TREATMENT FOR LUNATICS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVIII, Issue XVII, 24 April 1897, Page 504

TREATMENT FOR LUNATICS.

The system of treating demented people in French asylums certainly is progressing if one takes as a criterion of prevailing ideas the experience of Dr. Marandon de Montyel. In connection with the last budget of the ‘ Service des Alienes,’ the Conseil General of the Seine has set down opposite the name of the asylum at VilleEvrard the following item :— ‘ Purchase of material for demented artists, 400 francs.’ ‘ Some months ago,’ said the Eclair, ‘an epileptic patient confined in the asylum at Ville-Evrard asked DrMarandon de Montyel:—‘ Why am I forced to dig and cultivate the ground ? lam a draughtsman and am more used to the pencil and brush than the spade and the rake. If you won’t let me paint, why not let me draw ?’ The humane doctor thought the matter over, and on complying with the request of the patient was more than gratified at the result. This privilege of painting and drawing was soon accorded to other patients. Instead of, as many would suppose, a crop of pictures horrible in conception or unspeakably obscene, worked out with all the vagaries of a disordered intellect, the result was a collection of creditable oil paintings, drawings, pastels and water colours. The pictures showed that the artists possessed talent and made it difficult to conceive that their work was that of insane patients. The Doctor was overjoyed at the result. ‘ The idea was not mine, ’he modestly explained. ‘ I owe it all to that poor epileptic patient.’ In a word, the treatment recommended by Dr. Marandon de Montyel is to let a demented bootmaker make boots, or an artist paint pictures, on the principle that the time a patient is at work—really at work with his mind and body—is so much time gained in combatting his disease ‘ Also,’ says the Doctor, ■by decorating the walls of the asylum there is an increased cheerfulness imparted to the place. It gives un petit caractere intime — un air chez soi, to the establishment which has the best effect possible on patients.’ Another peculiar feature of this experiment is the avidity with which a patient who knows nothing at all about drawing or painting takes up the study. In the epileptic ward a young artist was seen working at a pastel of which ‘ Mater Dolorosa ’ was the subject. ‘ Have you been an artist long?’ was asked. ‘ Ah, no.’ was the reply. ‘ I only began since I came here. Before that time I was a cabin boy in the merchant marine, and because I was tired of doing nothing I took up art to pass away my time.’