concentrating them upon one, is not the most rapid or the most certain method to ensure success.
We are told that the honourable member ” rose to call attention to the impropriety and danger of permitting private persons to make pecuniary profit by keeping in their custody lunatics of the wealthier classes, and to the unfairness of requiring the ratepayers to maintain lunatics of the middle and lower classes.” The last of these two propositions is easily dealt with. If the honourable member had only taken the trouble to get up any information at all before he addressed the House on so important a subject, he would have found that at all country and borough asylums there is a system of payment enforced upon the relatives of the lunatic to assist in defraying his expenses at the asylum; that in quite recent numbers of the medical journals, the eminent superintendent of the Kent County Asylum advertises to receive private patients at the uniform rate of seventeen shillings a week ; and that at St. Luke’s Hospital, Northampton, Cheadle, and many other similar establishments, those patients are received gratis who are unable to pay, and, at the same time others are admitted, at varied charges, whose means enable them to contribute part or the whole of the sum necessary for their maintenance. Consequently the ratepayers are not so hardly used as he would lead us to suppose.
But it is the first of the honourable member’s propositions that we have chiefly to consider. During the last few years we have heard a great deal of sensational nonsense about private asylums. The instigators of this so-called reform remind us of a parcel of dirty little boys splashing up the mud in the gutter, and not caring how many of the passers by they may bespatter. The Home Secretary, the Commissioners in Lunacy, old established private asylum proprietors, medical men who take single patients, and attendants, all come in for an equal share of indiscriminate abuse.
The reformers add to their number a few discontented escaped lunatics, and band themselves together under the leadership of a few third-rate sensational novel writers. A friendly member of Parliament is persuaded by these infatuated individuals to bring a motion before the House. This agitation culminates in a Commission of Inquiry. Interested and disinterested witnesses are examined. Many days are consumed in sifting the evidence concerning the supposed abuses of asylum life. And with what result ? That out of thousands of lunatics incarcerated in a period of not less than twelve years, no single case of illegal detention can be proved. Some of the statements made by the honourable member and his seconders are in truth rather startling. Whence does he obtain his facts and statistics in support of his affirmation that ” it is quite possible to retard the cure of a lunatic by the administration of drugs ” ? Is one of his seconders aware of the fact that private asylums are inspected six times in the year by the Commissioners in Lunacy, whose visits are at uncertain and unexpected hours and periods ? And is such a mode of inspection compatible with the statement that ” there could not be such a thorough inspection and publicity as were desirable” ? How often, may we ask, would he have the already over-worked Commissioners make their periodical visitations ? Then, again, another honourable member informs the House that the proprietor of an asylum chooses the medical men, who sign the certificate, and then, he adds, ” the trick is done “; that is to say, a sane person is incarcerated. Where did this piece of information come from ? Another equally well-informed member next informs the House, that ” private asylums ought to be subject to the inspection both of the Lunacy Commissioners and the magistrates.” Does this gentleman know anything of the law of lunacy, or of what is actually done regarding the metropolitan and county licensed houses ? To crown all these mistakes, another zealous member informs the House that there are not less than 6,300 private asylums in the country; and a few moments later makes the statement that there are 6,454 private lunatics in the country, which is equivalent to saying that there is about one private asylum to every private lunatic. It is true that the honourable member afterwards corrected this statement; but when our legislators rise in the House to make accusations against a respectable body of people, it is as well that they should at least master the bare statistics of the subject upon which such accusations are grounded.
But the debate was not one-sided. Other members, whose speeches had a ring of genuine knowledge about them, maintained that there had not been proved a greater number of cases of assault in private than in public asylums; that the average period of detention was shorter in private (two years and five months) than in public asylums (three years and seven months) ; that the percentage of cures in private asylums was 50 per cent, as compared with 44 per cent, in public asylums ; and finally, that it was impossible that any person could be confined in an asylum, unless not less than six independent sets of people conspired to commit a most dangerous fraud, and one, moreover, which could not fail to be easily and speedily discovered.
The motion met with the fate which it deserved?a complete failure. The House divided, and the numbers were :? For the motion … . .34 Against … ? ? .81 Majority . . ? 47 The motion was therefore negatived. Before leaving this subject we should like to ask the honourable members who originated this motion one or two questions. Does it occur to them that by any possibility the proprietors of private asylums can be gentlemen?gentlemen, moreover, who on admission to the medical profession have taken a solemn oath to act honourably to their patients and to the . public ?
Do they think that an asylum which had the reputation of keeping all its patients incarcerated, and of effecting no cures, would be likely to have a long or a prosperous existence ? Are they aware that public asylum superintendents are the pick of the profession, both in social position and in scientific attainments, and that they have undergone an amount of competition to obtain their appointments, which is unknown in any other profession ?
Do they know that certain private asylum proprietors have enjoyed the confidence of the public for a period, in some cases extending over three, and even four generations ? And do they think it likely that such proprietors would for a paltry sum of money do anything to endanger the reputation which their asylums have so justly held for so many years ? Many other questions might be asked of a similar character, but we venture to affirm that if those members who have raised their voices in favour of the abolition of a much-needed and honourably conducted class of establishments, will only consider the matter fairly, they will arrive at the conclusion that they have been misinformed, and that they had much better leave things as they are. By their own statements the ratepayers are already sufficiently burdened with the support of insane paupers, and is it likely that they will consent to pay for the maintenance of rich lunatics, whose relations are both willing and able to afford them appropriate luxuries and comforts within the walls of one of the many well-conducted private asylums in this kingdom ?
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