UPON LUNATIC ASYLUMS.

11

H.—No.. 10

By way of illustration, I shall endeavour to sketch the sequence of events which tends to insanity in the country districts: and with strange uniformity it will be found that somewhat similar conditions obtain in originality all the forms of insanity referred to above. An ignorant man goes into the country, aud from comparing himself with himself, and contemplating in solitude the grand sights of nature, he becomes depressed; his hard fare and constant exposure, and the newness of everything around adds to his depression ; he becomes careless of food, and occasionally goes without, then gets dyspepsia; he grows weak and miserable, a terrible craving for excitement seizes upon him, and if he cannot get to a public-house and company, he commonly practices masturbation. The seminal discharge for a time does him good, but very soon he is quite exhausted ; then comes the loss of the balance of reason, and insanity is at hand. The whole of his selfrespect is not yet quite gone ; he has the grace to wish to conceal his degradation, and often succeeds in doing so for years; but when, from some quasi involuntary eccentricity, he is discovered and informed upon : that man becomes violent on the spot, and immuring him in a dismal lunatic asylum makes him almost: incurable. Now, what we waut in our ordinary asylums is gentleness, capacity for extending sympathy, and restoring self-respect to ail. Sunny, bright houses we want for the mentally distressed, with everything like restraint carefully in the background. We want, by the.harmony of civilization and concord, to feranquilize the nervous systems of the functionally insane. We want to preserve to society all those people who, in an old country, would never have gone mad. We want, in fact, discrimination, and must bear in mind that dozens who are put in lunatic asylums in this Colony would be kept in their own houses in more domestic England, and that wo aro daily ruining the intellects of citizens by crowding all classes together in hopeless confusion, and ministering to their wants by tho rudest tools our rough-hewn civilization places in our hands. It is quite a common thing to hear in this Colony, "That man is a capital assistant; he can throttle any one of them at a push." Such a man is a living cause of terror, and insanity to tho insane, and a few such in an asylum must very materially increase the difficulty of preserving order, not to mention the enormous injury they inflict on the nervous system of all classes of patients. Hysteria, which commonly takes a religious turn, is the chief cause of insanity among unmarried females; the smallest coercion, or even appearance of immurement, makes them violent at once, and the indecent lengths to which they proceed when rendered violent, forces those institutions where accommodation is limited to confine them rigidly : the consequence is, their patients, under such circumstances, remain mad for years, and in some instances no doubt for ever; whereas, under proper treatment, they ought to recover within a few months. The conclusion I arrive at is, that a great deal of the insanity we meet with is curable, and tho opinion that I had originally formed was strengthened by the inspection of Mr. Seager's series of photographs in Christchurch. Persons unacquainted with the importance of the considerations I have been attempting to sketch, would scarcely believe in the genuineness and fidelity to truth of theso photographs. "The lunatics photographed look as if they suffered originally from organic disease, whilst their recoverv, and the restoration of their natural expression, proves the affection to have been simply functional, and therefore capable of being speedily removed. Now, what I contend for is, that this condition is the rule rather than the exception, and that Ve make our lunatics incurable by our mode of treatment. Therefore, I would urge that our local institutions should be unprecedentedly homely ; that comfort and happiness should shine in the faces of servants and attendants ; that miserable crowding in yards, and horrible prevalence of the idea of something hidden, should be removed ; that all show of power of coercion should be abstained from, ami tho idea of confidence impressed in the minds of inmates. At some distance from the ordinary dwelling there should be a place where new arrivals, violent at tho time, should be temporarily confined, and submitted to the cold douche on the head. The very moment they showed any collectedness, I would set them free in the garden amongst the most trustworthy of the ordinary patients, and I am convinced the result would be good. To effect all this, careful and constant inspectional supervision would be necessary, and a General Lunatic Asylum would have to be established, to which incurables could be drafted. The industry of these incurables could be made reproductive on a farm, and to it, in little offices of trust, could bo drafted to advantage those patients from local institutions tho permanence of whose recovery could in any sense be doubted. For, as a rule, lam of opinion that the restoration of self-respect is the most important element in the recovery of patients. Memorandum by Dr. France. I think a Central Asylum for the treatment of all tho lunatics in the Colony would be a mistake, but might be better adapted to the management of violent chronic cases, and those of filthy habits, as also the reception of criminal cases. It would be unkind to remove most of our chronic patients, who have been a long time in the asylum, which they have come to look upon as their home, and are accustomed to their present attendants and condition. Then, again, an unnecessary expense would be incurred by the removal of the majority of them from tho Provinces where they have lived, and who only require moral control, with good diet, for a comparative short period, to insure their recovery. Their friends also would object, and the establishment of large asylums is condemned by the best authorities. The system of small asylums for the reception of patients living in their districts, is some mitigation of the wrong inflicted upon many incurable harmless lunatics, who might safely be at large but for the waut of means of support: they have the satisfaction of seeing persons with whom they have been acquainted perhaps for years. And in curable cases it is more possible to give the individual treatment necessary, each having a particular character and bodily disposition, which are more likely to be observed by the attendants of