File:The insane in foreign countries (1889) (14775109841).jpg

Identifier: insaneinforeignc00letcuoft (find matches)
Title: The insane in foreign countries
Year: 1889 (1880s)
Authors: Letchworth, William Pryor, 1823-1910
Subjects: Mentally ill -- Hospitals Europe
Publisher: New York : G. P. Putnam's
Contributing Library: Gerstein - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ormance of similaracts of generosity, nor did it arouse the Government fromits indifference to the needs of the insane. As might beexpected in a country for a long time in an unsettled condi-tion and suffering under financial depression, the mentallyafflicted were sadly neglected. Illustrative of the miseryof those who were restrained in their own homes, a memberof the House of Commons, in testifying before a committeein 1817, said : There is nothing so shocking as madness in the cabin of theIrish peasant, where the man is out laboring in the fields for hisbread, and the care of the woman of the house is scarcely suffi-cient for attendance on the children. When a strong man orwoman gets the complaint, the only way they have to manage isby making a hole in the floor of the cabin, not high enough forthe person to stand up in, with a crib over it to prevent his get-ting up. The hole is about five feet deep, and they give thiswretched being his food there, and there he generally dies. 172
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> DC DI- z UJ O I ZUJ u I- UJ z UJ < <UJ UJ I m C/5 o I-< ZD_l (5 Z < CRUELTY OF OFFICIALS. 173 Subsequently another witness before a later parliamentarycommittee affirmed that he, too, had seen cases analogousto the above. It is not to be assumed, however, that such practice pre-vailed generally throughout Ireland ; and where it did exist,it should not be regarded as evidence of intentional cruelty.It must be borne in mind that there was almost an entirelack of asylum accommodation ; that a popular prejudiceexisted against what were called mad-houses ; and thatthe strong love of home and kindred among the Irishpeople resists the separation of families. But no excuse can be found for the manner in which theinsane poor under public care were treated in Ireland in theearly part of the present century. This is as justly subjectto censure as was the treatment of the same class in Englandor Scotland. It appears that it was once the mode in con-veying lunatics to Dublin to ti

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