llll II liiiihiiii;i.;i:;i,i|.iiii..iii.,r I, ,, . ., inn I illllll'liiiiii'jilililiiiilli -i.iiii. ill Mil,I jl lliilillliu,. r,i;.iiiiii,ii. ,,i:m......— I . i IllU.llllllllliUll.lljlimilnhllllll.ll ,lll -n, ,,l llllil ;illi,i;i im,hiiii,iiiilii!) ,,/,;: ,.,i ,:ii;ii lllllll |)li ,,; ' i,iiii,,iii;iii i.i i ,,, , i ,,i.,i, J,]Jiilll!,l1...,.M1, .r.n,,,,..................„ ilifi'ill i.'.i' 'l^ti'Y. ■'''". ?•*''•>*»•■ J'!* i, T.ijffTTTr;.ti,.,,<,m.-o->'.■ 11• ■ n.• i,.Hi..-........ Illl.lll>i.,i,|,l I,III.il.,.h ,,.,i,, ,,i,1,:,,,.,....H,l HlilMlli I |.,.,|.,HU,1,MH,.,,,l,..!.i.I,. :.,.>.I.,111 lltl»l|l4IIIIMl'.lll>l|.4iliM..tli|.itl,hl...:i.i!tl|u1: :Mfll>li|t.l'.l.jll.,,.(il,.t(l1,.,il,JMiiii,i.',itl' "" "••'W555 mutainn 'HH nfluIaE inumtitt 4111 IIIU umiBB tim wumUrtUituuui.. ■■- utinmnai tuimni i lui i, 1u kl444UiHUt4MUWllj.lt.'IU4iU(l» iU44lil4i;H4UU-.U.i.4li.4Ulil .U,I.UilU*UU,.l,....,.*r«iiU> i",nijiiji":«!.,ivv«.'*!id,don't you Delieve it happened here avery axtraordinary thing to my brother. No, many, said Jesus, will s*y to nie in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out the devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works, to whom it shall be answered: '-Depart from me ye that work iniquity." This proves con- clusively that many believe they are saved, while only lost, condemned in their sins. I know that once such was my experience. They are blinded by the god of this world. Let therefore those who stand in such deceitful se- curity, g^t out of the snares of the devil, repent, forsake their .-ins and their folly, and seek earnestly the Lord while he may be found. The time comes fast when it will be everlastingly too late! 18 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, to the Lamb." And endowed at the same time as if with supernatural power, the dying man seated himself on his bed and declared to us that he had a revelation of the Holy Ghost to make unto us. And standing, he said, between heaven and earth, he requested us with all his might to listen to him; to resist him, he said, was resist- ing to the Holy Ghost, by which he was speuking. He re- quested us to fear God and follow him. Then he declared to some among us, the hidden deep evil of their heart. He to'd me that the Universalist's doctrine in which I then believed more or less, could be broken in pieces by a child that read his Bible. He told us tli: t Francois (the writer) should suffer a great deal. How the awful truth of that prediction has bjen fulfilled, the reader will see. After a long exhortation to all of us, he declared that he saw clearly that some of us would not follow his advice. (That has also proven to h> too true.) He predicted sev- eral times that some great events were to happen, but that no harm should happen to his wife. Then he told us he had a vision, that he saw some great w.ters, and be- yond the waters a wall, and beyond the wall a great mul- titude of souls. Then he suddenly exclaimed: "I see our mother—among them." He predicted also some other things. Some of them have already happened, and some not, and probably will not. He also declared that Satan has a great part in our diseves. Then in an effusion of love which 1ms nothing in common with the earth, he ex- claimed: "Ah! my friends, how they love in Heaven"' And animated himself by this love, he again requested all of us to persevere in the faith and do good. Then he em braced us, kissed a warm adieu to all, said he was pressed to remove, that he was going to die. He then laid down- he made a few long breathirgs, and all of us and himself' really believed that he was dying. He turned on his side TREATMENT AND CURE. 19 and there he died—in his mind. He found himself pass- ing the river of death, many were crossing the waters at the same time. And while many crossed them with ter- rible travail, he crossed them easily, leaning on Jesus. In fact, he had only died in his deceived mind, for a few min- utes afterwards, his face so pale and white as it had been for over fifteen hours, became again suddenly of a yellow- ish color and ugly, and the dying man believed that he was cured, and said so, and asked for something to eat. Then suddenty in a new attack of insanity, he said to his wife: "Satan is there, there, you must cast him out." And his wife, fearing, trembling, exclaimed: "Lord do cast out Satan." But at the same instant, endowed with I don't knew what strength, he jumped off the bed, seized his wife by the arm—but did not hurt her—lie only set her out in the kitchen, saying: "Is it so my daughter that thou didst cast out Satan? It is in the name of Jesus Christ that one cast out Satan." We set him back m his bed. It was then about 4 o'clock in the morning. The doctor came. He said .that because the patient's liver was diseased,a cer- tain acid remained in the blood which caused the brain derangement; and after examination he found that the patient could live but two days, four at the most. But after breakfast the patient exclaimed again: "Satan is there." (He showed, the place about the store.) And he implored us to cast him out. Although we did not much believe what he was saying, nevertheless at ids pressing request we fell on our knees and prayed God to help us, and the patient seeing Satan no more, was appeased. But a few minutes after he saw Satan re-appear, he said, and requested us with the most pressing entreaties, to pray God to cast him out, and this happened four or five times in succession. Then once after this, not having assented quickly enough to fall on our knees at his most 20 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, pressing request, he again suddenly jumped off the bed, with a face yellow and awful to regard, and having some froth at the mouth, and exclaimed in a heart-rending tone of trouble and despair, "I am a demoniac!" I needed the help of the two women to put him back in his bed. Reader, it is here the patient who for about fifteen hours has remained in a state of weakness between life and death. What is this? Insanity will you answer me? Yes, that's it. But what is insanity? that's the question. Well, the patient has declared himself in a lamentable tone, what was the cause of the trouble that tortured him, expressly saying, "I am a demoniac," and he is so well convinced of the fact that a few hours after, then again calm and reasonable, he told his wife: "Francois (the writer) will believe now that there are demons." And to me he said in a tone of firm conviction: "Fran- cois, when I tell you that Satan is there, he is there, you must believe me." Thus was this patient convinced that insanity is nothing else but a demoniacal possession. Now reader, what was it the patient saw when he ex- claimed, "Satan is there, there," showing the spot? I do not know exactly. But it is clear to me that he saw some representation of the evil spirit, Satan under one form or another. Was it visions, real visions he had at the time, or hallucinations? I don't exactly know which. At any rate we believe that the visions, delusions and hallucina- tions of the insane are brought about by the evil spirit. The devil is not dead, he is still living and working; be sure of it. After he Avas calmed, the patient had already asked his wife several times what had happened the previous night. He had a confused remembrance that he had spoken and saw great things, but he did not recollect them. And as he was questioning us again anxiously about that in the TREATMENT AND CURE. 21 afternoon, I commenced to tell to the*friends present the patient's revelation and vision of the -previous night, and as soon as I related them, he remembered having told and seen those things himself- He spoke of them ration- ally to us, and even if I forgot something, he or my brother-in-law, aviio had heard all of it, told it right. And when I got through telling those things, I said to the listeners, "Those are the things which the patient told and saw last, night; but my friends, you should not be sur- prised should you in a little while see the patient jumping off his bed in an attack of madness;" and as soon as the words were uttered the patient jumped off the bed, the face yellowed again in an instant in an attack of delirious insanity. Well, truly, if it is an acid that causes this folly, it is an acid which seems very well to understand what one says, at least. When the patient was put back in his bed, we offered a prayer to God. Then in a moment of great excitement we cried out in clapping our hands: "It is Christ, it is Christ who has paid for our sins, when he was nailed on the accursed wood of the cross." And in saying this aloud, the eyes closed, it came to pass that I suddenly saw a vis- ion, oh! beautiful vision! I saw first some fire, then a mountain covered up with a vapor of smoke, on the top of the mountain a well drawn cross, and the blood was run- ning abundantly down the cross, and in seeing this I told my wife, "I saw some fire, a mountain, a cross up on the mount and the blood running down the cross." This vis- ion has recalled many times to my mind old Joel's proph- ecy repeated by Peter at Jerusalem on the day of Pen- tecost: "And your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams .... And I will shew wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapor of smoke," Then we got nearer 22 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, the patient, we took one of his hands, his wife got hold of his other hand, and suddenly it came to my mind, wdiich was also losing its equilibrium, that if it was good for us to get hold of the patient's hand, that it would be good also for others to get hold of him. And I told my wife to take hold of the patient, then our boy, then every one in the house to the number of eleven, persons, beside the patient; and whiie all those persons except one got hold of him, the patient again sat down on his bed himself and he uttered a long speech this time in an un- known tongue. In Avhat tongue the sick man spoke, I do not know. Certain it is that all he could speak was the Walloon (a Belgian dialect) the French, and very lit- tle English, and at the time lie spoke none of those lan- guages, nor German either. It appears certain also that he did not speak broken Avords not to be understood, but only a language that no one of us knew, and that himself had never learned nor heard. What had he said? A cer- tain experience explained to me afterwards that he was confessing his sins to the eternal God. Now wre believe it to be a fact that the patient had spoken by a spirit when he made his revelation in French and had his vision of the souls beyond the Avaters, and also when he made his speech in an unknown tongue. So be- lieved the persons who heard him., One of them told me the next day that he thought he Avas attending a spiritu- alistic sitting, and moreover, that, scared himself, he Avished a great deal he could escape from the room. The only question then is to know whether the patient spoke through the Spirit of God as he believed and declared himself, or if he spoke and acted through the spirit of error and evil. Well Avhen the dying man sat suddenly on his bed to prophesy great things and had a grand vision, Ave believe that even here he acts through the evil spirit disguised as TREATMENT AND CURE. 23, an angel of light who pursued an object that he even reached viz., to render some one else crazy enough to kill.* He is a murderer from the beginning; and when the patient made his speech in an unknown tongue he was evidently out of his mind; and God's Spirit does not produce insan- ity, but the evil spirit does. Then Avhen the poor patient jumped off his bed ready to commit some follies and acts of violence, Satan works here in him as in a rough and wrong-doing demoniac. After the patient got through that speech I tried to show up Iioav the Saviour, in a moment of unutterable anguish and love had given up the ghos!; on the cross. But overwhelmed by excitement and deep emotions, and striken at the same time as by a partial brain paralysis, we could not get through. And under the sway of a terrible anguish, Ave uttered some awful and prolonged cries, and this occurred several times. Noav there is not only one insane, but two. My Avife and her brother took me home. I got in bed. Dr. Kenouse was called. He came and declared after examination that there was noth- ing serious nor alarming in my condition. The pure and simple truth is that the doctor had before him a danger- ously insane person, liable at any moment to become a raving maniac, but he does not see it. He prepared some medicine to soothe me, he said, then he retired. But be sure reader that one cannot soothe a trouble like this Avith a little medicine. The next day, Sunday, I behaved Avell all the day. That was the calm preceding the storm. About nine o'clock I got to bed. But what an awful night! I shall never forget it. My thoughts troubled me. It came to my mind that I would heal my brother * In fact to have really believed at the time that the patient was speaking through the Holy Ghost, that surely helped much to develop my insanity. But now reader, do you see how Satan here imitates the great works of God's Spirit, consisting in revelations, vibions and speaking of unknown tODgues? 24 INSANITY ITS C-IUSE, EFFECTS, by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ the next dty in presence of all the witnesses who got hold of him, while he spoke in an unknown tongue. After that I heard several times distinctly and it seemed in reality th" sound or a trumpet in the air.* It seemed to me that the end at all things had come. During that night of mental storm, four times in succession we Avere seized of a -hivering along the spinal cord, such as Ave had never felt before, and each time in direct answer to a certain request of ours addressed to the Lord Jesus Christ. CHAPTER II. The Crime. The awful night is passing away, but the terrible day of woe which has separated me from my family, until now, is coming. When the morning came, impressed with the idea of curing my brother, I charged my wife to assemble all the Avitnes.-es sp;>keu of in presence of whom I thought tc certainly cure my brother. Another thought troubled me. I really believed that the end of all things had come, and that Jesus Christ was going to appear. And from time to time, I called the Christ to come until I was completely out of breath, saying: "Come. come, come" and suffered much therefrom. In short I was in a lamentable state of mind. My Avife instead of assembling my witnesses, decided Avith her brother, to send for the doctor, (She did not know then that the *We must state here that our wife has told us several times while visiting us at the Northern Wisconsin Hospital, where we have been transported, and where we now write these things, that during one night right after our separation, she heard even so, the roaring sound of several trumpets passing in the air above our house. TREATMENT AND CURE. 25 doctors know nothing about insanity. She knoAvs it now.) When I knew that I got mad about it, and in my insanity I got so far as to slap her. I believed 1 must necessarily get her to obey me since I wanted to do the best deed in the world—cure my dying brother. Dr. Kenouse came. I received him very gruffly, unlike myself. Ire- fused his medicine; and told him that absolutely he kneAv nothing about my case. Here the mad man uttered a great truth! For the doctor left me once more, saying to my brother-in-law that there was no danger abcut me. This, my brother-in-hiAv has told me time and again, and repeated to me after my return to Wausau from the hos- pital. The afternoon came. I took the Bible and sat now beside my Avife in perfect accord. I read the three or four last chapters of St. John's Revelation. Then it seemed to me that all things were so easy to understand that I laughed at it. But then completely out of myself. and seized Avith an attack of furious insanity, mixed up Avith an involuntary rage, took an empty plate from the table and violently threw it down on the floor. Then I seized two books, one after the other from the table and so threw them down, and then the Bible. And mad, furi- ous, raging, I commenced to slap violently my wife. She escaped and fled; I caught her out doors, and holding her with one hand, I was striking her with the other. And at the moment she Avas probably going to fall under the violence of my savage blows, which fell on her as thick as rain, and as heavy as iron, John Detienne, one of our friends (as sent of God just now) ran to her assistance, and came happily to snatch her out of my hands. But now unfortunately she ran in the direction of my broth- er's house. I pursued her. But arrived at my brother's house, I forgot her entirely and went to enter at my brother's. And as the door resisted me, 1 seized an old 26 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, axe just beside the door, and struck the door to get it open. Those inside relaxed their hold. I entered in; I passed by my sister-in-law, the dying man's wife, and Ely Detienne, brother of John, I looked at them they said, but I do not remember to have seen them there. I-entered the dying man's room, my axe in my hand. I thought no more of striking him, than I think, reader, to strike you now. But as I arrived near his bed, these words Avere sud- denly brought to my mind: "He says that thou has a bad breath, but it is he that has a bad breath." And always furious, raging, right upon that suggestion, I struck my brother in the forehead Avith that axe, and I struck so many successiAre blows that he rolled out of his bed, swimming in his blood. And when I saw him lying on the floor, I thought I could raise him from the dead, and I cried out, "Victor, Victor," really believing he was going to rise. I thought I had committed the best deed in the world and I cried out: "Christ is here, Christ is here." Lo! I did not know I had the devil in me! I got out with the idea that if any one Avanted to hurt me, all Wausau would come to deliver me. But while I Avas hollering out, instead of this, the police came, who overcame me with club blows on my head, bound me with some assis- tance and brought me into jail. Thus, in a moment of nameless misfortune, perished under the redoubled blows of a murderous axe, by my own hands, the dear dying brother that I loved as myself, and whom during all the time of his long sickness, I had but tried to relieve and heal, as all Avho know us could testify. Reader, friend, who has just read the awful recital of the tragic death of our brother, I ask you, has ever one seen a misfortune like our misfortune? This attack of raging madness, during Avhich I threw my books down, struck my Avife and assassinated my poor dying brother did TREATMENT AND CURE. 21 not last, it appears, much over ten minutes. After this mo- ment of woe supreme, I was insane for three months and twenty days, and except in a single instance, I have never thought again of striking any one. It is therefore evi- dent that if some generous friends had taken hold of us just at that moment, they would have saved me from committing that crime. They would have saved my name from the murderer stigma, and saved me from this long detention in the hospital after my recovery. And then what! if we added to this, that this Monday, the 22d of December, 1884, the day of the crime, is just the fourth day after which the docfor had pronounced that all the patient could live yet was tAvo days more, four at the most. But we know that here is God's wisdom, to draw good from evil. He has drawn the salvation of the world from the most abominable crime—the murder of his Son. Now what explanation can we give of this awful crime? Insanity shall you answer me? Yes, but once more, what is insanity? That is the question. Well, let us now see about it, in cold blood and in our right mind again, thanks be to God. And before all, let us state right here, that so far as we can recollect, it seems certain to us that all we have done and said since we got the use of reason, (unless perhaps on certain few occasions, Avhile under the influence of drink,) that we could always do or not do, tell or not tell, all we have done and told until Saturday, the 20th of December, 1884. But in the afternoon of that day for the first time in our life of forty-three years, it is certain that Ave have done and told some things independently of our will, moved by the spirit of folly. Then tAvo days later, the 22d of De- cember, during the afternoon, it is certain and beyond all possible doubt, that from the moment when we threw down our books until Ave Avere overcome and arrested by 28 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, the police, that for that small space of time at least, we have lost, not all consciousness, but entirely the control of ourself, and our will power, and we have acted be- ing governed, moved by a power outside our control, strik- ing, smashing, breaking in pieces, as do the unconscious machine wheels set in motion by a power outside them- selves that runs them* Thus in examining seriously what has happened, I see that I certainly have done and said such things as it would have been for me impossible to do in possession of my reason and will poAver. And hoAv? Well, it seemed most certain to us that for that space of time of about ten or fifteen minutes, while we had lost all control of ourself, that some power, conscious, intelligent, was leading this tragedy, was moving us, strik- ing by our hands Avhile in complete possession of ourself. And this power conscious, intelligent, who leads this hor- rible tragedy can be but Satan's povrer, who is a murderer from the beginning. Yes, and we may go further and say that Ave believe that Satan had prepared all things for the crime; that he had first led me to insanity. Then caused my wife to run in that direction; that he had caused the others to hold the door so that I needed an axe to open it; caused the axe to be right there handy, and finally that he, Satan himself, brought to my mind that suggestion about my bad breath, on which I struck the first blow. ( For AAre must say, that in fact, on the pre- vious days, my brother had complained much of my bad breath while near him.) And Avhy should I not be- lieve that Satan had a hand in all this preparation for the crime? Had he not prepared men and circumstances, fire and wind and all things, to entirely bereave Job of all his children, property and health? •Almost two years after writing the above in the Northern AVisconsin Hos- Eital, I became aware that about the same state of mind may be produced y the dark science of hypnotism or animal magnetism. TREATMENT AND CURE. 29 We may cite some cases of men having in like manner committed crimes while controlled by a power outside themselves, but we rather say, if our conclusion about the cause of this crime and cause and effects of insanity is ac- according to God's word, Ave are right. If not, we are wrong. Let us then consult God's wrord about it. "And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes. And when he Avas come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit who had his dwelling among the tombs, and no man could bind him, no, not with chains; because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains aid the chains had been plucked asunder by him and the fetters broken in pieces; neither could any man tame him. And always night and day he Avas in the mountains and in the tombs, crying and cut- ting himself with stones. But Avhen he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and Avorshipped him, and cried Avith a loud voice and said, 'What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God, I adjure thee by God that thou torment me not.' (For He said unto him,'Come out of the man ihou unclean spirit.') And He asked him, 'What is thy name?' And he answered, saying, 'My name is Le- gion, for we are many.' And he besought Him much that he would not send them away out of the country. Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding, and all the devils besought Him, saying, 'Send us into the sviut-.that we may enter into them.' And fortliAvith Jesus gave tnem leave. And the unclean spir- its went out and entered into the swine; and the herd ran violently down a steep p^acr. into the sea. t .ney were about two thousand,) and were choked m t':* sea. And they that fed the swine fled and told ic;_: ine city and in 30 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, the country. And they went out to see Avhat it Avas that was done. And they came to Jesus, and saw him that was possessed with the devil and had the legion, sitting and clothed, and in his right mind; and they were afraid. And they that saAv it told them how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil, and also concerning the swine. And they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts. And when He Avas come into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed Him that he might be with Him. Howbeit, Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, 'Go home to thy friends and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compas- sion on thee.' And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him. And all men did marvel." We have here before us a violent demoniac deprived of reason and will power. He is insane, for it is Avritten that "always night and day he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying and cutting himself with stones." He is depriAred of will power. For it is written that "he Avas driven of the devil into the Avilder- ness." (Luke VIII. 29.) The devil speaks and- acts through this man. For we see that the devil himself cried with a loud voice (through the mouth of the pos- sessed man): "What have I to do Avith thee, Jesus, thou Son of the Most High God? I abjure thee by God that thou torment me not." And the evil spirit (thr:ugh the mouth of the demoniac) answered saying: "My name is Legion." And likewise all the devils besought Jesus, say- ing, "Send us into the swine, that Ave may enter into them." Now that the infallible remedy against insanity, is to cast out the demons, which cause it, is self-evident. Nevertheless, we take pleasure in repeating again: "And they see him that was possessed with the deA'il, and had TREATMENT AND CURE. 31 the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind." That's it. While possessed of demons, he was insane, mad, violent, furious. When rid of his legion, they see him ."clothed and in his right mind." Glory be to God! And when the demons Avho Avere in him entered into the swine, "the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea." Noav we have seen that in that moment of Avoe, like this demoniac of G idara, Ave Avere deprived of reason and will poAver.* Like him Ave were striking, smashing, breaking in pieces by a power out of our control. Though a man of very ordinary strength, at the moment of the crime it took the force of four men to bind the Avriter, afL*r having thrown him down by several blows Avith a club, stricken on his head. If he Avas a little more or less strong than the demoniac of the Gadarenes avIio "plucked asunder the chains and brake the fetters in pieces" this, no doubt, makes no difference in the kind of disease, (more exactly "trouble,") for it is evident, that the writer at that moment, was also endued AATith a super-human strength. Those Avho helped to bind him d .clare it. Now like the denioni ic of Gadara it shall be shown that the writer Avas cured, set back in his right mind, through the word of Christ, while ready to die in the hands of the doc- tors. Glory to Jesus! Now Avhen the demoniac of the Gadarenes was healed, "he departed, (at the command of Jesus) and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him, and all men did marvel." And we do hereby try to do likewise. Whether he was a better preacher than I, this makes no difference either in the spirit which moved him and me after recovery. *We must state here, that it was only two years after having written for the first time in the hospital the account of our crime, about as read above, that we have compared it with the case of the demoniac of Gadara as it is now. 32 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, Delivered of my demons, and animated now by the Spirit of Jesus, I wanted, like him to preach the name of Christ, the great deliverer from the power of sin and Satan. And "tell the great tilings that Jesus has done for me." Praise the Lord. — From the above it appears now clear to all, that insanity has noAV the same cause—Satan—and the effects that it had eighteen hundred years ago. ArA that our modern doctors have found the cause of insanity al- most everywhere except Avhere it is in fact—in: Satan. God bless the doctors, and give them light. They need it! We will show further on that the same devil is, in like manner, the immediate cause of epileptic fits. Now a little while after we Avere overcome by the police, this attack of raging madness ceased, and gave place to a state of mind which much resembled drunkenness. On our Avay to the jail, Ave thought we Avere passing through Wausau, then through Green Bay. We thus arrived at the jail. There Ave recognized the persons around u~j, and ansAvered some of their questions. They placed us in a cell. There, our head became very near like the head of a man drunken Avith wine.* (Noav we had be.-n the a a sober man for twelve years.) It only reaiained in us as a vague feeling of an indefinable malaise. It seemed to us that some unhappy event had taken place, but we couldn't tell Avhat it Avas. The idea of our brother's death came then to our mind. I asked ike prisoners around mc if it was true that I had killed my brother. One of them answered, no. I Avas glad of it. But this state of mind like drunkenness, passed soon away. And we sufficiently ♦Inreflecting afterwards about it,we found that the stateof mind of a drunken man comes very near, in souie respects, to the state of mind of the insane. Hence it is clear to us that the s- irit w'.iO possesses the insane, is the same spirit of folly ar.d wickedness, who acts in a drunken person. The fact that many drunkards get really insane is a proof of it. Then, what warning my friends, for th? person a e believed we had the poAver to do it, by faith, should only the authorities bring us to our brother's house. But they brought us, that evening, to the M. & Lake Shore depot to take the train for Oshkosh. CHAPTER III. IN THE HOSPITAL. We started on this evening train for Oshkosh, escorted by the Wausau sheriffs and having some iron manacles applied to hands and feet. We were angry at the sheriffs who were taking us away, instead of bringing us to our brother's house. On the train Ave preached to men to re- pent and be converted, beir.g impressed with the idea that the end Avas nigh. Arrived at Oshkosh, while I thought to be comfortably lodged at the hotel, we were brought to jail and lodged therein on the floor. We confessed God all the night, making, we think, not a small noise. The next morning the Wausau sheriffs set us in a cutter to brine usto the Northern Wisconsin hospital at Winnebago, four miles north from Oshkosh. At the time we were far from knowing where Ave were going. It seems to us that on the Avay the sheriffs jested and jeered at us, and very ex- cited, we were loosing our mind more and more. Before we arrived at the hospital Ave saAV the earth pass away and all things removed as a book rolled up. And just before en- tering the hospital it was represented to us that a certain Wausau gentleman who claimed to be our friend was but a traitor in this respect. And strange to say, but true, so TREATMENT AND CURE. 35 it was. On entering the hospital we were out of our mind in such a way that in passing through the office, then from one place to another, it Avas for us the king- doms of this world with their glory passing before us. While they brought us through the hospital it seemed to us that being beyond time we floated in full eternity sub- jected to some immutable, irresistible laws wdiich so held us that AATe were unable to ever get out of their terrible em- brace. Afterwards, Dr. Pember, second assistant physi- cian, told us in reality at the time we Avere seeking in our madness, to bite those around us. Of that, and a few other facts, on a few occasions, Ave had lost the remem- brance of having done those things. But all the rest of the time, although insane enough to do lots of follies, we recall all, and Ave are hereby trying to make up the his- tory of our three months and twenty days of insanity for the profit of all concerned, for we belieAre there is much useful instruction to be derived therefrom. At any rate Ave recollect to have seen, while entering the hospital, Dr. Pember, and the then hospital druggist, L. Hektoen, and an attendant of ward 3 and 4 south. The doctor and the attendant appeared to us at the time as hard and wicked men. (I said so after to Dr. Pember.) And the druggist (This I never told the doctor.) appeared to me as a real prostitute housekeeper. And the hospital where we entered appeared to us as a sheer house of prosti- tution.* What there is of truth in this appearance of men and things to the mind of a demoniac, the reader will be able to judge hereafter to some extent in reading the rest of this work. *In regard to that, we must state here that after we heard an epileptic patient, when he was recovering the power of speaking after his fits, was hal- looing in the hospital with all his might. "Whore house, whore house." The attendant was beating him cruelly to get him to stop, but could not. Then after being recovered it came in fact to our notice that some among the fe- male employes seemed anxious to show that chastity was not their favorite virtue. 36 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, At all events we have introduced the reader into the Northern Hospital, and we promise not to let him get out of it Avithout having (God willing) shown him what this institution is, in its work and character and by what spirit it is managed, after having studied its managers in their words and deeds for a long time. This is a most necessary wroik to do, because the visitors are only blinded by all that is shown to them. We Avere brought into w^ard 3 and 4 of the south wing, in Avhich Avere theAvorse and most refractory insane males. Our iron manacles were taken off and replaced by some leathern handcuffs. We Avere brought iirio a bedroom of the hall longitudinal, and there strapped down on a chair by the attendants. Reader, in our miserable state of mind, this room Avas for us a kind of hell. It really seemed to us that being beyond time, Ave Ave re in reality in eternity. For us, our room was one of the cells of those condemned to eternal tor- ment. And each condemned had a place according to his deeds. Until this day our faith in a God full of mercy had sustained and comforted us. But in this cell of hell, overwhelmed by the feeling that our fate was sealed for ever more, this feeling set us in a state of mind impossible to pray again. Even the souvenir of our beloved ones can no more reanimate our heart cold as marble. At this hour, for me, there is no more hope, no more Saviour. The time of probation is passed away. "Tis too late. All is lost, lost forever and ever. We have the feeling that a just God exists, and that we bear the effects of his justice. Some diabolical apparitions appear without ceasing. They are as some vapor of smoke Avhich slide along side the wall. Seized with horror, I try to flee away, but only alas! to realize that, being bound where I am, there is no means, no hope of ever getting out. That set me in a. TREATMENT AND CURE. 31 great despair. The two big pommels of the maple bed- stead appear to me as two small human faces. I see them moving, pivoting, and hear them whistle. And to com- plete this state of horror, I see in front of me, standing out doors erect in the snow, Mary------the assassinated man's wife. Yes, it Avas really her, Mary, her head cov- ered with the same black hat, clothed with the same black dress and cloak that she used to wear on Sunday. I saw her there, Avith her countenance of ineffable sorrow, until night came. There she Avas, as if to recall my crime, and thus added her part of horror to my already aAvf ul situa- tion. Some time after when I had sufficiently recovered my sight and reason, I saAV that where Avas standing my sister-in-law, there was a hose house. The illusion then was such, that the hose house was that day transformed, to my hallucinated sight, into a perfect resemblance of Mary. I also found out that the Avhistling of the twro pommels' faces was done in reality by a patient seated in the hall. In the evening the keeper removed me for the night into another room where Avas a crib bedstead,* in which we were put to sleep. But I did not sleep at all. This is the fourth night we spent without sleeping. The next morning (it was Christmas day) Ave got up in a pitiable condition. When Ave were dressed, they put on our hand cuffs, then strapped us down. Then a keeper came with my breakfast. To fill my cup of suffering I believed I must fast. After having eaten a little bread, I refused to eat and drink, and afflicted, miserable, I sunk my poor head on my breast, my eyes closed. But suddenly, I felt my head straightened up by a violent bloAV striken on my forehead by the keeper. That is the Avay they pity the afflicted and miserable in this house. *A crib bed is a box in the fo-m of a cradle, with a cover with ' wo locks, in which they put to sleep the worst of the patients in this hospital. 38 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, When being a little calmed, they loosed me and let me go in the halls. But in the afternoon of the same day, a clamorous insanity returned, and we Avere strapped doAvn aneAv in a bedroom. There Ave commenced to cry out after the pastor, and an elder of the Wausau Presby- terian church, to Avhich we then belonged. Lo! Ave did not know Avhere we were. We believed that the pastor and elder could hear us, and they would come, at our re- quest, to deliver me, for I had the feeling that I Avas a prisoner somewhere, therefore believed that the best I could do Avas to cry out after them, and did so. Reader, this may give us already a fair idea of Avhat in- sanity and its effects are. The spirit of folly, which troubles the patient, is for him a spirit of error, of decep- tion and blindness. He introduces some false ideas in the patient's mind, and the patient acts thereupon believing that his views are right. For in fact the evil spirit is so well incorporated, identified with the patient's mind, that the latter generally believes that the suggested idea is his own idea and views. There is here no great mystery. An y unconverted person acts, led captive by the devil, without, in most cases, being aware of the fact. Thus acts the evil spirit through the insane that he possesses. Even the acts of violence of the raATing maniac Avhich are regarded as spontaneous are not spontaneous. They are suggestsd acts. While mad, raging, I commenced to strike my wife, I struck her on the suggested idea, that she Avas not will- ing to consecrate a'l to God, and that I ought to thus obrio-e her to do it to save her. Then I Avent and struck my poor dying brother on the suggestion about bad breath spoken of. Only we must not lose sight of the fact that Satan acts on the insane from within and without as we will see hereafter.* Thus the insane is generally maniac or mel- * After being liberated, havingcompared with the acts, feelings and experiences TREATMENT AND CURE. 39 ancholiac (and so forth) violent or meek, glad or sorry, according as he is laboring under ideas joyful or painful, hateful or charitable. And the truth is that the same patient may be all that, and more in a few weeks, some- times, in a few days, even the same day. Thus the char- acter of the idea under which actually labors the patient, in most cases,unmistakably determines the form or variety of insanity of the patient; consequently to diagnose and classify rightly the p.itients, the doctors should try to de- tect, so fa>: a* possible, what is that idea or ideas. But they don't do it. And they can't do it in the very few minutes that they spend every day in each ward. But they classify all the same! Noav, no two patients are laboring under the same idea. Generally each patient has Lis different false views and ideas. The truth is then, that the same devil renders all the patients insane, acts and speaks through them, with more or less power and manifestations, aided with his legions of demons. But he produces an infinity of forms and varieties of insanity of which the doctors cannot keep track. And in view of those real, existing facts, the class- ification of the patients, as it is now made by the doctors, of the hypnotized subjects, our hallucinations of sight and hearing, smelling and tasting, our sensations and shivenngs, the loss at times of memory, and at times the great power of the same, our state of torpor, our inability at times to express ourself, and at times the power to utter astonishing truths, and that impulse more or less irresistible (which is no more nor less than to be moved by tne evil spirit) which caused us to make the greatest follies, agaiust our feelings, for which we were cruelly punished, and how once depriv- ed of rei.s >aand wi I power, we smashed and killed as an uncousc ous machine, we are now convinced that the motor, the power which acts through the in- sane is th' same which works in the hypuouzed subjects and somnambulists. That the hypnotic sleep is produced and stopped by some human acts and gestures does make uo difference. In many cases, insauity is also the result of physical ailments or causes and Satan acts just the same through all the ins-uie Moreover, God governs the world by same established natural laws. Why should not Satan's power be subjected to some physical laws and causes in s ;me cases, at least? Thus belongs to the dark science of animal magnet- ism or hypnotism, the merit of creating, with Satan's help,artificial id sanity. And we may add, epilepsy. For let us remember that Mesmer produced in his magnetized subjects, some convulsions of long duration, which agitated and tormented them, and also that m-tny phenomena which took place around Mesmer baquet have never been and probably cannot be explained by simple natural causes. 40 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, with their blind and capricious science, can be nothing else but a fraud, a sham, a delusion, as generally are their treatment, and all their appliances to cure insanity. The doctors must know this to be a fact. Let the most honest among them declare it.—But to return. On the evening of the same day the first attendant came into my room with Dr. Pember, and on the attendant's advice (not the doctor's) each one of them set his thumb behind one ear of ours, and with the rest of the hand, they conjointly pro- ceeded to a complete strangulation to stop my hallooing. {I was seized at the time by a violent and delirious attack of insanity.) But my cries only stopped the very moment they checked my breath by strangulation; and just as soon as I could breathe again, my cries began anew, though they had caused me sharp pains in strangling in that man- ner. When they loosed my throat, the attendant blamed the doctor because he had not pressed enough on my neck. In fact I felt that the attendant's hand (a big strong man) was a great deal harder on my neck than the doctor's. After this, no doctor's hand has ever pressed about my neck to strangle me. But we may safely say, that the same attend- ant did more than ten times afterwards do this savage work on me. As for us, thanks be to God, this is our last at- tack of violent insanity towards others. After this we nave been for three months and eighteen days crazy enough to do lots of follies, at certain times Ave haAre gone so far as to injure ourself and even try to commit suicide. But from this day they could cuff us, kick, drag, thrash, torture, drop us from four feet high, the head on the floor etc., etc., as they have certainly done, but by the grace of God, we have been able to suffer all this violent, cruel and inhuman treatment, without ever thinking of retaliation, but always forgiving them as doctors and employes may testify if they want to. To this spirit of meekness and TREATMENT AND CURE. 41 mercy that God bestowed upon us, even in our folly, we owe our recovery. For the least resentment manifested after their punishments, would have caused more punish- ment, as I see it happens Avith other patients, and in such case, most probably I Avould never have got oat the hos- pital but by the door that leads to the cemetery. Right after the strangulation, Dr. Pember pierced one of my breasts and introduced therein a medicine called hyosciamia. which they used in that way to calm, they said, the violent or boisterous patients. But after four experiments of that cruel treatment, I do not see that the hyosciamia, infiltrated in the patient's flesh at the cost of sharp pains, or the blows, or the best strangulation might calm a violent patient. Lo! it is the mind which is affect- ed. It is the mind they should try to relieve by a moral treatment. But to torture the body to relieve the trou- bled mind, as they do here, does not this rather resemble folly, to say the least? The day following, being again a little calmed, we were loosed and sent in the halls. And although in a very poor state of mind yet. making not too disorderly noise we staid therein a few days. It Avas during that time that we made confession of our sins to God. And thereby under- stood afterwards, Ave think,that our brother's speech in an unknown tongue was the confession of his sins to God. Some sins committed twenty, thirty years or more before, Avere recalled. And as they appear to us. in their detesta- ble ugliness, we confessed them to G >d, in presence, Ave thought, of all the universe, men and angels assembled. But afterwards Ave found out that this confession had been made, in reality, on a bench of ward 3 and 4, that proba- bly no one had paid attention to it, except a French pa- tient. It was also during those days that we received, in the ward the first visit of Dr. R M. Wigrinton, superiu- 42 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, tendent. He asked me for what reason I had committed that crime. And I answered him, "I was controlled by a power I could not control. I have killed my brother in- spired by the Holy Ghost." The doctorindignaut reproved me sternly. Yes, but all insane I was, I felt, I knew that very moment, that Dr. Wigginton kneAv nothing about in- sanity. The answer I gave at the time to Dr. Pember con- firms this: "What do you know about it, you, "Science of earth'" said I, while he spoke to me about my mental state. Noav reader, remember that the insane in the time of Christ, all insane as they are, had however some knowl- edge by the spirit that possessed them, that the rest of the people had not. They knew and confessed loudly that Jesus was the Son of God, while in fact generally the rest of the people knew it not. It is so to-day. The insane, all insane they are, possessed some knowledge which sane persons have not. It is a fact that while insane, I came to the knowledge of things that I had neA^er known while sane. And now believe this, it is largely what renders some insane so stubborn in their rebellion against the em- ployes. It is because all insane they are, they perceive nevertheless that doctors and keepers know nothing about their trouble. And here they are right. Among some in- stances in proof of the above statement, Ave will cite: I have heard a certain patient who had so well understood the real value of this hospital as a curative institution that he cried out in and out of doors, "It is not here the place to heal but to get crazy; humbug! humbug!" But who Avould have believed that he Avas proclaiming a great truth! Just as the one of old who cried out: "I knoAv thee who thou art; thou art the Holy One of God." After having been those few days loosed in the halls, one day it came to our troubled mind that our wife and TREATMENT AND CURE. 43 boy were with us in the hospital. And actuated by an in- tense desire to see them, I laid down on the floor in my folly, both arms stretched out, and I commenced to hal- loo, calling them by their names, "Catherine, Isaac, Cath- erine, Isaac." But Avhile I was so calling my loved ones, lo! an attendant came Avho kicked me a blow on the stom- ach, as one would kick a savage beast. As the blow was applied on the breast bone, the bone sustained the shock and there was no fracture. Otherwise a poor patient of this ward told me that he had once two ribs broken by a kick of another attendant who is here yet. At same time another attendant came, and together they brought me into a room of the other hall and strapped me down there. Now to be readily comprehended, we will call the first attendant the one who has strangled us with Dr. Pember. We will call the second attendant, the one Avho has struck us on the forehead, and third attendant, the one Avho has so kicked us on the stomach. Christ's law is my law. Its name is love. The expose we make here of the patient's treatment is done in behalf of the relief, deliverance, cure and salvation of the suffering insane. And in no wise to expose the employes cruelty, and the criminal consent of the managers of this house. May God help us in this good work.—And he does. This attack of clamorous insanity lasted long. It seems to us that for three days and three nights Ave cried out at times, "Catherine, Isaac," really belieying that they were in the building and Avould come to deliver me. It Avas the same idea that made me holler after the pastor and elder of the church. The first evening of those three days of delirium, Dr. Pember, accompanied by the first attendant entered my bedroom and pierced the other breast to infiltrate therein another dose of hyosciamia. 44 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, But let us show by a fact, from among some others, how the evil spirit entertained in my mind the idea that my wife and boy were in the hospital. Among the patients, there is a demoniac who spent all the night in crying out, imitating a Avoman and child groaning, weeping under the pressure of great suffering. The illusion is here complete. In his groaning I really believed I heard the voices of my wife and boy. I believed they Avere suffering much at some distance from me. I suffer in seeing them suffer. And at times I got mad and tormented myself, because calling them instantly to come, they persisted in staying away from me. After those days of delirium, being calmed and loosed, I passed by the patient who gsoaned that way. He made at me a very significant gesture and called me by my christian name, "Francois," distinctly pronounced in Walloon. A certain time after this, while sitting very quietly to take our meal in the hall, by this patient, he ut- tered those two other names of some female friends of ours in Walloon, "Fine, A dele." This patient must be a German. Most probably he has never learned nor even heard speak Walloon. How can he pronounce those names in that language? I just see to this but one reasonable explana- tion, viz: This patient is a demoniac Avho utters those names, not of himself, but by the evil spirit, Avho possesses him, just as eighteen centuries ago the demoniacs spake through the evil spirit. Now in crying out all the night imitating my wife and boy—moved by the evil spirit—he confirms me in that delusion that troubles me the most at the time, and so fulfills Satan's purpose Avhich is to make us suffer and drag us to death if possible. Let us now state that Avhile loosed in the halls, we had remarked, that when we thought of, or said something in a whisper, within ourself, and the most often in Walloon or French, the other patients answered right to what we were TREATMENT AND CURE. 45 thus saying or thinking of, by some gestures, some signs, and sometimes also by their words. Thus it came to pass, for instance, that almost every time that I Avas making such declaration as this: "All the promises of God shall be fullfilled in Jesus Christ," that as soon as the words were uttered within me, that one or several patients were stamping the floor, or clapping their hands, as signs of approbation of my words. I then realized the very ex- istence of a Avorld of spirits, certainly invisible to human sight, but Avhich exists nevertheless. In those days, I saw almost as clearly as we can see anything else, the insane acting and speaking through the spirit which possesses them. Thus was revealed to us the real, immediate, ef- fective cause of insanity. For we must say that after those few days of delirious insanity in the hospital, we then re-entered into a state of conciousness and reason (though far from being recovered^) so much that we gen- erally knew and saw all that takes place in the ward, just about as sane persons do. During over two months we behaved generally tolerably well most of the time. Dur- ing that time we were strapped dowm only four times, we think, and only for the rest of the day, until we com- menced our three last weeks of clamorous insanity, of which we will speak in time and place. For just now we must state that during the first eight or nine days we Avere in the hospital, we had the idea of having killed our brother, inspired by the Holy Ghost, and of having com- mitted a useful and commendable deed. Now during all those days, while in the halls, I heard a demoniac patient who was saying almost constantly: "Murder, murder, simple murder." But after those days I recognized of my- self, that I had committed a miserable crime, in a moment of woe; that the Holy Ghost cannot inspire a man to kill his brother against God's command, that said: "Thou 46 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, shalt not kill." And I tell you that the very morning I recognized this within me, that same patient, Avho until then had only looked at us with contempt, come and sat by me, and said in touching sympathy: "You're all right. You're all right." From this time he ceased to accuse me. Not only was I seeing the other patients answer or ap- prove what I thought of, very often, but also the demon- iacs submitted themselves to me in the name of Jesus Christ, or rather the spirit Avho possessed them caused them seemingly to obey me. Listen: While I was either think- ing of God or of his Avord, or praying Avithin me, I saw often one of them break into laughter so as to mock at me, I thought. And I Avas telling him more or less in whisper, and he sitting at a certain distance aAvay: "You must give glory to God." Sometimes he would let me re- peat this several times, but then, many times, he not only stopped laughing, but in answer to my words he acquiesced by an affirmative sign of his head, AA'hich he always re- peated enough to satisfy me. Moreover, once, this pa- tient was coming to me in the hall, both of his fists closed and raised in a threatening manner. And I told him: "You must give glory to God through Jesus Christ." And instantly he let fall his hands opened. Thus, and in some other ways the demons seemingly submitted to me. And I, poor fool, was very proud of it. About the 9th of January, 18So, I Avrote my wife and boy, from whom I had been so suddenly separated, and whom I had almost continually in my mind, besides all the rest. My wife and some other parties, Avho have read that letter, told me after my recovery it was a good letter. About ten days later, Ave think, wre wrote them a second letter. In both of those letters, I invited them earnestly to come and see me. My wife wrote to the doctor superintendent to ask his permission to come and see me, but he refused to give it. TREATMENT AND CURE. 47 CHAPTER IV. the demoxiac's avokks. All we have said concerning the demoniac's workings is very little compared to.what follows. Listen: There is one patient who performs before me really some marvelous signs. He makes signs Avith his eyes, and he speaks, teaches and approves (shall I say?) \Arith his hands and feet. This patient must be of English descent. I never heard him speak except in English. And he seemed to understand so well Avhat I said withinme,and in French or Walloon, that he answers me by signs and movements perfectly intelligible, and by some very significant ges- tures. Thus, if I consult him about some declaration, promise or doctrine of the Bible, he approves Avith his hands, sometimes with his eyes, signifying that the things are such without contradiction. While I am speaking, but always Avithin me, if something escapes my memory, he scratches slowly his head with his fingers until I have found it. If I found myself in a very sad condition, where it seemed that God alone could help me, then he shows me the heavens, with his eyes, with a rare seeming of affection, as being the only place from which relief may come in my situation. But perhaps one of the fairest roles he plays, is Avhen, for instance, I make a declaration like this: "And all those things shall be fulfilled to the glory of God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, the only true God, eternally blest through Jesus Christ." Well, when I commence to make my declaration, within me, he at the same time commences to raise his feet from the floor high enough, and exactly at the moment 1 achieve it, he let his feet fall back on the floor, twisting them a little with an air of importance admirable to see, as in 48 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, sign of approbation of my Avords. And those things and others, he executes almost every time I am speaking with him, that is, several times every day, during several weeks. Fueader,at the sight of things so nice, so grand, so wonder- ful, a man (I really believed^) who understood all I said in a Avhisper, in a tongue unknown to him, and answered it in my state of mind, I rejoiced exceedingly and thought that I had found a true prophet. For all those things are not delusions, they have really happened, and such we have seen them. Then I really believed Le Avas the Christ, and I knelt down before him to Avorship him. And he, every time I knelt clown b?fore him, (this the attendants have well noticed) showed, by his attitude and gestures, that my worshipping was perfectly agreeable to him, and he always received it with marked pleasure. But one fore- noon, the first attendant came, Avhile Ave Avere on our knees before this new Christ, and he struck about four violent blows on my legs with a broom stick, Avhich * caused me to get up quickly, and he sent me into the next hall, warning me to come no more into this one. This ward three and four as two others of each Aving are com- posed of tAvo halls, one longitudinal with the center build- ing, the other transversal. The two halls are separated by a door, Avhich they only shut by night, so the patients of those Avards go from one hall to the other almost at Avill, with rare exception. Now, so true it is that: "Thouo-h thou shouldst bray a fool in a mortar .... yet Avill not his foolishness depart from him," a feAV minutes after having tasted of the broom stick, I again passed the door to go in that hall. And as soon as I got over the threshold, this door between the two halls was violently shut after me without being touched by any human hand. The third attendant saw it, and asked me who had thus shut the door, and I said "Nobody." TREATMENT AND CURE. 49 This is more than all that. Oae day I Avas preaching Christ, in a Avhisper, but this time in English. Such was my idea. I recited a sermon Avhich I studied to preach to the unbelievers Avhen I would be out of the hospital. First, 1 confounded the first category of unbelievers, Avho deny the fact of the coming of Jesus Christ on earth in saying: "But by what right do \oa deny the coining of Christ on earth, because you have not seen him ? You have not seen either Alexander the Great, or Julius Caesar, or even Napoleon the First, andlo! you believe that they have ex- isted, by the recital you have heard of their lives. Now, do you not read in the bible, the testimonies of nine honest writers, who all declare having seen Jesus Christ, and his wonderful works. Avithout referring to the multi- tude of prophets Avho have announced his coming? Well, the fact of the coming of Jesus Christ on earth, is a fact so well attested by these honest witnesses, beyond all reasonable doubt, that to reject the fact you must be a fool, a real subject fit for an insane asylum. And arrived just at this point of my discourse, a patient unbeliever, who denies the coining of Christ in the world, was cast doAvn on the floor, unconscious, in convulsions, and it was a long time before he recovered. When he was set doAvn again I got near him, and told him loudly: "Believe in Christ, believe in Christ." But the first attend nt sent me away. Reader, I have repeated this same di-co irse about four times, at intervals of several days, and each time the same patient, when I reached this same point in my discourse, just as sure as I tell you, was cast down on the floor in his epileptic fits, or convulsions. The attend- ants have seen him laid down in his fits, and came around him. Only they have never known he Avas thus cast down at my preaching. But listen: I pursued my discourse the first day I re- 50 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, cited it, and then I addressed the class of infidels who do not deny the fact of the coming on earth of a man of the name of Jesus Christ, but deny that he was anything else than a wise, a great man. And to those I was showing up all their folly in saying: "But, my friends, Jesus Christ must be either the Son of the Almighty and Eternal God, or else he is not great, nor wise, for he gave himself out to be such. And Avhen he was abjured, in the name of the Blessed God, to tell if he was the Christ, the Son of God, he answered: "I am, and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." Now in presence of these declarations of Jesus himself, there is no middle ground possible, you must accept that he is the Son of the eternally blessed God, or else that he is neither great, nor wise, but only a liar and an impostor.* And as I got through speaking those Avoids, another patient stricken withc< nvulsions fell on the floor. This on'? belonged to this second class of unbelievers, I think. We coatinui our discourse, and we cam? t) this third class of unbelievers so numerous, alas! in America and Europe, namely, those who believe that Jesus Christ is true God and tri;e man, and despite serve Mammon and Satan in pleasing the w< ild, and their flesh by fulfilling its lusts. And to those 1 said, as formerly Elijah the prophet, to the idolatrous Israelites: "If Jesus Christ is God, why do you not serve him and give him your heart? Why do you prostrate yourself before Mammon and giATe your heart to the goods aid pleasures of this Avorld? And just as soon as those words were uttered, (always within me) a third patient came out and stood before me. And *But now to believe the humble and lowly Jesus, going from place to place doiiggood, and who submitted himself to the shameful death of the cross to do his Father's will, to b- an impostor, is simply demenrv There is no sense here at all. It is far more sensible to believe he was Divine. TREATMENT AND CURE. 51 far from falling on the floor as the two others, he resisted me in the face. I tried to send him away in the name of Jesus Christ, but he laughed at me. And while I contin- ued to try to send him away, and he to resist, the first at- tendant interfered, and sent him in the other hall. This patient is the very one who uttered those names in Wal- loon: "Francois, Fine, Adele." A long time after those things, once, while I Avas again preaching within me, I came in my discourse to the sub- ject of Judas Iscariot, leaving the last supper table, to go and sell his Master divine, and while I was remarking that only a man possessed of the demon of avarice, could in like manner, sell his brother, father or master for a few miserable pieces of silver, behold! the very patient Avhom I considered for a long time whether rightly or wrongly, to be possessed of the demon of avarice, started at that very moment to bleed at the nose. He lost a great quantity of blood on the floor. The first attendant saw the blood, wondered at it, and had it cleaned aAvay by another pa- tient. Another time some days after that, when I again reached this same point in my discourse, and while I ex- amined the crime of Judas in another aspect, this same patient, has laid down on the floor, and groaned as if suf- fering much. Now during the five months and a half I staid in that Avard, I never saAV before, nor after, this patient thus bleed at the nose, or prostrated in like manner. Noav before going farther, let us see what mean those things. For us they just mean this: First, this pa- tient, this false Christ, who answers, speaks, teaches, and approves by the signs and gestures of his eyes, hands and feet, does not understand Avhat I say. Yet, could he com- prehend my French or Walloon, he could not hear me, be- cause I speak within me But Satan, who understands all languages and whisperings, knows what I say, and he 52 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, directs all the motions and signs of this demoniac, Avhom he possesses, and makes perfectly connected with Avhat 1 say, or ask him. And that is the way, I believed that this false Christ, heard and understood as God, all I said with- in me and in my language. Now Iliad come to this con- clusion, when about seven months after my recovery, I found in my bible these words explanative: "The man who imitates the demon is a vioh nt man, and his discours- es are false. He makes signs with his eyes, he speaks with his feet, he teaches with his fingers. (Prov. VI, 12, 13.) * It seemed to us that those Avords revealed by the Spirit of the One who knows all things from br ginning to end, settled definitely the question. According to this word of God, written three thousand years ago, it is possi- ble to meet a man who makes signs Avith his eyes, speaks with his feet, and teaches Avith his fingers. And that is exactly what Ave have seen. Only the scripture of truth tells us, "That is a man of the demon and his discourses are false." It is not safe to run after such a man. And one Avill see into what a pit of misery, and suffering, we have fallen after having listened to him, though not of sound mind. Nov/ as for thooe who have been cast down on the flooi\ smitten with convulsions, aud the one who has bled and prostrated himself, and all this just at the moment I con- demned their belief or actions, in preaching within me, it is impossible to adjudge such things to be the effects of chance. But those unfortunates are demoniacs, lunatics, and Satan who knows what I say cast down to the ground, smitten with convulsions, or made bleed or prostrate, just at the given moment, those unfortunates, Avhom he has in his possesrion. Now reader, see how this interpretation agreed •Literally translated from the Martin French V.rsion of the Bible. "L'homme qui imite le demon est un bomme violent et ses discours soot faux. II fait nigne de ses yeux, ilpurle de ses pieds, il enseigae de ses doights." TREATMENT AND CURE. 53 with the word of God, "Master, I beseech thee, look upon my son; . . . Lo! a spirit taketh him and he suddenly crieth out and it teareth him that he foameth again, and bruising him, hardly departeth from him. . . . And Jesus answering said, .... Bring thy son hither. And as he was yet a coming, the devil threw him doAvn, and tore him. And Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the child, and delivered him again to his father." And again: "And in the synagogue there Avas a man, which had a spirit of an unclean devil and cried out Avith a loud voice, saying. Let us alone; what have Ave to do with thee, thou Jesus or Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him, and hurt him not." It results clearly from those tAvo passages, that the patient Avho falls with convulsion or epileptic fits, foams, and staid there bruised, is thrown down by the devil. The word of God coming thus con- firms as completely, as exactly as possible, our interpreta- tion of the patients thrown down on the floor, at some given moments, by the power of the evil one. "There is no new thing under the sun." No, what has been, is what is to-day. Almost nineteen centuries ago some un- fortunates were cast doAA'n on the ground, then violently shaken, and foamed, and then remained there bruised for a certain tiir?. And now, nineteen centuries after, exact- ly the same things happen to the epileptic patients, in the sight of employes and doctors of insane hospitals and outside. The same trouble, Avith the same symptoms, is exactly the same, and certainly produced by the same cause—Satan—and all the inventions, conceptions or spec- ulations of medical science cannot change those three be- ings: God, the human heart, and the devil. And while 54 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, those three beings have not and cannot be changed, it re- mains also true, that while the devil was rendering people insane, and causing their epileptic fits nineteen hundred years ago, he does the same to-day. Only those of our days having sought the cause elsewhere, there is a great differ- ence in the treatment. Those of eighteen centuries ago, knoAvingthe true cause of the trouble—the devil—brought their sons to Christ or the apostles—they cast out the devil, and they were cured. Those of our days bring their sons $o the doctors of insane hospitals. The doctors give them some medicines, and other things, and cure them not. Who could put in the head of those doctors to attempt to cast out the devil with medicine? No one probably, but the devil himself, the father of lies and error. Now, if some among our modern doctors believe that their science is too elevated to accept of this simple and true explanation of the real cause of insanity and epilepsy, Satan speaking and acting through the patient—Ave say to them: "But my friends, Luke, the Evangelist, Avas him- self a doctor, for Paul calls him, "the beloved physician," and moreover was an inspired writer, and himself attrib- uted positively in his inspired writings, insanity and epil- epsy to the power of the devil, speaking and acting through the patient. At any rate truth is truth. Whether the doctors ac- cept or reject this doctrine, it is true nevertheless. Re- jected truth is truth as Avell as adopted truth. Only the rejected truth profits nothing the one avIio rejects it. Christ died to save sinners; it is a great and blessed truth indeed. But it profits nothing those who neglect this only way of salvation. But now so long as the sun, the moon and the stars shall shine in the firmament, so long as this earth shall stand on which we walk, nay, but rather as long as the TREATMENT AND CURE. 55 everlasting word of God shall stand, it will be true, that Satan is the immediate cause of insanity and epilepsy, be- cause the infallible word of God says so, and because Christ—the truth—says so. Now reader, friend, let me tell you, that we believe that Satan in doing those great works before us and at our com- mand, pursues an object, that of making us suffer and die if possible. The truth is that like many poor sinners who serve Satan, I did not know it. I thought I was the hap- piest man. But let us always keep in mind. that,thanks be to Go I, the power of Satan is limited. He cannot torment us beyond the measure that God permits him to do, that the wicked one does a work which deceives himself, and also that "All things Avork together for good, to them that love God." But in the meantime, for us delivered up to Satan, we must suffer! Listen: When I saw that I could myself consult the demoniacs, that they sub- mitted to me in the name of Jesus Christ, that the unbeliev- ers Avere thrown down at my preaching, I got filled with great spiritual pride as one may conceive, in my state of mind. Now let us state right here that for several years before our attack of insanity, there was another certain question on which I Avas not settled. This affair was a mystery to me. And just at the time as I considered every day Sa- tan working in the insane of the ward, < ne evening this affair came right to my mind in my crib-bed, and forth- with I prayed to God that he Avould settle me on that very question. Reader, I tell you the things as they have hap- pened to me in all this work. The next day, two demo- niacs among the patients, showed me what Avas the matter about it, by their signs and their actions, and then even by their words, pronounced distinctly, I hearing them. And a few days after, I knew for certainty that the demoniacs 56 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, had informed me right on that question, their testimony being confirmed by evident proofs which I received, and I was forever fixed on that question. And in presence of such a nice result, I set myself to observe and consult al- most continually the demoniacs, re illy believing that they would always inform me right. Here was my mistake and my misfortune. For I know now that God has for- bidden us to consult the spirits for our best good. Let then any one who consults them through mediums, sooth- sayers, clairvoyants, etc., take heed of it. In the meantime a-sured by all I had seen and heard confirming the fact that the insane ar> speaking and act- ing through the evil spirit which possesses them; one af- ternoon about the middle of February, 1885, I strongly de- clare! to Dr. Pember in presence of the first attendant, that all the insane, so many as they were, Avere demoniacs, and if you Avant to cure them, I said, "Preach to them the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and as many of them as will receive it shall hi healed." One day, Ave believed t) do right, wTe ought to show how the Christ has died for the salvation of sinners, thereupon we laid down on the floor with both of our arms stretched out squarely on each side of us. But the first and second attendants came, they struck us badly to get us up. Then each one of them took hold of one of our arms, to drag us into the other hall. While they thus drag us away, I earnestly urged them to go themselves to Christ to have their sins forgiven. But the first attendant ordered to loose me, and at his Avord, both of them loosed simultan- eously my arms, and dropped my head down on the floor from about four feet high. Then they picked me up, and renewed several times the dropping operation—boldly cruel I guarantee. They strapped me down into a bed- room of the other hall, and after that the first attendant TREATMENT AND CURE. 57 had beaten me severely, they went out and locked the door. Those things took place in presence of the patients of the Avard. The cruel conduct of the attendants made indignant the most hardened. And one of the most ed- ucated of the patients, and the less insane, wrote a report of the affiir and sent it to Dr. Supt. Wigginton. The doctor changed to another ward the patient reporter, and let those attendants remain in their place. About two months after, trying again thus to represent the sacrifice of the cross, the same two attendants beat me, took" hold of me, dropped me several times in like manner, then strapped me down. Twice, during the night, it happened to the writer, in a moment of impatient folly, to void the contents of the bladder and of the intestines in the bed. Both times he was taken, the next morning, into the bath room, Avashed, changed of under clothes, and then strapped down in a bed room. And the first time, as we made a great uproar, strapped down, in preaching, hallooing and stamping the floor, Avith our heel, Dr. Craig, first assistant physi- cian came in, he pierced, our right leg, and introduced in it a dose of hyosciami i-'to calm me. Noav the truth is this: That very morning it had come in my troubled mind that those words spoken of Christ: "Thou shalt bruise his heel," had never been entirely fulfilled, and that a second Christ must come AA'ho ought to have his heels literally bruised. And counting myself to be this second Christ, I thus smote the floor to bruise voluntarily my heel to fulfill the prophecy. But now, reader, Avhat in the world has Dr. Craig's hyosciamia, causing the sharp- est pains, to do towards curing me of that delusion? No, it is evident that the trouble is mental, and it demands a moral treatment. The doctor's folly exceeds the patient's. Once more at the start of our last attack of clamorous in- 58 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, sanity (March 1885,) Dr. Craig applied to us the hyoscia- mia; this time in our right arm. It did not calm me either, for that attack lasted three weeks. Both of the times spoken of after the uproar of the forenoon, Ave fell into a singular state of torpor, though awake, and the eyes open. It seemed to us we were as in the place of the dead. Yet Ave could recognize persons, though all around us had more or less taken on a differ- ent aspect. The first time we saw on the walls of our room some small grasshoppers, and on the ceiling a bigger insect with long wings, flying from one place to another. During our folly Ave have also felt ourself several times in such a state of mind depression that wdien we were speaking to some one in English, we began involuntarily to speak French or Walloon; then Ave commenced to speak English again, but like the drunken man, unable to keep our track, Ave spoke again to our hearer a language that he could not understand. One day in February, 1885, Ave believed again that heaAren and eirth Avere going to pass away. And on the occasion we started to pray aloud after dinner. But the first attendant came and brought us into the next hall, and strapped us down there. Then in presence of some- thing disagreeable we saw or believed seeing, AATe made some awful grimaces and screamed. The two other keep- ers came, they struck us, loosed us and brought us into a bedroom to be strap doAvn there. And as we continued to scream, the third attendant kicked us violently several times on the sfomaeh, to quiet us, he said. A little while after he left the hospital voluntarily, or involuntarily, I don't know which. When he left, a poor patient of the ward told me: "He is a wicked man." In the meantime I Avrote a third letter to my Avife un- der the impression also, at the time, that the world was TREATMENT AND CURE. 59 coming to an end, and that a new order of things was at hand to commence with the coming of Christ. And when I got through writing it, I was seized by so mighty a shivering that I was afraid of being raised up in the air from my bench. I prayed God that he will stop it, and a little while after, it ceased little by little. Now let us say that the demoniacs, after having in- formed me rightly on the question spoken of, were now showing me every day that there Avere some disorders in my home, that my wife and boy behaved very badly. This caused me much intense moral suffering, which be- came more and more unbearable. In this circumstance, be sure, reader, that no doctor, no medicine, no human science could help me. Only one thing (humanly speak- ing) could help me, and deliver me from the delusion which overwhelmed me. See my wife, that she come and tell me herself that she loves me yet, and has not forsaken me. Right here was the remedy. The poor fool thought of it himself unconsciously. It was about the twentieth of February, 1885. I wrote a long letter to my wife in which I urged her to come instantly and see me: "Come, come quickly for it hasten to me to apply on your fore- head burning Avith remorse and sorrow, the kiss of an eternal pardon; and on each one of your cheeks, the kiss of an everlasting love." Thus I terminated that letter. In reading it, my wife understood I had not regained my reason, but at the same time she Comprehended my intense desire of seeing her, and immediately Avrote to the doctor superintendent to ask his permission to come and see me. But alas! the science of the doctors of insane hospitals is too dry, too barren, too heartless to comprehend the Avants of loving hearts! The doctor superintendent refused to let my wife come and see me under the pretext that her visit could but trouble and excite me. My experiences of 60 NSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, insanity authorize me to say, that, if the doctor means here what he says, he is mistaken. The truth is, that the visit of my Avife then could but re-assure me of her good feelings towards me, disabuse, and calm me. But uoav that the doctor superintendent refused to let my Avife come and see me for my Avelfare, I am far from b dieving. One thing is certain, viz: Since his admission in the hospital, the patient Avriter, until then and long after, has been treated and beaten therein as a savage beast. Noav, in view of this fact, well knoAvn by the doctor superintend- ent, Avas it advantageous for him to give the patient, in those conditions, an interview with his Avife? This much we know: That the doctors of this hospital keep hidden as far as possible, this cruel and inhuman treatment of the patients. At any rate, I Avas, by this cruel refusal, deprived of the only human means of relief that it wras then possible to confer on me, in my lamentable state of mind. But I did not content ni}rself with this refusal. The next month (Mauh) I asked Dr. Craig to help me in the mat- ter of having a visit from my wife. He answered me, no. A few days after I asked Dr. Wigginton to permit my wife to come. He answered negatively. Then quite em- holding myself I told him: "Doctor, if you will not per- mit my wife to come for (rod's sake, as you are a hus-band and father, let me see my wife for the sake of your wife and children." The doctor answered no, more or less in- dignant, and Avent away. Now, by what lamentable abuse of authority is it pos- sible, that the doctor superintendent of an insane hospital in the freest republic of the Avorld, may prevent a citizen, confined in this house, for months, from seeing his Avife and children against their mutual Avishes. and under the most fallacious pretexts, after the light of Christianity has TREATMENT AND CURE. 61 shone during nineteen centuries over the Avorld, while 1800 years ago, a pagan governor of the most absolute monarchy, commanded expressly not to prevent visiting a Roman prisoner—Paul of Tarsus—any Avho wanted to see him, though he Avas accused of great crimes by those of his nation, I leave this question to be examined by all the honest jurisconsults of this country, who love their brethren and justice, and Ave beseech them, in the name of all that is pure, good, charitable and reasonable, to bring speedily about a change in this state of things. For the more they can seclude the insane from the outside Avorld, naturally, the more Avretchedly they may treat him. Always more and more confirmed in that idea concern- ing my wife, by all I saw and heard through the demon- iacs, I wrote her two more letters by Avhich I earnestly invited her to come, and Avarning her of severe chastenings if she delayed any longer. Now all those letters Avere really written, received and read by my Avife and some other people. During that time onee I saw a patient who really seemed busy Avith my oavu affairs. And I asked him, Avithin me and away from him, what was the number of such culprits. And right aAvay, he stamped hard the floor, once after another, to signify thereby the number he meant. And as he Avas making too much noise, the first keeper told him to keep still. And he answered: "I can't help it; I help a brother." Being several times after con- sulted by us in the same Avay, he ansAvered me in like manner, and then gave the same answer to the keeper, when he ordered him to keep still. Some other patients have spoken several times to me (but Avithout my apply- ing to them) answering or speaking as rightly as possible to the things I thought of in my mind. In the meantime we heard an old German patient, utter 62 * INSANITY. ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, distinctly, several times, and on d fferent occasions, those two words, those two very names: "Jacko, Bebeth," that I had heard fourteen years before, uttered many times by my father-in-law and his children, on their farm near Green Bay. The first name had been giA'en to a bird of the blue jay species. They had given the second name to a milch cow. During my three last weeks of folly, while strapped down in a bedroom, this old patient for several successive days showed me a place, at the foot of the bed, by lifting up the mattress and blankets, and seemingly say- ing: "There, there is something." But I could not un- derstand his language. After this, one evening, I saw suddenly, at the place shown me, appearing a nice, big, Avhite hand with the wrist. It manifested itself for a few seconds, then disappeared. At the time, I enjoyed much reason in some respects. At this time, one afternoon, I saw fallen on my clothes, some small round things thin and Arery soft. They Avere surrounded by a black edge, with a white spot in the centre. I picked up several of them. I saw them also the next forenoon in broad day light. Once, a few days after my admission in the hospital, I saw through the Avindow, two small boys coming from the west side towards the hospital, running and jumping on the snow. And suddenly I saw them disappearing as if the earth had swallowed them up, and saw them no more. Being then in the hospital about one month, I think, one evening, after all noise had ceased in the Avard, I heard a voice calling loudly after me, quite seemingly from out- ride. I listened.- The voice continued calling my name in Walloon, and urging me to go to him with the most pressing entreaties saying: "Francois, come, come, will you come?" In the voice I perfectly recognize my late brother Victor, speaking to me. Sometimes the voice TREATMENT AND CURE. 63 stopped for a few seconds, then called again. And sev- eral times he added to my name, the name of my wife say- ing: "Francois, Catherine." The voice continued to call me thus to go to him most pressingly, and also in a threat- ening tone, for probably about ten minutes, then I heard nothing more. About that time some awfuh dreams during the night frightened me very much. And one eArening on entering my bedroom I said to re-assure myself: "But after all, they are going to lock thee up in thy crib-bed, and lock thy room door, no one can come and hurt thee herein." Then I got in bed. I offered a long prayer; then I slept. But Avhile sleeping [ Avas suddenhT awakened by the painful pres- sure of something like a finger on my throat. As soon as I Avoke up, pressure and pain ceased, and this passage: "Wherever I may go thy hand shall seize me" came r'ght to my mind. But this is a singular vision. For Iavo or three succes- sive days, I saAV, every time I Avent to a compartment of a window, in the sky, as six sword blades, Avith some gashes at the largest end, moving constantly in such a Avay, that sometimes they covered up themselves, so that only four of them were visible. But afterwards, they all re-appeared again. They had the color of the stars, and were perfectly visible in the blue sky. But a more singular vision is the following: For sev- eral Aveeks, at almost any distance from them, I used to see, at the gas light, the faces of all the patients black, hideous, as the faces of reprobates. It was only when I got very near them, that their faces retook again their na- tural color. One face, among them all, Avasnot only look- ing bright and white, but it shone as the face of an an- gel, at any distance away from me. That was the false Christ's face. Moreover, if one or several patients were 64 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, near him, I saAV their faces black and hideous, while the false Christ's shone beautifully. I told Dr. Pember about it after my recovery. He believed it, but did not try to explain it. One day, I Avanted again, to show up in the hall Iioav the Christ had died on the cross to save sinners. But I hesi- tated in view of the punishment. And Avhile I was delib- erating to see, if I must do it, or not, to do right, at that moment, I saAV a patient standing in the hall, immobile as a statue, Avith his arms stretched out squarely on each side of him. I took that for a certain sign, that I must then and there represent the sacrifice of Calvary. And I did so right away, for which deed I Avas beaten, dropped, and strapped down as previously said. Yet, it was certainly a suggested act, performed with the best intention on the part of the poor insane, as so many other acts of folly. Once, I had in my mind that scriptural idea that Satan blinds the sinners. And lo! that day two of the most in- fidel among the patients, went to and fro, and even walk- ed out doors with their eyes almost closed. The third at- tendant noticed the fact and asked them, I he.iring it, "what Avas the matter Avith their eyes?" During our attack of insanity our breath smelled very bad. In vieAV of that repulsive breath, Dr. Pember, once ordered a tooth brush for me.. And for a good while, 1 voluntarily cleaned carefully my mouth after each meal. But the breath did not improve therefrom'. That did not come from the mouth, but from the stomach. It had commenced with our folly and disappeared with our re- covery. Once, one evening, I smelled a strange odor in my bed- room. The odor Avas not very disagreeable, but very strong. It seemed that all the atmosphere of the room Avas im- pregnated Avith that odor. TREATMENT AND CURE. 65 In the meantime, once, this passage came to my mind: "For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them. And that Rock Avas Christ." Then I got up and took a drink in the bath-room. And the water had a nice sugared taste. I had never drank such water in my life. The Avater tasted about so for some time after, then regain- ed its usual taste. But this is rather more curious. For a long time dur- ing our folly, when we spoke and prayed during a great part of the night, in a AArhisper, just Avhen Ave happened to say something right to the point, in our judgment, we heard a certain shooting on the Avail of our room, as if in approbation of our words. And many times Ave were an- swered right as the Avords were uttered by a noise—real noise—of water in our stomach, as one may hear sometimes in his abdomen. Then a long time after my recovery, I heard distinctly several times, in the middle of the night, a certain rapping, loud enough to be easily understood,. in direct answer to what I said. After my recovery, one evening, I heard in my bed- room a certain r oise, as would be made by a small piece of money falling from the ceiling upon the floor. Then a crashing noise as Avould be made by the breaking of a strong glass. The next morning I looked around after the supposed piece of money. I found nothing. But I saw that a glass of my Avindow Avas broken. I told about it that forenoon to Dr. Pember. He inquired to see how that glass, probably over twenty feet above the ground, had been broken. But he couldn't find out. Neither I. And then, how many, many times, during several months, have I seen the other patients ansAver directly to Avhat I said within myself, by their signs, gestures and even by their words, which proved to me then and now, beyond all possible doubt, that all the insane are animated m INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, by the self-same evil spirit which possesses them, and which directs all their deeds and words, to fulfill his in- fernal designs, just as the self-same good Spirit of God, produces all the good gifts and wcrks in all the children of God, to accomplish his benevolent purposes. I do believe now in spiritual manifestations simply be- cause I have seen them; and the word of God confirms it. "For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew greit signs and Avonders." Therefore we see that those D. D's. and others who want to explain all the manifestations of spiritualists and Avorks of magnet- izers, as though all were tricks, are simply unable to cope with the evil. Satan is working there. And in like manner do Ave know, now, that Avhen the M. D's. want to explain, as they do, all the visions, hearing, sensations, etc. of the insane, as all mere delusions and hallucinations, that they are here more deluded than the patients themselves, because the patient knows positively, all in- sane as he is, that he has seen and heard some of those things in fact and in reality. Only because he is insane, generally the doctors and the laity do not believe him. But the truth is, that the insane possess some knowledge that the doctors have not. Now in all we have seen, heard, felt, smelled, tasted, proved, while insane, there are certainly some real signs and visions seen, there is some real speaking heard, some real sensations felt, etc. But it rs also certain that there is a great deal of mere hallucinations, illusions, and de- lusions. We will not attempt to classify them in this small volume on account of space. Also it probably would be a more or less useless work. Then it Avould be very dangerous to make some mistakes. For though we know that such are real things seen, heard, felt, etc., and some others mere hallucinations and delusions, yet we are TREATMENT AND CURE. 67 far from sure we could rightly classify all of them. The important thing here is to know that the visions, hallucinations and illusions, are purposely sent to the in- sane by the evil spirit, generally to confirm him in the false idea which causes his follies, or entertain such in his mind. For instance the two things which contributed the most to lead us to the state of mind which brought about our misfortunes, were the hearing of the great things re- vealed by our insane brother, and our vision of the cross on the mountain. When we believed ourself to be a second Christ, we had the most magnificent visions to confirm us in that idea. Yes, and once, one of the most prominent demoniacs kneeled down before me, his hands joined, in the most respectful manner. When we thought that heaven and earth were to pass away, we saw the sign of the sword blades in the sky and other signs. When we believed that that patient was the Christ, we saw his face shine beautifully, while the faces of other patients appeared to us black and hideous, and many other signs of his supernatural power. And so on and on. In conclusion, we may safely say that we knoAv that without the signs and wonders we have seen and heard wdiile insane, Ave wouldn't and couldn't have done a great part of our greatest follies. Thus, Satan, the author of insanity, does entertain and propagate it. It is a great blessing now to know that such is the case. 68 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, CHAPTER V. HIS SUFFERINGS AX I) CURE. Let us now return to our adventures. It seemed to me that after I had myself asked all the doctors to have a visit from my wife, and invited her to come with the most pressing entreaties, that I had exhausted all the means within my reach. But I believed that my wife, outside and at liberty, had not done all she could do. I thought that if the doctor superintendent had refused to let her come, that she should have presented herself at the hospi- tal office, nevertheless, and if the doctor refused to let her see me, then apply to the Governor of the state. And if this one refused to listen to her, carry her case even to the President of the United States, and I Avrote her to do so. Now she had not done all this, and she had not come, and I must see her. I believed her guilty, and also the boy; and I wanted to see them, certainly not to chastise or curse them, but assuredly to forgive and bless them. Thus they would not come to me to be saved—and I could not let them be lost at any cost. What should I do? At this juncture, it came just to my troubled mind, that St. Paul to save the recalcitrant sinners delivered them to Satan fcr their best good, in order that the spirit should be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. I resolved to do so Avith them, if however I found that such was the will of God. I had forsaken for a long time te service of the newT Christ. But now for a few days, having received by some new signs and visions, the assurance that he was in- deed the Christ, come again there, and ready to manifest himself as the judge of the quick and dead, I had come back to his service with more zeal than ever before. Thus TREATMENT AND CURE. 69 the first thing I did, Avas to communicate to him my in- tention of delivering my loATed ones to Satan, and consult him about the matter. He fully approved my design. Therefore for two or three days I kept myself busy, in making in my mind a draft of the letter by Avhich I de- livered them up to Satan, according to an old custom of ours in Avriting letters and other articles. Thus the letter, more or less approximately as it has been written, had been composed and repeated lots of times in my mind, and as I tell you reader, almost every time that I came to the sentence of their condemnation, there AA^ere about three patients Avho approved of the deed by the most significant gestures. Beside, the false Christ approved it in his own way, and sometimes a fifth one also very noisily in stamping the floor. Deceived by those signs and wonders, I believed it Avas in reality God's will that I should Avrite the letter and send it to them. Inconsequence—for those things are not dreams but realities—I asked Dr. Craig to let me write to my wife. And I then Avrote the letter and- sent it to her. The following are about the terms of their con- demnation: "That they must come, (my Avife and boy and two other persons) take me out of this house where I was suffering and detained on account of their faults, and bring me back to my house in Wausau, and if they had not come by such date, I delivered them up to Satan, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Gh~st, the only one and true God."—Now listen: The letter being really written and sent away. Avhile I thought of its contents in walking in the hall, I saw suddenly a patient, already spoken of, who seemed to be occupied Avith ni}7 OAvn affairs, and forthwith I commenced to repeat, Avithin me, the words by which I delivered my own ones to Satan. And at the same moment, lo, he crossed the ends of his legs in sign of approbation. When he had uncrossed 70 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, them, I repeated the same words within me, and he, just like a soldier practicing, avIio obeys the commanding officer, crossed them again, and the exercise was repeated, three or four times in that Avay, perhaps more. I took this as a ratification of the sentence pronounced against them, and I greatly rejoiced because I had found the true way to lead them back to me and their duties. But one day more reader, and myself, delivered up to Satan, instead of them, I am going to suffer mentally, morally and physically, probably', all that an insane per- son may suffer, and then die! I say "and then die" be- cause if we live yet, it is as by a kind of resurrection, surely. Now reader, how many woes aud grievous pains world probably have been spared me, had the doctor superintendent allowed me to see my Avife, in time! for it is evident that it is this idea that my wife had forsaken me which led me into this present sad situation. Now we had believed the victory Avon when we saw the sentence thus ratified.—It is no matter to wonder at to see us in our state of mind believing all the signs and Avonders of those demoniacs as Ave have done. Millions of persons nowadays, called spiritualists, claiming to be nothing but sane, really believe that all the communications they receive from evil spirits, come from their dead friends and receive those lies as truths. God give them light, and save them too. But the next day, after having passe 1 a good review of the demoniac patients, who always confirmed the senteuce, we passed into the next hall where the false Christ was. And after different signs of his power, believing in fact that he Avas the Christ, truly him seated there before us, we exclaimed aloud in French: ''Father, glorify thy son, that thy son also may glorify thee." And as soon as the words were uttered, that demoniac who had pronounced TREATMENT AND CURE. 71 the names, Francois. Fine, Adele, although away from me started to sing. And the false Christ showed me how he answered to my Avords. Reader I assure you, that I re- peated during that afternoon, from time to time, more than ten times, to say the least, the same Avord-,: "Father glorify etc."and every time we AATere thus answered by this patient or some one else, either by singing, or by some other signs. Thereupon I rejoiced exceedingly. But behold! all those signs are Avrought in favor of error and evil, by the evil one to drag us to suffering and death! For it is the same evening, that our moral and physical anguish and suffer- ings Avere going to commence in a manner much more atrocious than ever before. In the evening I commenced to sing aloud in Avalking, and passing by the false Christ, who was brought back eA*ery evening in the hall transver- sal. The first attendant told me to hold my peace. I lowered my voice. But forthwith the question that we must obey God rather than men came to my mind, and I thought that if it was God's will I sing his praises aloud, that I must not keep still or sing low. Thereupon I resolved to sing aloud at any cost, if I only could know that such Avas God's will. Such arc; the thoughts and feelings with which we started, on the false Christ suggestion, those three last weeks of.clamorous fol- ly Avhich have brought us to "two finguers" of the grave. I perfectly knew that to sing aloud Avhile this attendant commanded me to keep still was to incur a punishment certain and severe. But I gazed at my prophet to consult him Avithout saying a Avord. And as if he kneAV my in- tention, he showed me right away that I ought to raise my voice, by a sign of his eyes and forehead right up, the most intelligible. I started to sing aloud, but with tremb- ling in view of the punishment. The same attendant told me sternly to keep still. But I believed I ought con- 72 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, tinue to smg aloud, and I did so. The attendant mad seized me and struck me. I contiuued to sing. He brought me in the other hall by my bedroom; there he threw me down on the floor and cruelly strangled me unto complete suffocation. Just so the devil treats the epileptic patients! Thus those keepers do exactly their father's work! (John VIII, 44.) Then he loosed my throat, and set me in my crib-bed, Avith express threaten- ings of more punishment if I sang again. When I was a little recovered of th^ pain caused by this cruel treatment, I offered my prayer. Then I thought seriously about what I ought to do the next day. I saw clearly that that Avay of resistance, was the very Avay of the grave, and paved with nameless, numberless sufferings. I kneAv the merci- less feelings of my keepers Avith respect to getting them- selves obeyed, and I reasoned thereupon. "Shall I," I asked myself, continue to resist, and be killed by blow^s, or shall I live in obedience as I have more or less done for the past two months? Terrible perspective! Awful dilemma! Obey or be killed little by little. But then had not the Christ and many of his disciples preferred torture and death rather than deny God? Oh! what, what must I do, said I! .... Before I fell asleep, I resolved to do what God wanted me to do. To sing aloud and resist even unto death if he willed, and to keep still if he Avilled. The last I preferred greatly. It was easier. So resolved I slept.—The next morn'ng i got up fearing, trembling! This question of life or death was again present to my mind. Again I asked, "shall I resist or submit?" And again I resolved to do at any cost Avhat God wanted me to do. I dressed myself very quietly. Then I went into the wash room. In stepping thereinto, I just suav the false Christ, combing himself, his back turned towards me. And quite within me, I asked him if I ouo-ht to TRE 1TMENT AND CURE. 13 sing aloud or keep still. And immediately he turned back, faced me, and shoAved me by an unmistakable sign of his lips that I oight to sing aloud. In vieAV of such manifestation of his supernatural power, I fell doAvn at his feet and worshipped him Two keepers came, they brought me into the hall longitudinal and strapped me doAvn there. Now the reader who would not have hitherto admitted our doctrine of the true cause of insanity, is, it seems, unless in some way prevented, compelled to admit it here. There is no Avay of escape. In fact, last night, Avhile I rather washed to obey the keeper, it was visibly shown me that I must sing aloud. I did so, and was beaten and strangled on account of that idea suggested to me. I got up this morning greatly fearing the punishment. I desire to avoid it. But Avhen it is visibly shown me in that su- pernatural way, I must sing aloud, I kneeled doAvn and worshiped in singing aloud, him that showed me this. Therefore it is the false idea suggested to me which caused me to commit some follies against my feelings, for which I am grievously punished. Noav that this idea is sug- gested to the patient's mind by the evil spirit, is incontes- tible in view of those two instances (without speaking of many and many others) of this false Christ urging me by some unmistakable signs to sing aloud against the keep- er's command. I do not see what more palpable,convinc- ing proof one could bring in support of a doctrine than what Ave bring here in support of the doctrine of the true cause of insanity, (viz: that generally this trouble is but the effect of one or more false ideas suggested to the pa- tient's mind by the evil spirit,) except the authority of the word of God. But we have heretofo-e convinced the reader that the word of God attributes positively insanity and epilepsy to the power of the evil on^, speaking and act- 74 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, ing in the patient. Go now and cure this trouble with all the appliances employed in our insane hospitals. Would it not rather make one laugh to see those doctors puffed up in their science, attempt to cast outtl.e devil with drugs, novels, dances, spectacles, card and checker plays. Just the means that Satan himself employs to keep people's hearts away from God. Without doubt it Avould be a matter to laugh at, should not alas! the application of those strange appliances for such a trouble, cost the peo- ple every year so many beautiful thousands of dollars, and specially Avere it not here a question of the health, liberty and life of our felloAv men! ! A few days before the things Ave have just narrated, they had brought in our Avard two unfortunates very far out of their mind. They strapped them down almost con- tinually. The day I *was rejoicing, one of those wretches strapped down, stretched himself on the two arms of the chair, and with one hand against the wall, he pushed violently against the strap.as if to break his bodv in two pieces. The fals" Christ showed me him doing that. Another patient loose laid his back across one of those chairs and let his head hang downward on the floor. This the false Christ showed me again. The next day when I was seized in the Avash room, the attendants brought me in this hall and strapped me doAvn just betvrixt the false Christ and'the poor Avretch just spoken of. And a little while after I was bound there, I remembered to have seen the previous day those two patients doing those things, and that the prophet had showed me them actino- that way. And 1 concluded he had thereby thaught me to do the same. And forthwith I started m fact to do exactly the same things. A neAv keeper, who had re- placed the third attendant, came, and Avith the first attend- ant, they untied me, brought me into a bedroom and TREATMENT AND CURE. 15 strapped me down there, first by the middle of the body, then they tied each one o£ my legs to the chair's forefeet, so that I could hurt myself no more, except by knocking my head ag.iinst the Avail behind me. And that I did. It is worthy of notice how I started to injure myself again by the false Christ's suggestion Avho had showed me the previous day some patients doing those things. Now Avhile I was knocking my head against the Avail, the first attendant entered my room, and he struck me three vio- lent successive kicks on the parts. Believing after what had been shoAved me—see, reader, how the poor patient is deceived—I ought rather let him kill me than submit my- self to the keeper, I did not cease knocking my head on the Avail; but happily one of the most sensible patients just then entered the room and the keeper stopped kick- ing me before him. Then both of them bound me more closely on the restraining chair to prevent me from injur- ing myself. But from those three violent and successive kicks of a man as strong as a horse, struck on the testicles, and so much more exposed to the violence of the blows, that I had just the legs tied apart, there naturally ensued some intestinal pains so violent, so acute, that I believed this time my keeper had in fact given me the death blow, and that I should die. But I looked at death rather as a benefit and deliverance, in the lamentable circumstances in which I was. And this house of woe and torture is represented to the people, by its managers, as a home, a residence for the insane! ! Nevertheless, the intestinal pains passed aAvay little by little, and a feAV hours later I started to sing the praises of God strapped down, and I forgave the brutal keeper who had administered to me so savage a remedy in my folly and misfortune. During several successive days I sang the praises of God, and preached Christ aloud, strapped 16 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, down, and very often I added to my song that the Christ come again down from heaven, was there seated in the end of the hall, under the name of Day Byrnes (which I pronounced "Barn.") I almost never ceased to preach or sing aloud, except to meditate, and pray. It was very tiresome for me to do that, 1 wished I could stop, but I was urged to sing aloud in different Avays by the false Christ. But. very oft-ii Avhen I stopped to meditate, in spite of all the s;gns and Avonders that this prophet of woe had done before me, I nevertheless asked myself: But is that really the Christ? Is it certain that he in the hall, and I locked up in this room, that he hears me? In my doubts, I resorted to my visions. We had in the hospital, some visions so really grand and beautiful, that I regarded them as the glory of the Son of man. Generally in the middle of the vision Avas a spot, where was seen a small golden v\heel flittering without ceasing, and this wheel appeared and disappeared really at my word, it seemed to me. This was the vision I consulted, to confirm what the false Christ and the other demoniacs revealed to me. And altogether by their deceptions they have led me almost tothe grave. But iioav strapped down in my room, if I had some doubt that that patient was the Christ, brouodit about by the attendants, who several times told me that he was only a murderer like me, (literallv) or otherwise. I consulted my visions, and every time they responded that Day Byrnes was really the Christ. S. veral times also I ansAvered the keepers: "But when I speak to him in a whisper and in my language he auswers me, he has re- vealed himself to me as the Son of God." Also, lots of times, in fact, while loosed for some necessity, I faced him, and asked him, within me, if he was really the Christ, and every time, he ansAvered by a good affirmative sign. Yes, and it is worthy of notice, that after being TREATMENT AND CURE. 77 completely recovered, I was going very often for my pleasure and curiosity to look at this patient, always seat- ed in the east end of the hall longitudinal, and every time, as soon as he perceived me, this demoniac invited me by the most entreating gestures to get me to worship him again. He has done that as long as he remained in the hospital. In the meantime, as for us, our life had become most miserable. I sang and preached almost all the day long, strapped down in a bedroom, and Avhen loosed, generally, if I had the opportunity, I ran and kneeled clown before the false Christ, for which I received almost every time some punishment more or less painful. In fact, once for instance the new attendant spoken of, hav- ing found me kneeled down before him, gave me three violent kicks right on the back of the neck. Several times he striped me on the naked body with a heavy strap for that offence. But worse is coming. For over two months, I generally had taken my meals. But since those last days of clamorous folly, I had already, several times, refused to eat. Then one day in meditating on the life of Christ I found he had fasted for forty days, and that I ought to do so. Then I found also that to do the will of God on earth as it is in heaven, I ought to sing his praises day and night. I consulted my visions, and they approved completely those two new plans, just what I needed to kill myself, Avith the blows which were surely not spared me. I then refused to eat. The keepers tormented me some, in vain to make me eat. Then I was fed with a stomach pump by the doctor. This was one more species of suffer- ing. Then I also started to sing all the night. But I got asleep in spite of me. The next evening I uncovered my- self, and the cold preventing sleep, I could thus sing about all the night. But the following evening, as I was 18 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, singing again, the night watch ordered me to keep still. I told him I belieAred in conscience I ought to sing God's praises. He ordered the second and third attendants to lay hold of me, and after a desperate resistance, unheard of on my part, he succeeded in making me swallow a glass- ful of the abominable opiate, that they give in this hospital to the noisy patients to quiet them during the night. The next evening, as I Avas singing again, the nightwatch came with the two same attendants and succeeded in get- ting me to take his repulsive narcotic, after the most ob- stinate resistance, and the greatest sufferings on my part. Lo! I believed that I must let myself be tortured rather than take the opiate! And they tortured me night after night, with an infernal persistence to make me take it! One evening, after they had thus tortured me. Avhen they loosed me from their grasp, I told them: "You crucify me, my brethren." They looked at each other and got out of the room; but only to come back thefollowing even- ing, animated by the same cruel feelings. God have mercy upon their souls!! Listen, reader: To keep my face still to make me take the opiate, the night watch had pressed his thumb on my right cheek so that he had bruised the flesh. And as a consequence of that bruise, there came forth a grieArous eruption, which the attend- ants, the doctor, and my wife, at the time of her first visit. have seen. It took over three Aveeks to cure it. And in pressing violently with the glass on my loAver lip, to make me open my mouth, he had smashed the flesh so as to make it bleed inside o.f the mouth. Now with a face so bruised, the last time he came to my room to give me the narcotic, Avhen he got ready to lay his hands on my face to hold it still, I told the nightwatch: "Sir, see hoAv you have bruised my face for the last days." And he rejoined: "If you Avill not stop singing I am going to hurt you now TREATMENT AND CURE. 79 again." And I told him: "I cannot promise you to stop, I obey my conscience, I sing the praises of God." The attendants in the meantime had taken hold of me. And the night Avatch thrust his thumb into the old cheek Avound, and he violently pressed the glass containing the opiate, on the bruised lip, inside, unto blood, and after a few minutes of resistance, giving up under the pressure of atrocious pains, I loosed my teeth, and swallowed a part of the narcotic. Then I suddenly shook my head, and a part of the drug was spilled. The night watch ordered the two keepers not to release me, and right away he filled up the glass, then pressing Avith his thumb and the glass on the old wounds, he got my teeth open after an in- furiated resistance on my part, under the pressure of ex- cruciating pains, which make me scream as a roaring lion. And as the first lime, again I suddenly shook my head, and a part of the opiate was spilled. And the nightwatch, equally determined, filled the glass again for the third time, and Avithout waiting in the least, to see if I had swal- loAved.enough or not of the opiate to quiet me, he forced me to take all the contents of this last third glass, after a resistance Avhich cost me horrid . pains, and made me scream awfully. Then he Avent away, leaving me to the care of the two attendants, Avho brought me into the bath-room to wash me, for I was all soiled after such atro- cious struggles. Now, I tell you reader that these things have in fact and in reality happened to me as above related, just before my recovery wdiich took place on the 12th of April, 1885. Besides, in all this Avork, being actuated by the desire to tell the truth, Iioav could I speak against it? Thus Avas the writer tortured day after day in this awful home of the state! ! It is evident that A\riien the people send here their loved ones they don't know Avhat they are doing. 80 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, Hence the urgent necessity to reveal to the people what takes place daily in this house of woe and torture. And so much the more as all those cruelties and tortures are inflicted on the insane without the least necessity. There is no reason for abusing the patients. When thus tor- tured to make me take the opiate, my tormentor told me that it Avas to quiet me in order that the other patients could sleep. Now mark, tired as I was, having already sang all the day long I used to sing much lower during the night, and perhaps such song Avould rather have in- fluenced to sleep the other patients. But this is not all. While thus tortured by night to make me take this chemical restraint, some other tor- tures were inflicted on us during the day time to make us take another medicine, which I refused also to take. On my refusal, the first attendant Avas ordering another at- tendant or patient to take hold of me, Avho reversed my head behind, downward; then they tried to force mv mouth open to pour in the medicine. And Avhen he could not succeed on account of my resistance, once, the first attendant poured this very strong medicine into my stomach little by little, by the nostrils. That naturally caused me some atrocious pains Avhich lasted a long time after having taken it. And the keeper felici- tated himself on his success before me, and after, he em- ployed again the same means to make me take it. And iioav think of it. In feeding me Avith the stomach pump as tl;ey then did every day, they could have put my medi- cines in the liquid food, and thus get me to take it Avithout trouble and Avithout hurting me at all. If they had clone that, and transpoited the false Christ into another ward, through those two easy, feasible means, they Avould have delivered me of the greatest of my troubles and sufferino-s. Surely, "It is not here the place to heal but to get crazy." TREATMENT AND CURE. 81 When recovered and taking then voluntarily the same medicine, this same attendant very often forgot to give it to me three times daily, as prescribed. It is the diabolical principle to Avant the poor patient to submit to their Avill Avhich makes those employes beat, strangle, kick, thrash, hurt, bruise, drop, torture the same patient rather than let him have his way. We have abundant proofs that it is this senseless, infernal principle which actuates those employes, but on account of space, Ave will only cite an example in support of our assertion. One day, during those three last weeks of fol- ly, Dr. Craig ordered me loosed. The first attendant com- manded me to stop in the hall longitudinal. But always actuated by that spirit of deception and resistance, I went into the other hall, against his order. And the keeper, mad, hastened to me, he seized me and brought me back in- to the hall where I came from, striking me violently with his heavy fist in my side and stomach. He hurt me severe- ly. And in thus beating me, he said that it Avas because I had passed from one hall to the other against his com- mand. Then he brought me back into one of the bed- rooms and re-strapped me doAvn there.—You hear it. The keeper declares it. He strikes me violently, cruelly, simply because the poor fool has broken his command, and with no other necessity than to gratify himself, and avenge his authority, disregarded by an insane! Now this attend- ant has been consecutively employed in this bouse for twelve or thirteen years, and receives the far highest sala- ry. If he was not actuated by the principle which pre- vails in the government of this hospital, and in the gen- eral treatment of the patients, hoAV could he have main- tained himself so long in the service of this house! Reader friend, once, one of Bonaparte's generals, sent by means of powder, up to the skv, the building of the S2 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, Tribunal of the Romish Inquisition of Spain, where they tortured the so-called heretics. That was not the right way to do business, I think. The building was rebuilt. But since that time, as a matter of fact, civilization has abolished torture in every civilized country, except in in- sane asylums. But here torture still exists, and is prac- ticed on the insane. It has been practiced on the Avriter's body, and others. Now observe, that the same principle produces the same acts of violence in the two cases in question. Rome papal tortured the heretics so-called, to make them submit to her infallible authority (?)! And the employes of this hospital in like manner beat, strangle, torture the patients, to try to get them to submit to their -arbitrary will! It belongs iioav to this generation to wipe torture and maltreatment out of insane hospitals. But let us state that as for us, at present, we reason more or less well. And sometimes we astonish and confound our contradictors by our logical answers. Only we have a weak point, that of believing that that patient is the Christ. From this false fixed idea springs now all our fol- lies. We are a confirmed monomaniac so-called, for just now, and one of the worst kind to heal, said a scientific progressive alienist (?)—a religious monomaniac! ! Just at that time the doctors believed that I needed to have the body purged to stop my folly. And they ad- ministered to me, for that effect, by big glassfuls, a medi- cine black and thick as syrup. True, I needed a purga- tion. But it was the mind that ought to be purged of that false idea. Otherwise you may clean fifty times his intestines and I tell you that will in no wise help the pa- tient, it is certain. No, the doctors are here mistaken, blinded, surely. The trouble is not at all in the bowels. It is in the mind. The trouble is not physical. It is men- tal. It recpaires the application of a mental, moral, spirit- ual remedy to conquer it. That's it. TREATMENT AND CURE. 83 111 the meantime as if this had been proved tome, I had this intimate conviction that my doctors knew nothing about my trouble. Thus I refused again to take this black medicine. And once, AArhen the first keeper had violently poured into my mouth a great part of it, I quickly speAved out all I could. But for this, he struck me a vio- lent Woav with his heavy fist in the abdomen. After being recovered I wrote several times to my wife that I suffered from a stomach pain, and I then believed as I do today, that this pain had no other cause than the blows received during our three last weeks of folly. And now mark, it would take so little to help us, and deliver us from our folly. Only purge our mind of the idea that this man is the Christ, and Ave are saved, healed. What human science could ever explain insanity, or conceive what it is, if it Avas not revealed by a man who had the ex- perience of almost all the forms, degrees, and varieties of insanity, such as several kinds of frenzy, rage, furor, stupor, torpor, delirium, confusion, convulsion, dementia, down to the mildest forms of mania, melancholia and monomania, so-called? But now Iioav take out of the pa- tient's mind this false idea? That is the question. Well, since it is a fact, that many times we searched in our memory of God's word, to decide whether this patient Avas or not the Christ, if we had only had a New Testament to read therein: "For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall sheAv great signs and wonders, etc." Without doubt such a passage would have dis- abused and saved me. But behold! with the same per- sistence that the doctors had refused us to see our wife at the time of dire necessity, in like manner they now re- fused to us the Scriptures to read, the only efficacious means of saving us at present. Wherefore Ave may say, with a perfect assurance, based on conclusive facts, for the 84 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, benefit of all those who have their kindred confined in this house, that the tAvo things that could have relieved, healed and saved us—letting us see our Avife in time, and giving us our Bible to read—have been obstinately refused to us in this hospital by fhe medical authority. In the meantime we endured here a wretched life, sing- ing and preaching, night and day, eating nothing but what is forced within us with a stomach pump, such are the troubles and sufferings Avhich I imposed upon myself, in my folly, most of the time upon suggestion. Now tortured day and night to make me take my medicines, severely punished for my kneeling down before the false Christ, my singing, etc., violently stricken, kicked, maltreated, mocked and jeered at, vilified and insulted, striped several times with a heavy strap on the naked body, and even on the naked parts, having once a cane thrust in my mouth by the first keeper to stop our singing in the eATening, and pushed with such violence on the cheek, that I thought that the flesh so stretched out Avould split for certain, and the cane's end get through the cheek; kicked violently even on the parts, and on the back of the neck, dropped from four feet high the head striking on the floor, stran- gled many times unto suffocation, beaten tAvice. in the evening, with his hands, in my face, while I had the handcuffs on, by a patient who is doing the attendant's work, so much and so hard that the blood ran out of my mouth on the bed sheets. Such is a part only of the treat- ment Avhich I received in this hospital to heal me of my folly. But it is evident that such treatment may kill, not heal. Is it not so reader? Therefore it is towards the grave that we are going on at rapid strides, I and the doc- tors seeing and knowing it. Only to let me die that way was probably too soft a death in the sight of my keepers. Cruelty has its peculiar TREATMENT AND CURE. 85 refinements. Listen: I was very afraid of that patient who had uttered my name in Walloon. The attendants knew it, and so Dr. Pember, so far that the doctor asked me seA^eral times, what I had seen about that patient to be so afraid of him. Now at this time, I was almost ready to die, there Avere more patients than beds in our ward. And the attendants took this very patient and put him to sleep in my room, most probably in the room of the sole patient of the Avard avIio was afraid of him. During the night that demoniac was speaking, singing and sometimes screaming harshly. Almost every night he got up and walked from one end of the hall to the other, for hours, covered up with the blankets. He was urinating every night on the floor while standing up and sometimes defecating. His demons kept him awake al- most all the night. But Avhen he slept he snored in such a way as to hinder any one in the room from sleeping. Such is the dreadful companion that the keepers wilfully gave me then to sleep with me for about one month. I was only delivered of him, after being recovered, upon a request I addressed to this effect to Dr. Pember, in a mo- ment when I could catch the doctor in the ward, being not accompanied by the attendants. Now, go ye again, ye that have relatives or friends here repose quietly, believing "That nothing is wanting for the welfare of your loved ones," and that they have here a home, a residence, as it is represented to you by the managers of this house! ! Jesuits! Now I was sensible enough at the time to comprehend perfectly that this life could not last long under such cir- cumstances. I rejoiced about it. I considered that death alone, in fact, could put an end to such sufferings, and I saw it coming gladly. I was growing thin and feeble. One day I caclulated that such a number of days more ought to end 86 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, my miserable career. In all my pains and sufferings, I never forgot my loved ones. Only a little while ago, it caused me great pain to have to die without seeing them again. I asked Dr. Craig (end of March 1885) that he Avould, under the police supervision, and at my expenses, allow me to go home to see them for a last time. Then a few days after I asked him only to permit me toAvrite to them. All was refused to me. Then I committed them to the care of the Almighty and loving God, in whom I believed, as- sured he would take care of them. I Avas reconciled in my heart to them; guilty or not I forgave them, and com- pletely at peace with respect to them, nothing now seems to connect me Avith the earth. I am ready to go to rest. It is not long ago either since Ave believed that Ave must sacrifice our life before this false Christ; and Are had at- tempted to do it in some dark hour. But noAv we resolved to Avait until death Avould come to deliver us. And the hour is coming indeed! Three days later, I was so feeble that I could hardly raise my foot high enough to get out of my crib-bed. And the bones stuck out of my face stripped of flesh. Life quenches slowly. One thing however does not quench, it is the cruelty of my keepers, one would say: "tormentors." No, feeble, afflicted, miserable, such as I am, they all continued to strike, strangle and maltreat me just the same. Satan, who actuates them, has no mercy. —I knoAV Satan, be sure of it. Said Mrs. E. G. White: "The heart can be very cruel Avhen God's fear and love are removed." But however, soon, for us, their rage will be quenched. All they can do is to maltreat us unto death! After it is finished! As soon as this life is quenched, here, their power over us ceases. Death shall disarm them for- ever! This thought consoles me; for death in fact is coming. TREATMENT AND CURE. 8T I Avas come to this, when one forenoon of April, 1885r Dr. R. M. Wigginton, superintendent, with one of the as- sistants came in my room. And after a few moments the doctor superintendent, standing on my right hand, said to the assistant: "This man is in a bad condition." And the assistant said, "He is." And both of them went out without seeing if they could do any thing to help me. I saAV no more of Dr. Wigginton until four days after my recovery. Here is a tacit acknoAvledgment by the doctors that they cannot cure or even relieve the insane. For if they could, I surely was then the very case in the hospital to experiment their healing science upon. But here we are condemned by the doctor superintendent and one of the assistants, I hearing it. In this the doctors agreed with me. I thought I was going to die, and it appears they deemed so; Avith this difference nevertheless, that knowing perfectly that it was Avillingly that I had ceased to eat, ceased to sleep, and that I was doing all those tilings for which I incurred those cruel punishments; just as sure as we state it here, in hearing the sentence pro- nounced by the doctors on my condition, I told myself that after all, I had but to stop this kind of living, not to be, if I would, a lost man. Thus it is evident that in my state of mind as it is, I know myself I have the power (God willing) to save my life or let it go. The doctors did not knoAV it. And also could not. Human science goes not so far as that. "For Avhat man knows the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him." As for me, here is the delusion, the deception which leads me to. death. I believe I am doing God's will in doing all those follies. They lead me to death; I see it, I feel it, I know it, and that is so certain that I calculate the days I could live yet, the nearest I can. Now we believe that we are doino- God's will, because on all the principal points at 88 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, least, we have consulted our false Christ and he has showed us we must do those things. And Ave believe in him on account of the signs and Avonders he performed before us. Thus live and die the insane in hospitals, the doctors knowing not what is the trouble with them. Let human science therefore come with all her baggage of earthly knowledge, and her cortege of theories, and always we shall tell her, based on our experiences. As for us, we don't knoAV much, but we really know one thing for cer- tain, Ave know that the true cause of the trouble here is the evil spirit. "Satan is there, there." In the meantime, as the only means—the Bible—that could take out of our mind the false idea, is refused to us by the medical author- ity, Ave are going toAvards death at rapid strides.* We must state here in passing, that it is a grave mistake to believe that the insane, because he is insane, is more or less insensible to bloAvs and maltreat- ment, and that he runs gladly to the punishment. No, such is not the casj at all, for I declare, as for me, I Avas doing those follies for which I Avas cruelly punished, but in trembling, believing I ought to do so, because urged always in some way to do them. And I Avas just as sensible to blows and maltreatment as a sane person is, perhaps more so. Audi have seen that such generally is the case with the other patients. Now two or three days more parsed by in the same Avay after the sentence pronounced by the doctors on the pa- tient's condition. Then one morning, for the last time, 1 asked myself once more, Avhile strapped doAvn in the room: *In reflecting, after our recovery, how we had believed, in our folly, that we must put our.sfIf to death, and then let ourself die to save others, deceived by the spirit of folly and evil, we have concluded that suicide is also the work of the one who is a murderer from the negiuning. The victim puts himself to death, deceived by the evil spirit, who showed him that such is the only way to do right under the circumstances. Since the crime which killed Abel the just unto this day, be sure that Satan has a hand in all the crimes and sui- cides committed. TREATMENT AND CURE. 82 "Is that man really the Christ in fact?" And I set my- self again to examine the question, this time specially in the light of Scripture; not to spare my life; I had serious- ly renounced, but for truth's sake. Even at this last mo- ment, truth was precious to me. I loved it; and judged it was yet very important to knoAV it. And while I Avas seeking to know Avhether this man Avas the Christ or not, lo! this passage of Scripture came right to my mind: "Wherefore if they shall say unto you, behold, he is in the desert; go not forth; behold he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." And forthwith, at this flash of divine light, I told myself it is however true. The first coming of Christ Avas comparatively obscure, ig- nored; but the second coming shall be gloriously visible even as the lightning. And this man could be but a false Christ. "And my visions," said I; and I consulted them; and they proved to be deceitful visions. I Avas saved! ! This only one passage of Scripture, the right one, delivered me forever from my insanity, in taking aAvay forever from my mind the false idea that this patient AA-as the Christ. It was, Ave think, the morning of the 12th day of April, 1885. When Dr. Pember came to feed me, 1 told him: "I Avill take my dinner to-day." And he replied: "If you will promise me to take your dinner at noon, I will not feed you this forenoon." I p omised him to do so, and the doctor went out. At noon, for the first time since over two Aveeks, I took voluntarily a great part of my dinner, then I took my supper, and I never missed a meal since. The next morning I assured myself tha^ my prophet was but a false Christ indeed, and entirely delivered from this delusion, I felt, I knew that I had re-entered into posses- sion of my re-Json. Since then, I thought no more of dy- • 90 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, ing, but only to revive and to go as soon as possible to re- join my loved ones, as I declared a few days later to Dr. Pember.* But the doctors knew not I was cured. Four days later, Dr. Wigginton declared to my wife and boy that he considered my case incurable. And he had personally visited me that day! Thus so strange is this trouble that a patient may have lost or regained his reason for several days without the doctors avIio treat them knowingit.— Once, in ward 9 S. a French patient, after having been sensible enough for several weeks, had returned to his folly for four days without the doctor on duty becoming aAvare of the fact, though having met the patient. The first newrs that the doctor received of it was given him by the writer, avIio in speaking in French every day Avith that patient, perceived his relapse.—As for us we permanently recovered the day we commenced to re-take our meals. And that the doc- tors saw it not, and admit it not, that does not alter the fact. Now reader, you see what is insanity and its effects! how a man may get insane enough to do all kinds of fol- lies, on account of a false idea implanted in his mind, by the evil spirit, and that to take away the false idea by the truth, by a passage of Scripture, (that the doctors refuse to the patients) and behold! he is again of sound mind and cured! "And the truth shall make you free." At all events my cure effected in the manner related above, is a fact so evident that one day (June folloAving) I explained in ward 10 S. to Dr. Pember how I had com- menced my three last weeks of folly, and Iioav by a passage of Scripture I had been delivered of my insanitv, and at his request I quoted the passage to him. Then I said: "Doctor, had 1 not told you how I commenced and fin- *ln fact only a fe^v weeks later, the eruption of my cheek resulting from the pressure exerted thereon to get ine to take the opiate, being cured; the co;«.r of my face being restored; being shaved: having regained much fat already, and behaving very w-11 under nil circumstances, I was looking already no more as ail insane, but as a sane and well man; thanks be to God. TREATMENT AND CURE. 91 ished my last folly you could neATer have Known it?" And the doctor responded: "How could 1 know it?" The doc- tor Avas right. "For Avhat man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of a man which is in him?" But it is precisely those things which he has in his mind, that gen- erally cause the trouble, set the patient out of his senses, disturb and derange him, and when the doctor avoAvs he cannot know them, he avoAvs that he cannot cure or even relieve the patient.* Now restored to reason by the grace of God, Ave must say, dear reader, that we have proved that, "It is a fearful thing to fall in the hands of the living God." A few days before our misfortunes Ave asked God to settle us on the doctrine of "demons and hell." And he answered us. He delivered us up to Satan, and he cast us in a kind of hell. Thus he showed us that in fact, Satan and hell exist. Friend, God is not mocked. To the eyes of this great God, the damnable sin is the sin of unbelief. The Almighty God, who spoke to men in olden times by his prophets, and in these last days by his Son and Apostles, accompany- ing their word by great wonders and miracles, wants us to believe Him. That's it. The things I requested Him to settle for me are plainly revealed in the Bible. I ought to have read it and believed it. But for several years I Avas read- ing it almost no more, and yet, Avhen I did, it was Avithout re- spect or care God's word was become unfruitful for me. It Avas not received with faith. Then "When fear conieth as desolation, when distress and anguish cometh upon me," I called upon the Lord, but He did not answer.—Yes, He did. When I asked Him He would come and dwell with us, He came with chastisement. When I asked Him to lead and direct me by His good spirit, He sent the evil *See chap. X, pp.180 the renewing process of the mind where such seed may grow. 92 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, spirit to lead me to do all the follies that the insane may do. It was Avell done! Because Avhen the wisdom of God crieth without, saying: "Howr long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scornings, and fools hate knowledge? Turn ye at my re- proof, behold I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my Avords unto you." AVe despised the call. Behold! our heart was attached to the goods of this Avorld, and we would not loose our hold. And our eyes were surely blinded by the God of this world—Satan. And because the Lord had called and I would none of his re- proof. "Then He also laughed at my calamity because I had hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord." Oh! Avoe to the man, reader friend, who refuses to listen to the voice of God's Avisdom when it cries to him: "Be ye converted." And the message is now delivered to all. Now if some escape punishment, in some measure in this world, they shall not always escape. They surely one day must mee: the Great Judge, Reniun- erator of all t hings. Reader, my friend, oh! escape now for your soul's life. Our God forgives abundantly for the sake of His beloved One! Knowing now Iioav God must be feared, we inATite every man to repentance, and to be- lieve in Jesus Christ, to forsake sin and take Christ, before it is everlastingly too late! Now. for us, though once a great infidel, Jesus, the God Man, dying to save sinners. but risen and living forevermore; and Satan, the enemy of God and men, the prince of the power of darkness, are living realities. There is no more doubt in my mind about their real existence, than about my own existence. Friend, the Avay of the transgressor is hard! Satan is a hard master to serve. I know it. I have seen it. But the yoke of Christ is eas}r, and his burden light, and easy to bear. TREATMENT AND CURE. 93 And the only way to be delivered from the power of sin and Satan's terrible bondage, is to take upon us the yoke of Christ. Here and only here is salvation: In Christ Jesus. Without Christ, there is no peace, no rest, no life, no happiness! But only woe, slavery, misery, darkness and hell! Think of it! we must be eternally happy saved with God, or eternally miserable, damned Avith Satan and his angels! What will you choose? There is no repentance after death! And soon it Avi 1 be too late! "My spirit will not strive ahvays with man,"said God! Friend, the day is fast approaching when the sinners shall cry to the rocks and mountains to fall upon them, and hide them from the face of God and the wrath of the Lamb! Oh! don't, don't get lost! Why will you die ? AVhy will you perish far away from Jesus, while God has provided such a way of salva- tion in Christ Jesus, the just dying for us the unjust? Now is the accepted time! To-day is the day of salvation! If you hear the voice of the Lord harden not your heart! We live now and to-morrow we may be dead! And die without Christ, Avithout his salvation, that's to be lost, lost, lost! forever! Think of it! Remember, God Almighty has promised and sworn to bless and save us in Christ Jesus! Friend, I never made one cent in all my life by inviting my fellowmen to come to Christ to be saved. I do it for the love of God and the love of the souls of my fellowmen. I have served the world, Satan and self long and well. But Satan rewarded me with disease, the loss of my money, and misery! Thus Satan pays his servants! And you Ingersoll followers, let me tell you that I have been once myself an Ingersoll man. But Ingersoll, friends, did not give peace to my soul! To get peace, I had to come to Jesus! Friends, don't you know that In- gersoll followers die wretched, miserable, sinking down in- to hell! While the followers of Jesus live and die happy,, 94 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, rejoicing in His arms? Oh! I am now persuaded that in the last day of judgment, Ingersoll shall be found a fool and a liar, if he don't repent, and God shall be found just and true. My unconverted friend, you're a sinner, and as such condemned in your sins by the right law of a right- eous God! Such is ~your condition, and no jeering, no mockery, no science or sophistry can help you out. You need Christ to save you, and give you peace! Ingersoll cannot give you peace, because he has not peace himself! He cannot give'you life because he has it not. He never gave life to a single blade of grass! But Jesus, the Son, the Eternal Word, the Christ of God is the Prince of life! He is life! The principle of life dwelt in Him! He may give you life, eternal life! The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ! And He will give you peace! A peace solid, profound, durable, unalterable; a peace that stands when soon the world shall be on fire! That peace I possess now in my soul! Glory be to the Christ that gives it! And because He is the Truth, He'll make you know the truth. And with the truth that makes free, and peace and life you'll get joy and happiness! The happiness that your soul craves for! But you christian brethren don't you know that Roman Catholicism made Aroltaire! And renegade Protestantism of the United States, has made Ingersoll! Alas! alas! per- haps, if Ave, christians, had been humble, loving, lovely and charitable, instead of being proud, selfish and cold- hearted as we are, Ingersoll, perhaps would haA'e loved us, and through us, our blessed Master, the Christ! And to- day perhaps he Avould be preaching Christ instead of preaching Mammon! Christian friends let us humble ourselves in the dust and pray God, the Merciful God of Heaven,, that He will TREATMENT AND CURE. 95 save Ingersoll and give him the pardon and peace that is proclaimed by His everlasting gospel through the atoning blood of the Lamb slain on Calvary ! ! Christian brethren do as you like. But as for me and mine, Ave shall kneel down before God, and pray for the salvation of Bob Ingersoll and Mark Barnum! CHAPTER VI. IXSAXITY AND THE DOCTORS. To any intelligent reader, the perusal of this record of three months and twenty days of an insane, crazy enough at certain times, at least, to make all kinds of folly, demon- strates superabundantly, among some other things, the great fact, that the insane, all insane as he is, generally possesses a certain reason Avith which he constructs his plans, examines them, weighs them, modifies them, and tries to put them into execution when opportunities come. Only those plans being engendered by a distorted reason, and conceived in a troubled mind are often some acts of folly, often of inoffensive folly too, but sometimes they are some awful crimes. That is the truth about it. It has been a fatal, ruinous error partaken of by the doctors and lawyers, judges and jury-men, learned and ignorant, infidels and faithful to believe that the insane, because he is insane, has lost his reasoning powders and consciousness, so far that he generally can't knoAV what he is doing. It has brought many persons of disordered intellect on the scaffold. Thus Avas brought up on the gallows the insane assassin of Garfield. Guiteau Avas insane. Yes, Guiteau declared sane by a council of fifteen doctors, superintend- 96 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, ent of insane asylums, presided over by the veteran Dr. Gray, with his term of more than thirty years continuous service in an insane asylum, Guiteau condemned to death by the people, by the press, by an honest judge and tAvelve jury-men, Avas a poor deluded one of the devil. He had a demon! The terrible experiences Ave have had of insanity, authorize me to judge so in his case. Reader, listen: Just as soon as our miserable crime was committed in that moment of supreme misfortune, de- ceived by the spirit of error and evil, we believed that we had performed the best deed in the world, and that all Wausau must be there to defend us if necessary. Then after we believed during the eight days following that Ave had committed a good, useful, necessary deed inspired by the Holy Ghost If any one told me then I was out of my senses, I was getting angry, because I considered myself wiser than all the rest, a great personage, a holy man. Now, avIio will fail to recognize here, all the character- istics of Guiteau's folly. He was not insane, he said, and Avhen his defenders claimed he was insane, the only Avay under the law to save his life, he got mad at them, he pre- tended to be sane, having removed the president inspired by the Holy Ghost (thus fastening himself the rope around his neck) he considered he was not an assassin, but a great man who had committed a noble deed, useful and necessary for the welfare of the country. Also, had he the very idea that the American citizens would save his life, Avhile in fact they wanted to see him hang. Now a great mark of insanity is excitement.* And who ♦Excitement and irritability is the best possible sign of a demon inside— though.it is true that the devil inside renders not always people insane Thousands of christians on both sides of the Atlantic are ready to tesiifvi and do testify that they had the worst or most violent temper so long ago but since they were thoroughly converted or sanctified, they have continually their temper under control, because Jesus in them keep now the devil out Glory be to the God of Heaven! Such is also my experience! TREATMENT AND CURE. 97 does not remember what an excitable spirit was Guiteau? In his moments of excitement he got so far as to insult his judges. Now how reconcile this conduct of Guiteau, with his intense desire to save his life, for all know that he greatly hurt himself thereby in the public opin- ion and in the mind of his judges? Only one explana- tion is possible—insanity. He excited, quarreled, moved by the spirit of excitement and folly. He can't help it. Another sign of insanity is fright. Never before my attack of insanity, nor after, have I been so afraid of men, and things, and especially of death at times. I saw also that fright in my insane brother. Noav, Avho does not know the fright of Guiteau at death at the time of the at- tempts made on his life in jail? Once, after the shooting at him, he prayed aloud a great part of the night. Ah! yes, Guiteau after his crime, was disgustingly afraid of death, but he couldn't help it. The devil after giving him all the boldness he needed to commit the crime, scared him almost to death after the crime. That's it. Now all generally believed at the time of his trial, I as well as the rest, and probably many believe so to-day, that Guiteau wanted to impose upon his judges, the jury and the country, to save his life, when he contended he had committed the deed inspired by the Holy Ghost, though he was truly in earnest in his declaration. But now after the awrful experiences we have had of insanity, I really believe that Guiteau was here sincere. Guiteau was a poor monomaniac laboring under the idea that he, himself must, to do right, remove the president Garfield for the greatest good of the country. (And is it not improbable that in doing so, he, at the same time, satisfied some secret desire of revenge.) But at any rate so deluded, that he really believed that the inspiration, the pressure came from the Holy Ghost, while in fact it was suggested by 98 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, the evil spirit. I know what it is to be troubled with monomania, so-called. I once really believed that I, my- self, must die to save the rest of the sinners; and under this delusion I renounced the desire to live, and let myself nearly die, after some real attempt at suicide. In conclusion, now over three years after my recoArery, I always believe, both, the one and the other, that we have been inspired to commit our bloody deed; only we have been inspired, not by the Spirit of God, which is a spirit of order, peace, love and mercy, but by the spirit of the one who is a murderer from the beginning. AYe have been inspired, possessed (although of course in some dif- ferent degree) by the spirit of error and evil and folly. And being so inspired, possessed, is to be demoniac, is to be insane. That's the state of mind of all the unfortun- ates who fill our insane hospitals. Therefore we conclude that Guiteiu mounted the scaffold insane. His demeanor on the scaffold, singing with the rope around his neck, etc., confirms our conclusion; as also the fact that Guiteau at the moment of being launched into eternity, to appear before the Most High Judge—in whom he firmly believed —he persisted yet in his declaration that he had removed the president inspired by the Holy Ghost. Therefore to render a right sentence in the nature of the case, jury and judges ought to condemn the devil to be hung, if possible, avIio had certainly inspired the deed, and send Guiteau in- to an insane asylum. But alas! here judges and jurymen could hardly help it. They acted according to the deci- sion of the doctors avIio pronounced Guiteau sane. There- fore let us see about those ones. In fact, is it not pitiable to hear Dr. Superintendent Gray, with his blind science, make an argument in favor of Guiteau's sanity because he pretended himself to be sane. Ah ! docte science, don't you know that the char- TREATMENT AND CURE. 99 acteristic of the insane is to consider himself to be wise alone, and all the rest fools, and very often considers him- self to be a great personage? * All this we said, was the characteristic of the insane Guiteau. And is it less edifying to hear Dr. Gray, who presided over this council of Grecian AVises who sent Guiteau to the gallows, declare before the world that insanity is a dis- ease of the brain, of the body, and because he had found no bodily disease in the examination he had of Guiteau's life, concluding that he was of sound mind ? Ah ! docte science, don't you know now after thirty years personal practice in insanity that a person with a sound brain and sound body may be insane and do all kinds of follies, and that all it requires to deliver him of his folly is to cast out the demon avIio renders him insane ? Now, having been myself one of the most insane, with the most sound body —and brain probably—and in view of the observations we have made on the insane while we have lived, eaten, drank, Avorked, played and slept with them, Ave conclude that Guiteau, though apparently in good physical health, had nev ertheless the mind deranged. In the meantime if the doctor continue to pretend that Guiteau was sane, let him shoAV that there may exist beside Guiteau, another sane man able and willing to assassinate a president and a great citizen to advertise the book he proposes himself to publish. If such conception has been engendered in a sane mind let the doctor show us what else insanity is ! But again Dr. Gray tells us: "And the presence in him (in Guiteau) of reason, judgment, reflection and self- control in regard to his act, controls me in forming my opinion."(The opinion that Guiteau was sane.) Old senseless *Of course we don't mean that all the insane are such.. Some in the asy- lums know they are insane and deplore it at times. Some persons out- side more or less deranged, and aware of their trouble, conceal it more or less, and even some may themselves consult the doctors about their trouble. 100 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, doctor ! AVhy not then open the doors of the hospitals to all those patients who possess reason, judgment, reflec- tion and self control to construct their plans, and Avait for the favorable moment to put them into execution, and leave only the blind and paralytics therein ? for scarce indeed are the patients who have not their plans and rea- son thereupon. And why not proclaim of sound mind the woman who waited for the moment when her husband had left the house, to assassinate all her children by the ways and means she had chosen after some plans well concocted, and then suicided herself ? No, but it appears here clear to all that with some con- clusions a great deal less arbitrary than the ones of Dr. Gray in regard to Guiteau's sanity we could conclude that the veteran doctor who boasts to have never pro- nounced sane an insane or insane a sane person, Avould be a subject a good deal more fit for a patient in an insane asylum than to be superintendent of the same. * Now, while the doctors—and they are many, and great, and learned—proclaim unanimously by their science that insanity is a disease of the brain, we, poor, alone and ig- norant, based on our experiences and on the everlasting word of God, we say, no, insanity is not a disease of the brain; it is a trouble of the mind. It is not a disease of the physical man, but a trouble of the mental, moral man. And here we assume this position, that a person may be insane enough to make all kind of follies,and be in possession of a sound brain and sound body. Now why do the doctors proclaim that insanity is a disease of the brain against the declarations of God's word, and against the positive facts revealed by the positive science of anatomy, which demon- strate that the immense majority of the dissected brains of *A few weeks after the above was written for the first time, we learned with regret, of the death of Dr. Gray, through the press. TREATMENT AND CURE. 101 the insane are in no wise different from the brains of sane persons ? AVell, the Catholic priest seeing he could make no profit of the scriptural doctrine of "Paradise and Hell" invented his purgatory and he derived a great profit there- from. In like manner the doctor avIio could make no profit of the rational and scriptural doctrine that insanity is a trouble of the mind—a demoniacal possession—has proclaimed that insanity is a "B-r-a-i-n d-i-s-e-a-s-e" con- sequently physical, treatable and curable by medical science. And some of them realize also fair benefit there- from ! But alas ! alas ! AAliat about our brethren, the insane, delivered up into their hands ! We must not of course, overlook the positive influence of the mind on the body, and vice versa. Thus, for instance, let a man of sound mind indulge in too large libations of strong drink, and he may more or less lose his mind and reason. A starving person gets often delirious. Fever brings delirium. A drowning person lost his mind in the waters. Most probably also a person dying by strangulation. A person may get insane from head injury and insolation. From the evil effects of intemper- ance, masturbation and through some other disease. Probably almost any physical disease, if intensified enough, may lead to insanity.* AYe also believe in the hereditary predisposition to insanity. But all this does not hinder insanity from being pre-eminently a trouble of the mind, and also that when a person is insane, no matter what *On the other hand a person not nervous may become very nervous if he gets insane. Also the red rose color of a person's face changes very often to a grayish disagreeable color when getting insane. We found in some insane rigidity or relaxation of the muscles. And often the results of a poor blood circulation, manifested by giving a blue color to the skin of the hands and nails, and keeping them cold. And some other alterations of the body, in its appearance and functions,may take place as results of insanity. "Man," said rishtly Capt. K. Carter, in his 'Divine Healing,' "has a dual nature, and each half is itself a duality." In fact, man is composed of body and soul. The soul comprises our spiritual and moral nature. The body the physical and mental nature. Now this division of our being rather comprises, we think, the four principal ways or channels through which a person may actually get insane. 102 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, may be the cause ascribed for it, the result is the same in all cases, that is, to be insane is to be demoniac, and Satan is the spirit who works in every insane with more or less power and manifestation, as we have demonstrated. But now Avhere is the seat and seed of insauity? In- sanity, or mental alienation has its seat and germs in the human heart. Sin springs from the heart, and sin is it- self an immense folly—insanity in some sense. The com- mands of God are right and holy. Their observance pro- duces peace, purity, and happiness. Sin is the transgres- sion of the laAV, and it produces trouble, impurity and misery. The desperately wicked human heart by its natural rebellion against God's law, contains in itself folly, insanity in germs. In fact it is folly to swear, curse, and blaspheme against God. It is folly to lie, steal, to commit adultery, to hate, maltreat and kill his neigh- bor. It is folly to be proud, selfish, jealous, impure and lazy, and to get drunk and angry. But now all those fol- lies, germs of insanity exist in the human heart.* And how does insanity come forth? AVell let us try a little comparison. Certain it is that generally every woman bears in the ovaries the germs of a family. But it needs the action of the male to fecund those germs. And from the natural union of man and Avoman there comes forth children. Now, all those germs of insanity in the human heart need also the action of some one to fecund them. That one exists. It is the devil. Satan has the power to enter into the human heart and possess it. Christ says so. And from this infernal, but possible union of Satan with the human heart, there comes forth a child. Its name is, insanity. Hore is the fatherhood and motherhood of insanity. The devil and the human heart. Now let us fol- low the child in its mad career, Avords and deeds, and we *Read Mirk AMI, 21, i'l, 23. TREATMENT AND CURE. 103 will find that generally the characteristic of the insane, whether it bears the name of maniac, melancholiac, de- ment, paretic, monomaniac, etc., is pride, great pride, egotism, anger, excitement, impurity, wickedness, murder. But all thos? things are of the devil, and are contained in germs in the human heart. And their undisguised mani- festation or explosion, under the power of the devil, con- stitutes insanity. That's Avhat insanity is. Therefore Satan and the human heart are the legitimate parents of insanity. Yes, and their abode is hell. Yes, and if any person Avould experience in this world some of the anguish and horrors of hell, it suffices for him to get insane. Hell exists. It is a real abode. But now, what about th:> doctors who extract the healthy ovaries by the dozen from the insane Avomen, un- der pretext of removing their insanity! Oh! senseless medical science, how cruel art thou! Thou hast mutilated the living, and cut in pieces all the brains of the dead in- sane thou couldst get in possession of, and some of their spinal cords too, to seek insanity in the body, Avhile it is not in the body, but in the mind, in the heart, in the soul. Doctor, insanity is in thy own heart and mind, ready to spring forth at any given moment, under the power of the evil one. Cease then to torture and mutilate the flesh to seek to cure a trouble which is in the mind and sentiment. Oh senseless medical science! how many sufferings and tortures thou hast uselessly inflicted on our unfortunate brethren and sisters, fallen into thy hands! Oh! avIio shall deliver our loved ones from thy grasp! Noav, brethren citizens, when this senseless medical science has gone so far in its ruinous, fatal blindness as to extract the healthy ovaries of insane women by the dozen in the sole city of New York to remove their insanity, if in presence of such treatment, and of all the rough, cruel, violent, senseless 104 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, and inhuman treatment administered to the insane, if you don't find that it is high time now to take our insane out of its hands to treat them ourselves according to common sense and reason and the Scriptures, then if the doctors kill your insane again, beware that God does not require some day their blood from you who have mercilessly delivered up those unfortunates into the hands of this blind and sense- less medical science. Among some others, a palpable proof of the utter ig- norance of the doctors about insanity, is the very fact of all their contradictions. They have written books after books,the ones to contradictor try to destroy Avhat the others had previously said; and of all that literature no practical good has resulted towards curing the insane, for the insane rather recoArer Avhile in care of people who ignore the con- tents of those books, as at Gheel, etc. One doctor defines insanity to be this, another to be that, and no one has found what is the true cause of the trouble. Some say that the cause of insanity is in the brain, some in the spinal cord, some say it is in the blood, some others in the bowels, and some believe it is m the genital apparatus, or ovaries.* Thus some doctors remove the OATaries of in- sane Avomen; some purge the bowels of their patients. some bleed them, yes, and some administer the insane phosphorus, calomel, opium, morphia, strychnia, hyoscia- mia, alcohol, paraldehyde, electricity, etc., generally not knowing themselves avIiv or how such remedy could help the patients. And Avhile the doctors have thus tried remedies after remedies, drugs after drugs, means after means, of course the insane die in their hands, in their *Since any particle of the human body is susceptible of disease, of course we don't mean at all thaf some insane may not suffer of one or several of those or other ailments. But the great fact is that the insane has the mind, reason, feelings affected and the trouble most generally demands a moral treatment. Hence the inability of the M. D.s, to cure insanity by medical appliances. TREATMENT AND CURE. 105 folly, while they rather recover without doctors or medi- cines kept at home, at Gheel, or in certain hospital re- ceptacles such as those of New Zealand.* For us, such is our testimony: While insane, ready to die in the hands of the three doctors of the Northern AYisconsin Hospital; condemned by them, the Lord Jesus Christ renders me to reason by a passage of His word divine. Glory be to His great name forever! In the meantime the doctors have thrown dust in the eyes of the people, in reporting the several recoveries of the same patient, as so many patients recovered, so that, for instance, a patient who had been discharged as recovered 10, 15, 20 or 30 times, after so many attacks, figured in their reports as 10, 15, 20 or 30 patients recovered, while in reality such patient being possibly again re-admitted for a subsequent attack, no one patient had recovered. And while our insane hospitals multiplied and yet are overfloAving, and the overfloAving population sent from time to time in county asylums, the doctors alienists boast of their scientific progress in insanity, and say they may cure 60, 70, 80 or more per cent, of the most common forms of insanity "under proper treatment." AA hat proper treatment! By what kind of treatment can they Cast out the devil? What is the matter after all with those doctors? Are they blind, or knave, or both? The truth is that the doctors ignoring completely the true cause of insanity—Satan—they generally speak of the trouble as the blind speak of colors, and are powerless to cure or even relieve the patients. *Read "The Curability of Insanity" by Dr. P. Earle. tRead the same oook. Now the reader who might read Dr. Pliny Earle's book will notice that when he speaks of the deceiving reports of the doctors^ of the powerlessness of their remedies to cure insanity, of the inability of the doctor alienists to rightly judge of a person's state of mind, that in ah this, sustained by facts, he is strong as a tower. But as soon as he attempts to defend the insane asylums as curative institutions, he puts Dr. Earle in contradiction with his own declarations or quota>ions. 106 TNSANTTY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, Let us now hope that the most honest among them, will themselves loudly proclaim it as they will get aware of the fact. God, honesty and humanity require it. For it is evident that the greatest woe for the insane, arises from the failure of the doctors to proclaim their powerless- ness to cure insanity and epilepsy. But to return to my adventures. Having learned I was almost dying in the hospital, my Avife requested once more from the doctor superintendent to see me. And the doctor having at last permitted her, she came for the first time, with our boy, the 16th day of April, 1885, as stated. AVhy and Iioav does the doctor superintendent permit her to see me this day, when the imperious neces- sity for me to see her exists no more, whereas he has refused such permission for three months, and Avhen her visit Avould probably have saved me from the woes of my three last wreeks of boisterous folly, which have led me almost into the grave? Let Dr. AVigginton explain this! And suffice it for us to say that that visit of my wife after all my pains, anguish, and sufferings did me great good nevertheless. And great also was the poor little thing's surprise to find in me a quiet man clothed, sitting and in his right mind, who spoke with her during three days and telling her nothing but Avhat Avas sensible and reasonable. For the doctor superintendent in his letter of the previous clay, had but told her of my irrational talk and delusions, save he said, that I had commenced to eat again. But the truth is that the very day I started to r take my meals, is the day I had been delivered from my folly. It is so evi- dent that the doctor superintendent had even no idea that I had recovered, that he then told my Avife and boy, that as for him, he regarded my case as incurable. Then five months afterwards (August following) he wrote her again: "He is not cured and may break down at any time." TREATMENT AND CURE. 101 But since the time of my wife's first visit, she, from the letters I Avrote her regularly every week, and I upon what I felt and kneAV by experience about insanity, both of us have judged always, that God had permanently cured me, and knew it and saw it. Whence it appears that a per- son without learning may judge better of the state of mind of some one with Avhom he is in continual contact than some doctor superintendents with their lame science may do. Why not? AVhereas Satan renders the patient insane, the doctors can, no better than you and I, cope with the deAril. That's it. Now it would surely be edifying for the public if our space would permit it, to relate the history of the treat- ment of a certain headache of ours by the hospital's doc- tors, to relate how for ten long weary months they have obliged the patient to take for that headache a worthless medicine, intended to purify the blood in spite of all the protestations of the patient addressed to Dr. Pember to get him to stop the medicine, and after a fair trial of six months of it Avithout any relief Avhatever therefrom, the patient established before Dr. Pember, in a very clear and substantial manner, Ave believe, that the cause of the headache was not the impurity of the blood, but the con- gestion of the blood. No doubt it would be edifying to hear how Dr. Pember accused and condemned Dr. Craig, his colleague, for having changed the medicine, and how Dr. Craig condemned this saying of Dr. Pember in telling repeatedly that he had not changed the medicine, but had only added a tonic to it because, taken pure, it weakens the patient; and to hear how in the forenoon of the 22nd of March, 1886, betAveen 9 and 10 o'clock, Dr. Craig passed pure and simple condemnation on this treatment of our headache by his colleague Dr. Pember, for the last past eight months; and Iioav in spite of this a..d of the reiterated 108 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, protestations of the patient, the same medicine was con- tinued. And without doubt it would be edifying to ex- plain that the patient, in the fourteen months he has been detained in the hospital after his recovery, told time and again to Dr. AArigginton he had headache, that the doctor superintendent neA'er, never addressed the least question to the patient to try to discover the cause of it, and that he nev- ertheless ordered that the same medicine be continued, so said Dr. Pember. And that worthless medicine was admin- istered to us three times daily until the last day Ave staid in the hospital to stop my headache Avhich continued all that time. Also Dr. Pember advised me to use it after being out of the hospital. But the very day I was liberated I ceased to take all medicine and soon I got better. Of course the headache conies sometimes again, but noAV lib- erated for almost two years we have generally felt bet- ter since leaving the hospital without doctor or medicine. (Glory be to God!) Whence it necessarily results, that that treatment of the headache by the doctors of the North- ' ern Wisconsin Hospital, was just sheer charlatanism, as I had suspected it to be for long months before leaving, and declared it to Dr. Pember. Now let the good people of AArisconsin consider, if the doctors of this hospital thus close and drug a patient able to speak, protest and reason Avith them, Iioav awfully they might dose and drug our unfortunate insane more or less bereaved of reason. Citizens, as for me, lam neither doctor nor druggist, I am nothing but a simple workingman, and also a great sinner saved by grace; therefore it is not I who condemn the doctors of that hospital, but you hear it, it is the doctors themselves Avho have taken charge to condemn themselves. Dr. Pember condemns Dr. Craig. And Dr. Craig condemns Dr. Pember and his treatment, and in con- TREATMENT AND CURE. 109 demning each one separately, they condemn both of them mutually and conjointly, Avhereas both of them have participated in the same treatment, both of them ac- knowledging it. Of course I wish no harm to those doctors. God bless them and save them! But what about our poor brethren fallen into such medical hands! ! I had caught in the hospital an ugly eruption on my legs, which the doctors could not cure. One evening in December, 1885, I spoke of it, for the second time to the doctor Supt., and I asked him if he knew of any thing to heal it. The doctor Supt. told me, no, and that the erup- tion was the result of my nervousness. But to prove that the eruption was in no wise the result of a nervous state, just from that time the eruption healed permanently as Dr. Pember ascertained it. It was just an evening of dancing. Dr. Wigginton exerted on me the most diaboli- cal pressure, to oblige me to go to dance against my feel- ings and the most express dictate of my heart and con- science . He and Dr. Craig have exercised the same pres- sure on some other patients, to get them to dance against their feelings and conscience. As we know some have giv- en up and go to the dance. And two have resisted. But to thus morally torture intelligent patients to get them to a dance, or some other party against their feelings, and ex- press dictates of their conscience, should surely be speedily stopped. The spring following, having resolved to buy some books to read in the hospital, my wife in coming to visit me had left me the necessary money to buy them, which money 1 innocently deposited in the hospital's office. But when I asked Dr. Pember to send the price of those books with the orders, he answered me that I had a wife in Wau- sau to buy me some books if I needed some. Besides that I could speak of it to the Dr. Supt. Then the first time I 110 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, saw Dr. AVigginton, I presented my request. And he asked me, "What are the books you want to buy?" "Here they are," said I, and I gave the doctor a writ- ten list: 1. The Fall of the Great Republic. 2. The United States in the Light of Prophecy. 3. Plain Home Talk. (Medical Avork) 4. Treatise on Jnsanity. The doctor superintendent read the list, then told me that the reading of those books was not good for me. I asked him four times to send the price of those books from my money, and eArery time he refused to do it, be- cause all those books written by cranks, he said, were not good reading for me. At the time I had regained my reason for over ten months, I had read and written very much during that time, almost continually, and thereby knoAving better than any doctor the effects that such reading could produce on my mind, and at the same time knowing the real value of such declarations of the hospi- tal's doctors, and to a great extent their knowledge about insanity, I therefore Avrote orders for three of those books, and sent them to my Avife, who forwarded them to their ad- dresses with the price of the books. AVhen she had re- ceived them, she sent me those books to the hospital. And after I had read a good part of them, the three hospital doctors declared one after the other that I looked well, very well. And a little Avhile later I Avas liberated. Surely the world has never been lacking in charlatans! AVhat the people must specially know, is, that the treatment of the insane here, is sheer charlatanism. But now if th*e doctor superintendent believed as he asserted, that the reading of those books was going to hurt my mind, be- hold! hoAV he is misled by his blind science! And if he does not believe it, what show of ill-disposition towards the patient! TREATMENT AND CURE. Ill Now we nave seen how it Avas refused to me to see my wife in time of dire necessity, and how when in so great need of it, the Bible was refused to us. The Bible has been in like manner refused to some other patients. And I have heard Dr. Wigginton advise the reading of novels instead to some patient deeply religious. Now, this man Dr. Wigginton, who judged of the state of mind and nervousness of the patients, as we see he judged in our case, who refuses to them the things Avhich could cure and save the patients, and prescribes for them useless medi- cines, noArels, dances, spectacles, card and checker plays, and the use of the swab, sand bag and strap, has been for three long years (from 1884 to 1887) superintendent of the Northern Wisconsin Hospital.* After his forced resig- nation (1887) the boara1 of supervision thought they could not do better than to re-appoint in that charge, Dr. Walter Kempster, who had been for twelve years super- intendent of the same hospital. But four mouths after his second appointment Dr. Kempster resigned and was replaced (January 1888) by Dr. C. E. Booth. Noav before putting this work under press, the 24th of May, 1888, I left Minneapolis for Oshkosh, and the next day, the 25th, about 10 o'clock a. m. I entered the Northern Hospital again; this time to visit the Avards. That some nice looking reporters, elegantly dressed, the head covered with a shining silk stove-pipe, and the whole—head and hat of course—supported by a nice *Of course great noise has been made last summer (1887) about the ina- bility and incompetency of Dr. R. M. Wigginton. • But now in supposing, as the Wisconsin newspaper men affirm that Dr. AV. Kempster and even Dr. C. E. Booth possess some psvchological knowledge that the rather eccentric alienist Dr. Wigginton lacks, yet while Satan is the true cause of insanity and epilepsy, Drs. Kempster or Booth can no better cope with the devil nor cast him out of the insane than Dr. Wigginton. Hence it would be the sheer- est folly to expect more recoveries on account of those late changes in the superintendency of the Northern Wisconsin Hospital. 112 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, white stiff collar about a half a foot high, wearing large^ stiff, inconvenient cuffs, ornamented with a pair of gold- en buttons; and wearing a shining golden Avatch chain that Avould hold a good sized dog; that such gentlemen are readily and amicably received to investigate the Avards, by the doctor Supt., I readily believe. But as the writer has not the means nor inclination to wear such ap- parel, it cost him jpatient efforts, courage and persistence to be admitted to see all the wards. Listen: In entering the hospital I told the old door keeper to go and tell the doctors I wanted to visit the wards. He told me that every afternoon at two o'clock some one conducted the visitors through the wards; that I could come at that time. "Go and tell the doctors I wish to see part of the wards this forenoon and the rest in the afternoon," said I. He went and came back with the answer that the doctor Supt. was not there, and that it needs a special order from him to visit the wards in the forenoon. I told him to in- form the doctor Supt. as soon as he came to his office, that I Avished to visit part of the wards in the forenoon. He did so. When the Dr. Supt. repaired, not very anxious to meet the humble but importunate visitor! he walked a lit- tle around the front of the hospital, then he appeared in the waiting room door, and asked me what I Avanted. "To visit the wards," I said, "I'll send you some one to show you them," he responded and disappeared. A few minutes after appeared the supervisor Roberts, Avith his embarassed air, and his well known face reflecting a troubled consci- ence, and he said, "We will Avait to see if others come upon the train." Another man entered and Roberts proceeded towards the wards. And I told him I wanted to visit all the wards. "AVe don't show all the wards but only some of them" he responded. He conducted us through a few wards of male and female patients, he showed us the danc- TREATMENT AND CURE. 113 ing hall, then he re-entered the long corridor and said, "That's all I can show you." "I'll see the doctor Supt.," said I. A few minutes later, seeing Dr. Booth at hand, I went straight to him and told him, "The supervisor has shoAved me a feAV Avards, but I Avish to see all of them." And he said, "AVe will go and see them," and came along right away. It was then after 11 o'clock. And from this moment un- til I left him, definitely at 8 p. m., Dr. Booth, Avho had been perhaps, a little stiff-necked first, Avas Avith me right along with exemplary complacency. He readily granted all my requests regarding investigation, answered diligent- ly and beneArolently all my questions, hearkened attentively to any suggestion of ours, opened every door at my request and told the employes to do so. While Ave passed through some of the men wards strenuous efforts were made by some attendants to make the doctor Supt. know I had previously been in the hospital. I prevented it by a severe constant watching. In Avards Nos. 5 and (5 an old madre attendant, who could stand it no longer, broke out and said aloud, "Mr. D------you know Iioav things run in this ward." And he spoke some other things per- taining to my ancient dealings in regard to some old patients Avith the same purpose. Dr. Booth did not under- stand what the smart man meant, I think, and he only learned that 1 had been in the hospital when I told him myself in ward 0 S., and in due time. Now so far as Ave can judge we have found Dr. C. E. Booth, a gentleman with more or less good intentions and dispositions, in view of the most singular position he oc- cupies; that is, having to treat patients, the true cause of whose trouble he completely ignores. And right here, we must call the attention of the people to the great fact that the evil in this institution—in these institutions—is so deep, so profound, of so long standing, and of such na- 114 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, ture that it cannot be removed by the mere change of superin tendency. Listen: When I and the other demented patients were here beaten, kicked, strangled, dropped, abused, mal- treated, mocked, vilified, with no necessity Avhatever, it was under Dr. R. M. AVigginton, aa4io bears the name too of a good disciplinarian. Now some of the at- tendants who maltreated and abused the patients that way had been employed under Dr. AY alter Kempster's first administration. They have stayed in the service of the hospital during Dr. R. M. AYigginton's administra- tion (1884-'87). They have been still employed during Dr. Kempster's second administration of four months (August, 1887, to December). And now those same at- tendants and the same nightwatch and the same cruel patient helping the attendants in ward 5 and 6 whom aa'e have seen treat the patients as aaild beasts are there still under Dr. Charles E. Booth's administration. AYoultl it not be then the sheerest folly on the part of the people to believe that the patients are now humanly treated, when Dr. Booth, superintendent incumbent, employs the very same rough, cruel, violent, senseless, inhuman em- ployes ? In fact we have found patients sleeping in crib-beds and some locked up in bedrooms at noon since morning, with no justifying reason Avhatever. AYe have found some poor, quiet paralytic in the Avards of the liOAvling, violent maniacs.* AVe have found patients of good sense, who would probably make good, useful, Avorking, producing citizens at large, detained in the hospital, at the expenses of the tax payers, and against their deep, earnest desires *AVe have also found the case of a young idiot girl whos? parents must be just as idiotic in some respect as their infant, to send her in the hospital, to be therein eventually very much maltreated instead of taking good care of the poor little dear innocent one at home. TREATMENT AND CURE. 115 to be set free. And we have ascertained in presence of Dr. Superintendent Booth, that the employes do now— as they have done for years and years—eat butter, cakes, pies, good pieces of meat, and drink milk and coffee, while our unfortunate brethren the patients are Avrongly deprived of those things. Of course no patient was strangled that day in our presence, but while those who strangled them are still employed, would it be reasonable to believe they strangle them now no more? As for us, suffice to say that Ave have the assurance that the patients are still here abused, maltreated. No argument can destroy this fact. Dr. Booth showed me Siebling's room, and after supper spoke at length of this case, and told me the motives and feelings with which he permitted the removal of the pa- tient who died on his way home. My impression about this case is just this: That it is possible that Dr. Booth might have permitted the removal of the patient, intend- ing to do right, in behalf of both the sick man and Avife. But that the patient Siebling had been abused, maltreated in the hospital, it could hardly be otherwise while he was in the violent ward Avhere I have seen all the demented patients, as a general rule, beaten, kicked, strangled, etc., and also patients more or less quiet for the slightest offence, or no offence at all. I really believe that this de- cision of ours, in the present case, will stand in the day of the searching judgment to come. But now in passing, what about those reporters who after a long investigation in this hospital reported to their respective papers that all is for the best in this house? Ah! Messieurs ! let me tell you that in doing so you, yes, you, yourself are helping, consciously or unconsciously those who abuse our unfortunate brethren and sisters here! And then Messieurs! if you do such criminal work for the 116 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, sake of money, ah! beware! beware! for the God of Heaven who hates to thus see treated the Avidow, the orphan and the afflicted Avatches over you! ! And if you are not ac- quainted Alessieurs! with the secrets of the running of such institutions, then let them alone. Don't, don't at least deceive the people about the treatment of their loved ones locked up in this house of woe and torture! for God and humanity's sake! The employes of this hospital seem not to have the least idea that they ought to be the servants of the patients and of the people. On the contrary they sneered and mocked at the citizen visitors who pay and feed them Avith their oavii money, in the most silly way, when they get a chance. Of this I had the honor to inform Dr. Superintendent Booth, avIio admitted the fact by a timely and respectful silence. This in regard specially to the female employes. And I learned that, in the evening around the depot, the males were barking and raging at me, because having sur- prised them in their iniquities and greediness, I had severe- ly reproved them in presence of the doctor superintendent in behalf, of course, of our wronged, maltreated, abused brethren, the insane. What it needs here, is a thorough and honest investi- gation of the affairs of this house, to reveal to the people the enormity of the iniquity of this infamous house! Let us have it! The 7th of June, 1888, at half past 9 o'clock a. m. Ave entered the insane asylum at St. Peter, Minnesota, and in- formed the doctors that I wished to visit all the Avards. I was introduced to Dr. Arthur F. Kilbourne, second assist- ant physician. After having asked him a few questions pertaining to the running of the institution, Dr. Kil- bourne wanted to know if I Avas collecting those particu- lars for the press and what paper I represented. I told TREATMENT AND CURE. 117 him in all truth, "1 represented nobody but myself." He then introduced me to Dr. John H. James, first assistant physician, acting now as superintendent, in the absence of Dr. Cyrus K. Bartlett, superintendent, being in Europe at present. After a few questions from both parties, Dr. James asked me in virtue of what authority I was there to investigate. I ansAvered, "Dr. this is a state institution, and as such it must be opened for investigation to any citizen. That's my only right." He admitted the fact and said he would send me some one to conduct me through the wards, and charged the first supervisor to do it. The supervisor came and he opened the Avards. AArhen Dr. James passed by, he stayed a little while Avith me. Then excusing himself, he set another employe to con- duct me. Then Dr. Kilbourne came along and stayed Avith mevisitingthe wards until noon. At noon he repaired to the corridor of the main building, and after having agreed Avith me that I should see the rest of the Avards after dinner, he took me to Dr. James' office. After some new inquiries about my object of investigation, and for Avhat paper it Avas, I then told Dr. James I wished to be conducted through a feAV wards while the patients Avere taking their dinner. He object- ed to that, first, because no employe Avas then at hand to conduct me. I readily set aside that futile objection. But then he said that the presence of a visitor Avould annoy the patients while eating and prevent them from taking a good meal, and thus objected to my being in the wards "in behalf of his patients." "Doctor," said I, "I have lived with the insane, I have eaten, drank, Avorked and slept Avith them; I know very well their feelings. Now I tell yon I will not annoy or hurt them, or even speak to them while eating. I only desire to pass through a few wards while they take their dinner; have you Avell under- stood the nature of my request?" He says, "Yes, I have." 118 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, But nevertheless he objected. After he had several times refused to let me be among them while eating, he repeated that he did so "in behalf of his patients." Then we fixed the time to visit the rest of the wards after din- ner. And I said to him, "Sir, I go to the Avaiting room and will wait there until you'll be ready for business." And I quietly repaired to the waiting room. But only a few minutes after Dr. James entered, and told me (in violation of his previous word and of Dr. Kilbourne's) "We have no secret, but I object to any further investigation of yours without an order of some one of the trustees."* But we know enough. The secret of the business is that the patients in St. Peter hospital are beaten, kicked, strangled, stricken unto blood without necessity, and they are poorly fed while the employes are Avell fed, and the doctors keep these things hidden in the darkness so far as they can. Now Ave know that these things are so beyond contradiction, and that an honest, Avell conducted investi- gation will reveal to the people of Minnesota cases of abuse and maltreatment worse than this. Whether the doctors admit it or deny it makes no difference; the facts are such and no argument, no science or sophistry can ever destroy those sad, but real, living, existing facts. We believe Ave have done our duty in telling those things to the people of Minnesota themselves to see if they Avant to stop or let continue such an awful, disas- trous state of things in their insane hospitals. After having asked and received from Dr. James the last biennial report of the Minnesota hospitals for insane, I then repaired to St. Peter city, took the 11:10 p. m. ♦Those doctors have always said too much or not enough. Then they take back their word or add to it to make it of more effect. No wonder about it. How could they speak right while they are not right in their heart and conscience? The truth is that some deeds of darkness are committed here and they hate the lieht. Children of darkness, tney try to hinder their deeds from being brought to light. TREATMENT AND CURE. 119 Northwestern train for Rochester. And the 8th of June at 9 o'clock we presented ourself to the Second Hospital for Insane at Rochester. I told the usher I wished to visit the hospital and told him to inform the doctors of it. He went to the doctors' office and told them so, and some- time after he came himself to conduct me through the wards. Before entering the first ward I told him I wanted to see all the wards. And he told me they didn't show all the wards to visitors, but only a few of them. He conducted me through four of the men wards, then went to the main corridor and told me that was all he could show me. I told him, "Please go and tell the doc- tors I wish to see every ward, and I will wait for your answer in the waiting room." I went there and waited patiently for some time. Then a middle sized gentleman entered, announced himself as Dr. Phelps, second assist- ant, and asked me what I wanted. I told him that the usher had showed me a feAv wards, but I wished to see all the Avards, male and female. He told me I could not see them. Then h-* asked me Avhat right I had to ask to see all the Avards. "Sir" said I, "this is a state institution, sustained, maintained by the people's money, and it ought to be open to any visitor." That's all. I asked him if he was acting by order of the doctor superintendent. He said, "he Avas." Then I told him, "Sir, I wish to see all the wards, such is my request. It belongs now to you to grant it or refuse it. AVhat do you say?" But he went aAvay Avithout giving any answer, appearing to be called away for some other business. I waited a little while. No answer. I went and took a drink in the drug store, and seeing Dr. Phelps on th » porch uselessly assisting some ladies in a hack, when he got through, I asked him if he Avanted to refuse or grant my request. He demanded a little more time to see about it. And after having 120 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, probably talked the matter over -with the other doctors, he eent the druggist to conduct me through the rest of the men Avards. And we AArent. But in the meantime, the patients being about all out, there was nothing to see but empty Avards, (just what the managers wanted,) ex- cept we met a few patients here and there stopped in the wards; some of them being left there in violation of the order of Dr. Superintendent BoAvers to take such patients out, and Ave met a feAv of them m bed. Since there Avas al- most nothing to see at the time, in the men Avards, I asked the druggist, rny conductor, to go and spend that time in some of the women wards. He said there was only a few more of the male Avards to see; he conducted me through those empty wards, then went back to the main corridor. Here Dr Phelps met us. He opened one of the women Avardsand conducted me in the first part of it. And while I was to proceed further, he abruptly cut off my visit, and led me out He came along in the library, where I had my hardes, and I asked him when he would be ready to show me the rest. "What rest," said the doctor. "The Avomen wards, sir, 1 have only visited the men Avards." I responded. And he said he thought I had seen enough, that they had been with me for two hours already, and that no man had ever made such re- quest.* "Sir," said I, "I wish to be conducted now into a few of the men wards Avhile they are taking their dinner. Not to trouble or annoy the patients Avhile eating or even speak to them, I only desire to pass through some of the wards; and then to see all the female Avards in the after- noon. Such is my request. It belongs to you to grant it •Dr. James of St Peter asylum objected to my being conducted into all the wards on the ground that if they do tint with the visitors they could not do the rest of their work. But the truth is, as stated by Dr. Phelps here, that never a visitor requested t<> sre a'l the wards, and that the real hidden motive not to show me them all was the fear that I might discover something wrong That's all. TREATMENT AND CURE. 121 or refuse it. As for me I believe 1 have done my duty in making it." Dr. Phelps then asked me what I Avanted to do AATith those particulars 1 sought for. "I am not obliged to tell you what I want to do, but I am just preparing a little work on insanity and insane asylums, and I Avished to visit all the wards of this hospital to tell in that publica- tion Avhat I shall deem proper about it," said I. Dr. Phelps asked me: "Are you a doctor?" "I am not, sir, I have never studied medicine." "Then you have no business to write about that," he said. "Sir," said I, "I kiioav what I speak about. Then the people will judge as to whether I speak good or bad." Dr. Phelps contented himself Avith this, and contested no more my right to Avrite about insanity, but he nevertheless re- peatedly refused to let me see anything else about the hos- pital. But thanks be to God, Drs. Phelps, nor Collins, 1st assistant, nor Bowers, superintendent, could hinder us to learn that the patients are abused, throAvn down on the floor, beaten, strangled and wretchedly treated Avithout anv necessity Avhatever in Rochester Insane asylum. In both Rochester and St. Peter hospitals, there are some patients Avith black eyes. AVhen questioned about it doc- tors and employes pretended they get thus hurt by some violent patients. Noav Ave confidently believe that an honest investigation shall establish that the patients got those black eyes from their keepers. But iioav those doctors of the Minnesota insane hos- pitals, more especially those at Rochester seem completely to ignore that they run an institution of the people, built and maintained by the people's money, and that as such they must be opened to any visitor or investigator; and they act here as if they manage a private institution, built and sustained by their OAvn money. Dr. Booth, superintendent of the Northern Wisconsin 122 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, Hospital does not think so. On the contrary, Dr. Booth declares that "the Northern Hospital is a state institution open to any investigator," and better still, he practiced what he says in the full acceptation of the Avords. He accompanies the investigator, opens every Avard, every room, every door at all risk. If fault is found he don't deny it, but rather apologizes. He listens to any remark or suggestions of the investigator, ready, as he said to me to abandon what he thought right yesterday or to-day, if he finds it Avrong to-morrow. "Well, we know that the system—now in vogue—to try to cure insanity or relieve the insane by medicine and by nearly all the other medi- cal appliances, and to try to quiet and bring to submission the patients by blows, strangulation, torture and sundry other punishments, is totally wrong, and we be- lieve it Avas inspired by the enemy of God and men—Satan —and that such treatment may kill, not heal. AVe there- fore do not demand that those institutions be reformed— they cannot—but rather transformed and managed on a novel basis, as explained in the last chapter of this book. And in this I am sustained by my oavii experience in in- sanity and the everlasting AVord of God. But we say here, if those institutions Ave re susceptible of reform, as managed by M. D's., Dr. Booth could do something in that direction. He seems, at least, animat- d by a disposition to do it. Dr. Booth let me speak to any patient, and without interference, let me judge for myself of the value of the patients' declara- tions. But in St. Peter asylum, Minnesota. Dr. Kilbourne, who accompanied me in several wards, denied or contra- dicted almost any statement of patients made against the employes or the institution, so far once I Avas obliged to tell him squarely that "I will find out myself if such thing is so or not." In the female wards of the Northern Wis- TREATMENT AND CURE. 123 consin hospital, 1 met a woman patient, good humored and of a talkative nature, and after a brief talk Avith her, I only expressed my Avish to speak for a few minutes alone with that patient, and immediately Dr. Booth drew back Avith the attendant. On several other occasions he let me freely speak alone with the patients. Well, I tell you 'tis fair dealing for an insane hospital doctor. In St. Peter asylum, I met a citizen of Minneapolis, detained therein as a patient. The man was clean and apparently intelligent, I gently pushed him into a bedroom right beside us to speak privately therein with him. But Dr. Kilbourne followed us. Then I told him: "Doctor I AArish to be privately for a few minutes Avith this man. And he answered: "I run this institution and I won't leave you alone with him." TAvice I requested it, and twice he refused. Then I commenced to inquire about the treatment of the patients by the employes and this intelligent patient had the courage to tell me in presence of the doctor, that he had seen the patients abused and showed me one of his fingers which had been broken by the employes. I asked the patient, "How?" "In throAving me down on the floor," he said. When far away from the patient, Dr. Kilbourne told me that this patient's finger had been broken by another patient. I don't believe it but let the investigation establish the truth about it. Finally while we know that investigation is needed in the Northern AArisconsin hospital, and most probably in like manner, in Madison hospital, where Ave have not been, we see it is just as much needed or still more neces- sary in the two Minnesota insane hospitals. Of course we wish we could have been to Madison, and seen some other insane hospitals in some other states besides. But what we have done is about all our means could permit us to do under the circumstances. 124 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, But en resume if investigation is badly needed in the AVisconsin and Minnesota insane asylums, it is to be pre- sumed that it is necessary in almost every insane hospital of the land to ascertain the iniquities of those infamous houses and to speedily stop all maltreatment of those un- fortunates. But now how is it ? The people of this country, in spite of their defects are generally, generous, good hearted. They have created societies for the prevention of cruelty to ani- mals; and how is it, that they have thus neglected having their insane humanly treated ? Only one thing can ac- count for it: There are the declarations of the doctors and managers of those hospitals who have constantly, (read their reports,) represented those hospitals as homes, residences for the insane, while the truth is that those un- fortunates are therein beaten, kicked, strangled, tortured, knocked down and so forth, and are many of them, in a Avorse condition than slaves and prisoners. Now from Avhat has been said, we may also learn this important le>son, viz: AAThereas the devil renders people insane by his infernal, crafty power, the doctors cannot cope with Satan, whether they bear the name of Kempster, Wigginton, Booth, Bartlett, Bowers, Gray, Ray, etc., etc. But now those at the head of insane hospitals are placed in the singular necessity of showing that they knoAV something about the trouble. Hence their senseless state- ments and blind treatment! I have heard doctors and employes in insane hospitals lying simply as charlatans, and their treatment proved by itself to be sheer char- latanism, and can be nothing else in view of the nature of the cause of the trouble. AVhence the absolute necessity of stripping those doctors of the robe of imaginary knowl- edge with Avhich they cover themselves and show them to the people just as they are in the true light. The very TREATMENT AND CURE. 125 nature of the case demands it. And from this expose there can absolutely result but good for all concerned, in- cluding the doctors themselves. Glory be to God! CHAPTER VII. RUNNING OF THE HOUSE.—PATIENTS ABUSED. A remarkable thing in the Northern AVisconsin hospital is that one would think that this house has been built for the benefit of the employes, not for the patients, judging from the conduct of the employes toward the patients. Thus, in the morning you hear in the ward the attendants halloo with an air of authority very much greater than the boss of a gang of Avage laborers: "Knapp, Hanson, McGregor, go and make beds, Keily, Stemper, run the swab. McGuire, Redeemer, * run the sand-bag. Some other patients are sent to Avash and scrub the floor, while others wash the dishes, and others are sent to some other occupations. AVhat they call sand-bag, is a big Avoolen bag filled Avith sand, Aveighing, it saems about 150 pounds. It is dragged on the floor by two patients, to make it shine, as mules draw the harrow on the field. A es, and those patients forced to drag it become very warm, SAveating, go out walking, and going out in that state of perspiration in winter, in the cold frost and snow, it is not surprising that they catch bad colds from this source. One day, consider- ing the use of that sand-bag, some would say, "Accursed bag" and indignant on account of their making drag it a poor feeble patient who certainly rather needed rest and strong ♦All those names are real names of real patients at the time in ward 9 S. 126 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, food, I told the first attendant of ward 9 S: "Your sand-bag is a burden put on the patients' shoulders, with- out necessity, that neither doctor nor supervisor, nor at- tendant would move with his own fingers." A good, ef- ficacious way for the people to stop the dragging of the sand-bag, would be, I think, to compel it to be dragged in like manner by the doctors and employes, for it is impos- sible to prove that it is more necessary or profitable to certain patients Avho are obliged to drag it, than for the doctors and employes! Hence the measure advised here is rigorously just and equitable! Then a grave question to examine in this hospital is the work of the patients. We read in a certain old report of this hospital: "Those of the inmates who are able and will- ing to assist in any of the departments of the farm, garden, kitchen or laundry, etc., are permitted to do so, care being taken that only a limited amount of work is permitted." That is not true, now at least. It is a lie. The truth is, that they compel the patients in many cases to Avork against their will. Listen: Once in ward 3 and 4 S. I saw the first attendant ask a patient to go Avith him to do something. And on the quiet refusal of the patient to accompany him, he violently cuffed the patient. Another time I saw two other keepers ask a patient out in front of the hospital to go and do some work, and as he refused to go there, they forced him to do it, after hav- ing maltreated and beaten him. I know some attendants Avho are always ready to get done by violence what the patients will not do. I have seen once a sensible patient of ward 9 S. sent to work in the kitchen for several months totally against his will by the supervisor, acting he said, by order of the doctor superintendent. Another patient once told me that the attendants had threatened to drag him to his Avork by the throat, if he refused to go TREATMENT AND CURE. 127 there.—Also many patients are doing a day's work almost as some wage laborers. They are called to go to work in the morning right after breakfast, (about 7 o'clock) and come back to the hospital after half-past eleven; and are called again to Avork very often before one o'clock, and come back to the wards ordinarily after five o'clock. Now there are some patients avIio work the seven days in the week and the 365 days of the year. Those are thus de- prived of the necessary and beneficent rest of the seventh day, which the Creator has instituted for the greatest good of his creatures. I have seen as many as three patients at once, in our sole Avard 9 S., who thus work for a long time the seven days of the Aveek. Let there be promptly given a day of rest per week to those un- fortunates. Then in the name of all that is true, honest and reason- able, we demand that the names of all the patients alive, who have worked in this hospital, be carefully searched, to pay to each one of them, what is reasonable for his labor. In fact, citizens, the sole excuse that may be al- leged not to pay them the fruit of their labor, is because they have lost more or less their reason. But because they are insane, incapable of defending or demanding their right, is that sufficient reason in your judgment to retain their salary, my brother? God forbid! Now to accept their work without any compensation whatever, as has been done so long here, and in some other asylums, is it not a glaring injustice? Therefore we demand that justice at least be done unto them. That those avIio earn, or have earned two shillings per day, or three, or four, or six shillings, or one dollar, or more, above their food and clothing, and the other useful expenses .incurred in their behalf, all estimated at their real value, to pay them the same. Should it be found—Avho can tell—that 128 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, some individuals have profited by the patients' work,* let the proper authorities, make those individuals pay for that work, if it is possible. (For we all know, that it is a great deal easier to let swallow, than to make them disgorge). And if found that it is the state that has profited by their labor, let the state pay the patients for their labor. Let them be paid for their work at all events. And what! my brethren, if some are condemned in that day! for not having given meat or drink to the hungered and thirsty, or not having taken in the stranger, or not having visited the prisoners, or not having clothed the naked. (And the Scriptures cannot be broken . ) Of what greater chastisement shall Ave not be judged Avorthy, if Ave deprive of their salary our twice unfortunate brethren, who have worked, and work yet in this hospital, and probably in some other like institutions? And do you think we could escape the condemnation pronounced in those words of God: "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers Avho have reaped doAvn your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabbaoth."—Now if it be found that many patients in working from time to time, and rest part of the time, have only made enough to pay their board, clothing, etc., all estimated at the'rreal valuef it will also *Was it igntor ince or rapacity that moved him, I do not know; but once, I saw the doctor,superintendent in ward 10 S., try to get to work a poor, in- firm patient, who could hardly walk. tSee Chapter VIII of this book about it. TREATMENT AND CURE. 129 be found that some other patients have worked continual- ly for months and years, and several of them the seven days of the week, without rest or imtermission, until now, or until the time they could happily get out of the hos- pital, in some Avay, and that without any pecuniary com- pensation whatever, although perfectly entitled to some remuneration for their labor. Therefore Ave believe, it is high time to do them justice, lest those very words of the mouth of the Omnipotent One be directly applied to us also: "AA^oe unto him that buildeth his house by un- righteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that used his neighbor's service Avithout wages, and giveth him not for his work." For if such Avords are not applicable to those who keep some patients laboring continually, sometimes for years in hospitals, and after this send them away exactly in the same state of mind as when they have com- menced to'work, without any salary at all for their Avork, it Avould surely be difficult to see to Avhom they may be bet- ter applied. Now in the wards of the most insane, Ave have seen that the patients deprived of almost all right, are reduced to a stnte of hard bondage. In many cases, their con- dition is worse than that of prisoners. Listen: The writer, we have said, had caught in the hospital, a bad eruption on the legs. He was sent by the doctors from ward 9S. to the first attendant of Avard 5 and 6 to apply on the said eruption a certain remedy, that this keeper prepared himself, with gunpowder and other stuff, a re- cipe he had from an old German woman, I heard. And one day, the patient seeing in the hands of the attend- ant ready to apply the remedy, a small bottle of medicine, ventured to ask him what it Avas. The attendant an- swered him sternly: "It is none of your business." And the patient asked him, (as in fact in the case it seems 130 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, come to that) "Do you believe you can poison me?" Thereupon, the keeper got mad, chased the patient out of the room, calling him crazy, and continued to maltreat him by harsh words. AAnilethe attendant paid in the hospital, to soothe the patients, sought by this mean and senseless conduct to excite the writer, he, on this occa- sion as on so many others kept calm and said nothing out of season. Necessity Avas made him the next day to tell all to Dr. Pember, and he did. But the doctor did not utter a single word of reproof with respect to the guilty attendant. And why should he while the same attendant commits the same and worse infractions of the rules under the doctor's eyes ? Once the patient writer had written a letter in French to his w7ife, (Feb. X">). He agreed to read the French letter in English to Dr. Pember, provided the doctor would keep to himself the letter's contents. Thus the doctor entered Avith the patient into the first attendant's room to hear the reading of it. The first attendant entered with them in the room against the simplest rules of decency. The patient in seeing the intruder remarked to the doctor he wanted to read his letter to him alone. The doctor said the same to the attendant. But that Avas too much for this proud attendant not to resent. Upon some explana- tions that the patient gave the doctor about the letter's strange and mysterious contents, the doctor changed his mind, said he did not wish to hear the reading of it, he got up and Avent out of the room. But forthwith the at- tendant with his wounded feelings violently put the patient out of the room, giving not even time to pick up his papers, under Dr. Pember's eyes, who did not reprove him in the least. One day one of the patients in ward 5 and 6 was speaking. The first attendant told him to keep still. He did not. But the attendant thrashed him with blows on his bench. I thus take some instances from TREATMENT AND CURE. 131 many others. One evening another patient was singing, seated on his bench, maybe a little too loud. The third attendant told him to stop and as he did not stop he vio- lently cuffed him on his head. But all that is very little compared to AArhat folloAvs. Reader, the things that we are going to narrate are very sad indeed. Our Avork of narration here resembles much the work of the sculptor, charged ~to make the statue of the goddess Pain, spoken of by Lamartine. When the artist had achieved his work he Avas himself afraid of it. He threw a veil on her face. In fact avIio would not for the honor of this New Land beneficent, hospitable, cour- ageous, generous, where any industrious workingman may come and find liberty with remunerative wages, and wherein almost any economical workingman may "conquer his independence"by his labor? AVho would not cover Avith the veil of an eternal forgetfulness, the recital of these outrages perpetrated day and night on the patients of the Northern AVisconsin hospital? Citizens, I Avish I could. But how may the people knoAV how the unfor- tunates are treated if no one tell them? And how would the people try to relieve them if they ignore their sufferings? No, after a serious examination of all things, we see but one Avay to come to the rescue of those unfortunates.—Publication. Publication is the remedy against abuses. Publicity is the safe- guard of the people. The way of stopping evil is not to hide it, but to publish it. Therefore let us for once bring to the broad day light, the works of darkness daily per- formed here in the darkness! We have seen admitted into this hospital, some men very little deranged who became entirely insane, some even raving maniacs, after some time of sojourn in this hospital, most likely on account of the senseless and cruel treat- 132 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, ment they have received from the employes. Let us cite some examples. Nothing better than facts. Facts are facts. At the time of our clamorous folly (March 1885) a man of a certain ag3 already, but strong yet, was admitted in Avard 3 and 4. He had then reason enough to behave generally very Avell all the time. A man active and dili- gent, he soon set him-elf at work, and Avorked much. He run that way for some time, but one day as he unhappily insisted on getting some tobacco just before going out walking, the new attendant mad at him, threw him down so violently against the bench that the patient, bruised in the face, was bleeding much. The patient got out Avith the crowd, but when the keeper saw how he bled, he brought him back into the ward. A report of this outrage Avas Avritten by an intelligent patient and sent to the doctor superintendent and the attendant was discharged on this account, so it was told me. But the harm was done. The patient, irritated by such treatment, got ex- citable and behaved a great deal worse, he Avas punished more by the other keepers, and the more they punished him the more turbulent he became. Then in a short time he Avas one of the most turbulent and least respectful patients in all the Avard. Hating Avith a perfect hatred, the house and the employes, he got so far as to resist them squarely in the face, for which things I saw him thrown' down on the floor, beaten, and punished severely. His excitement, nourished by punishment almost never ap- peased. AVe met him over one year after those things, always in the same ward (only passed in the department above) always turbulent, impudent, insolent. Thus be- came this patient from amiable, gentle and industrious as he was when admitted to the hospital, most probably on account of the cruel and inhuman treatment administered TREATMENT AND CURE. 133 here to him. This may be readily comprehended. Mal- treat, strangle and strike a patient, as they do here, Avho generally believes that Avhatsoever he does, he is doing right, and nine times out of ten you irritate him, and move him to do some follies which he Avould have never thought of doing had he been charitably treated; then re- ceiving again some fresh punishments for these follies, he gets worse and worse, and thus is literally f unfilled those words. "It is not here the place to get well, but to get crazy." We speak here about cold facts! Ah! gentlemen, administrators of this house, who shall ever be able to make you comprehend all that is cruel, in- human and senseless involved in the principle of submit- ting the insane to the will of their keepers! And avIio shall ever be able to calculate the disastrous consequences of this system? Eternity alone shall reveal it. For if we "Soav to the wind, we must reap the whirlwind." At the time Ave write these lines,* that patient is yet in the hospital, more crazy than when admitted fourteen or fifteen months before. Some time before the admission of that one, we saw ad- mitted into the same ward a patient young yet, in all his vigor, Avho was so sensible at the time, that before two weeks had elapsed, he was sent from that ward into a bet- ter Avard. There it appears he committed a little indiscre- tion. They maltreated him. He got mad. He was pun- ished and got more excited. The next day he was sent back by the doctor to the worse Avard, 3 and 4, whence he came. Here, excited to violence and meanness by the senseless behavior of the employes towards him, the patient was led to commit some acts of great folly and violence for which once perpetrated he was so punished and ♦This book was written while I was a patient in the Northern AVisconsin hospital, but it was translated, revised, corrected and added to according to circumstances after being liberated. 134 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, treated as perhaps a wild beast could be. Afflicted, suf- fering, miserable, this patient is yet in the hospital, over thirteen months after those things, and more insane than when admitted into this house of woe! fifteen or sixteen months before. In vieAv of all the injustice, cruelties, and folly of the treatment he has received in this house, the great idea of this patient is that a detachment of the U. S Army must come, take possession of this building, re- lease the patients, and imprison the guilty parties. The last time I spoke to him (June, 1886) he cherished yet that idea, and hoped to be released that Avay. Poor fellow! Listen: During the summer of 1885, a young man more or less intelligent and possessing certain knoAvledge, was admitted in Avard 9 S. He was gentle, often amiable, and really little deranged. Some time after his admission, one afternoon, he Avent and quietly sat doAvn beside some patients of another wTard out on the ground in front of the hospital, at a small distance from our crowd. The then first attendant of ward 9 S. who singularly enjoyed the pleasure of making the patients submit by violence went there and commanded him to come back into our crowd. The patient did not respond right away to the order. But this keeper seized him and tried to bring him back by Anolence. And the patient resisting, there was fight. The attendant had both of his shirt sleeves torn to pieces in the struggle. But aided by the second keeper, who ran to his assistance, they violently brought back the patient and came to the very bench Avhere I Avas sitting. The first attendant commanded him imperatively to sit on the bench. And the patient, more calm and reasonable than the keeper, at this moment at least, answered him,'' I will sit downif yougive me the time to do so, like a man." But in- stead of that he violently threAv the patient on the bench, threatening him with further punishment. After this bel TREATMENT AND CURE. 135 exploit, the attendant Avent and changed his shirt. From this cruel and inhuman treatment, it naturally resulted that the patient, more or less proud, commenced to hate this first attendant. He preferred hell rather than living with him, he said. He received more punishment. He hated more the house and its employes. And a few weeks later, after having b?en cruelly beaten and strangled for some deeds of folly, he Avas transferred, completely out of his mind, and a dangerous maniac, into one of the worse Avards. He passed there the rest of the summer, then the autumn, out of his senses. Now having regained again more or less his reason, he has been brought back again into a better Avard. But one year after his admission he is yet in the hospital. NoAvit appears that this patient, reasonably treated, could have been discharged after a very short sojourn in the hospital. So thought the doctor ic Avas told me. You see reader, how the attendants here help the devil in his work. The devil renders men insane, Ave have seen. And the keepers actuated by Satan's spirit, from a little deranged that some patients may be, make of them raving maniacs, by their cruel and senseless treatment. "Satan casts not Satan out!" But listen again to an example of this kind. Here in our Avard 9 S. Avas last Avinter (1885-6) among the patients a young m m not much out of his senses. He Avas quiet and meek, behaved well enough, only he happened to stay in bed in the morning after the other patients were up. On the Sunday morning, the 28th of February, 1886, this young patient Avas yet in bed at breakfast time. One of the attendants went and got him up, and brought him cIoavii into the dining room. I saw that the patient looked as having been maltreated. And the next day I asked him to tell me, in my room, just Avhat had happened 136 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, the previous morning. And he told me that the attend- ant had first struck him in his bed, then he had thrashed him Avith blows in getting clown the stairs, Avhich led from the sleeping rooms down into Avard 9, and that he had continued to beat him along the hall, in bringing him in- to the dining room. And in the forenoon of that day (it was a Monday) Ave saw the same patient thrown on the floor by the keepers. The second attendant struck him and Avanted to strike him more. But the first keeper, more prudent, seeing us Avatching the scene, told him to stop. After that, the same bo}T was again punished and beaten. And a few weeks later this}-oung maiiAvas trans- ferred to a Avorse ward, in a quite miserable condition of mind, greatly more insane than when he was admitted to the house, about six months before, aatc think. These are facts which fully demonstrate the truth of this saving of an ins ne—sane on this subject: "This is not the place to be healed, but to get crazy. Humbug, Humbug." Hum- bug indeed. I say here the truth, after having known the true cause of insanity, and seen the remedies employed in this house, to deliver the patients from their folly— from their demons—and the general treatment of the pati- ents, and the visible ignorance of the doctors in regard to insanity, I then looked at this institution called a curative institution of the insane, as one of the greatest humbugs of this century, and I declared it to the friend whom I could the most trust in the hospital. And how should not the patients get Avorse here? Listen: During the summer of 18S5, there wars in this hospital, an aged patient, apparently over seventy, and more or less out of his mind. But Avheii let alone he was more or less calm, and behaved tolerably well. Only in his irritable state of mind, when they vexed or annoyed him, he got very excitable, and almost violent. He SAvore TREATMENT AND CURE. 137 and cursed. And#lo! the attendants themselves, almost all that came in contact AATith him, commenced to vex and tor- ment him in sundry Avays for their amusement. Some- times they exasperated the old man in jesting about his family or affairs; sometimes the}7 took his coat and made him run after them to get it back. At times they pursued him Avith some very disagreeable object. The old man exasperated, swore and cursed, at Avhich the attendants amused themseWes exceedingly. One day, a Arirtuous patient reproAred an attendant in regard to this. And the senseless keeper responded, that "that old patient could not be cured any-hoAv." (literally.) I saw those things taking place during the summer and au- tumn. And the old man died the next winter. He Avas buried, I think, the 26th of December, 1885. Poor old man! But aa4io could get an idea of the hardness of heart of those employes, if their deeds Avere not related by those avIio have seen them at work? A truthful patient and of sound mind told me, that once, there was a patient in his ward accused of abusing himself. The keeper had applied on the s.xual part of the patient a burning medi- cine to stop him, in such quantities, that it had eaten up the flesh, so far as to perforate it Avith small holes. The patient overwhelmed with pain, swore that if any attend- ant Avould come again to apply the medicine, that he Avould certainly kill him. And the keeper ordered his colleague to apply again the medicine that evening. AAriiether it Avas applied, or not, I don't know. This patient, a man in all his strength, died in the hospital, during the au- tumn of 1885. He is now confined m the silent grave. A patient in ward 3 and 4 was so completely out of his senses, that he would not walk, and almost all the time they dragged him where they wanted him to go. And 138 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, while he was thus dragged on the floor, as some merchan- dise of very small value, a patient Avho is doing the at- tendant's work was kicking him, though that could not help him to go faster, while they dragged him. Of course, they beat him also on some other occasions. And eATery time he saw they were to strike him, oh! how pitifully cried out this poor innocent creature. But that did not stop them striking him. The devil avIio actuates them, has no pity. I know Satan surely, and them too. This patient was thus maltreated for a little while, after which he died in the hospital about the middle of April, 18S5, it Avas told me. Could he live? One Sunday morning, in November, 1885, the first attendant of ward 9 S. went clown, Avith the patients, into the basement, where they used to go to put on their shoes, before walking out. And as one of the patients—a man very meek and quiet—could not find his shoes, the attend- ant ordered him to put on another pair in a hurry. And as the patient offered some objections, the attendant grasped him by the throat and strangled him. The pa- tient cried out that some one go and call the supenusor to rescue him. And one sensible patient, really fearing that the attendant, in rage as he was, would choke to death this innocent victim, quickly ran to the doctor superintendent's office, and told him about it. Immediate- ly after, when he kneAv that the report was correct, the doctor superintendent discharged the guilty attendant. It was high time. For this keeper, with his pride and violent temper, abused almost daily the patients. He nevertheless was for long months first attendant in ward 9S. On another Sunday, a little before that, one of tiie pa- tients of ward 9, after the religious service, stopped and sat down on the stairs beside the garden gate at a little TREATMENT AND CURE. 139 distance from our crowd, gathered on the lake shore. A keeper of another ward ordered him to come into our crowd. And as the patient did not quickly obey his or- der, he seized him, threAv him down and strangled him. Then came the first attendant of ward 9. The patient was strangled again. And after having thrown him down and choked him sever il times, and shamefully treat- ed him, they brought him back into our ward. A little while after came the tAvo assistant physicians, who were taking a walk toAvards the lake. And as they saw this patient lying on the ground, Dr. Pember asked what Avas the matter with him. And while the keepers answered, one in one Avay, and another in another Avay, a sensible and courageous patient said, "Doctors, gentlemen, I will tell you what is the matter with Mr. Knapp" (the name of the maltreated patient.) Then he proceeded to tell the doctors, how, when the patient was quietly seated on those stairs, doing no harm to any one, the two attend- ants had violently brought him back, after having thrown him down several times on the ground, and strangled him on different retakings. Then he proceeded, telling Dr. Pember, (Dr. Craig had gone away) about the infamous conduct of the attendants, specially on the lake shore. He told him hoAV the attendants' behavior, with their cursing, profane language, and the rest, was a great deal worse than the patient's conduct. And he told the doctor of the necessity of having some commissaries appointed to Avatch over the attendants' conduct. Dr. Pember lis- tened through it all, but he did not address the least re- proof to any of the guilty attendants, and none were discharged. As soon as the doctor had gone away, the first attendant of ward 9 told the patient Knapp, he would be strangled again.—In fact I have seen the same keeper throAv violently three or four times in the same 140 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, week, this same patient out of the clothes room, for the sole reason that he did not take out quickly enough his clothing and get out. I have seen him treat almost every day another quiet patient in the same way, and worse too. I have seen him on the ground by the lake, throAv down another quiet patient, and strangle him several times, aided by the second attendant;, because this patient had not come back into our crowd just as soon as ordered. I have seen the two same keepers throw down on the floor of ward 9, strangle, and severely punish a poor patient, very insane, because he, in some way refused to do, I think, the Avork they commanded him to do. One day, during the autumn of 1885, Ave saAV a small pa- tient, of one ward stopping beside us, on the lake shore, run away as fast as he could. An attendant ran after him, caught him and brought him back. But before tak- ing him back into the crowd, he threAV him down beside the garden gate, and kicked him violently. A little while after, this same patient attempted once more to escape in running away. The same attendant pursued him, caught him again, and threAV him doAvn and kicked him as one would kick a Avild beast. On the 9th day of February, 1886, about 10 o'clock, a.m. a small patient, very meek and peaceable, of ward 10, tried also to run away on the Oshkosh road, about one mile south of the hospital, while walking out there. He Avas caught by an attendant of his wrard, wmo forthwith strangled him, then cuffed him and kicked him. He then brought him back into the crowd where he again mal- treated him. On Sunday, the 25th of April, 1886, about 10 o'clock a. m., a patient of ward 9, attempted tAvice to escape on the road southAvest of the hospital. The second time he Avas caught, he was brought back by the neck, by a ■file TREATMENT AND CURE. 141 keeper. And arrived where he wanted him, he threw him down on the ground. Afterwards that patient tried to escape again and re- ceived more punishment. Then he was sent into one of the Avorse Avards, to punish him. Having tried again to escape, one of the attendants then led him out to walk, with a strap, as a horse or dog, and Avhen arrived on the ground where the ward stopped, the keeper bound him to a tree, with the strap, until the time of returning to the ward. Don't Avonder too much about it. I have seen this summer (1886) the keepers of ward 5 and 6, bind together, clay after day, with a strap two patients, be- cause they had attempted to escape. And the ground where are so treated and strapped those unfortu- nates, is called the ground of recreation, by the managers of this house!! And they say that those recreations and the Avalks out doors promote greatly the health of the patients. That the attendants who do out doors all they wish, amuse and recreate themselves, I surely grant you gentlemen! But if you mean that the patients enjoy what you call walks, led out between tAvo keepers as a herd of cattle, and kept, watched over, without necessity, as they are upon your so-called ground of recreation! then right here, I agree no more with you! For I have been thus led, kept, watched over during about fifteen months, and now I frankly declare to you that we have found no pleasure in it. But to return to our run-away patient. I have seen him thus led and bound to a tree every day so long as I staid in the hospital. (June 23d, '86). Then after being liberated, I learned in Stillwater, Minn. (August, '86 ) that this unfortunate had thrown himself into Winnebago lake, while on board the excursion steamer, and was drowned! Poor young man! After many unsuccessful 142 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, attempts to escape on dry land, he threw himself into the waters! The hospital living was unbearable to him! Many other times, we have seen some other patients at- tempt to escape. That happens very often. In fact, we may safely say, that as a general rule, the patients1 pre- dominant desire, is to get out of this house, in one way or another. Now, no doubt the patients try to escape, be- cause they don't like the house. Is it not then evident that to beat, kick and strangle them when caught, just causes them to hate yet more the house, and its employes, and thus induces them to attempt to escape again? Then the attendants who thus punish them don't knoAV enough to properly drive cattle, for the good cattle drivers, caress the run-away oxen, Avhen they catch them, to hinder them from running aAvay again. On Monday, December 28th, 1885, Ave saw a small pa- tient out of his mind, violently thrown down on the ice of the highway's ditch in front of the hospital, and there for several long minutes brutally cuffed and kicked, by two attendants of wrard 11 and 12. It appears they thus treated him because this unfortunate had sliOAved resist- ance. The courageous patient spoken of, had seen it all also, and a few days later he made a complete verbal re- port of the affair to both Dr. Craig and the supervisor Anderson. But the doctor did not utter a word of repre- hension in regard to the guilty attendants, but rather up- held their conduct, and of course neither of them was discharged. One evening, during the autumn of 1885, I heard a pa- tient of ward 10, beside us, knock on his bedroom door, then he knocked more and more violently, and was mak- ing a great noise. Then we heard a noise caused by several men going in that direction. AVe heard the door opened, then some screams as those of a man to whom TREATMENT AND CURE. 143 violence is done. AA"e also heard a noise of fighting, and this lasted for some time. A few days after, having met that patient, I asked him what was the cause of that up- roar such an evening. And he told me that after he got into bed, he felt some intestinal pains, and that he knocked at his door, to ask one of the attendants for some medicine, and no one haA-ing come, he had struck the door more and more violently. And hearing the uproar, the keepers of Avard 10, with some others, came into his room, beat him very hard, strangled him, and after a hard and cruel punishment, they brought him into a Avorse Avard. Strange treatment for intestinal pain indeed! In a morning of April, 1886, I suddenly heard a trampling noise in Avard 10, Avhich is separated from ward 9 only by a door. I Avent on and there I saAV a big strong patient held on the floor by the two attendants of that ward. One of them kicked th ; patient hard in his side, and the other was violently cuffing him. He that kicked the patient (plainly out of himself) cried out for assistance. In response to his hoarse cries, the twro attendants of Avard 9 hastened to his assistance, who at once started to strike him too. They held him long on the floor, cruelly strik- ino- him. AYhen all Avas finished, I asked an intelligent patient of Avard 10, what Avas the matter with this,un- fortunate, when they started to punish him. "All he was doing," said this one, "was walking in the hall and whispering, as he ahvays does." In fact I kneAv that such was the habit of that patient. Judge now of the bar- barous means employed to quiet him! But of course they did not calm him, for I saw him afterwards sent into the worse Avard of the hospital. On Monday, May 24th, 1886, during the afternoon, a patient of that Avorst Avard 5 and 6, while he was with the crowd of his ward on the lake shore ground, Avent and threw Ill INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, himself into the lake. Some one hastened to his rescue and saved his life. But when landed, a keeper of his Avard beat and punished the drowned man. The fact was reported to us by several patients who saw it. Our ward was stopping at the time at a certain distance from the lake. The attend- ant guilty of this outrage,left the hospital the next morning. AVhether he was discharged or left Avillingly,I do not know. Another patient, Avhat he hal done I do not knoAV. I only saw him brought bleeding into the Avash room to be washed there by another patient. He was bruised in the face in such Avay, that he abundantly bled at the mouth from the Woavs he had received for I don't know Avhat offence. What I know is that patient behaved tolerably Avell for an insane man as he was. One evening this demoniac patient avIio pronounced my name in Walloon, had come into the hall transversal. I don't know either what he might have done improper, but certain it is that the first attendant grasped him by the shoulder, to bring him into the other hall. And as the patient made a sIioav of rebellion, the attendant precipi- tated him on the fl or, and without loosing his grasp, gave him, nevertheless, the chance of getting up. When he got up, moved by the spirit of resistance, he rebelled again, and forthwith the attendant precipi- tated him anew on the floor with his iron arm. And for five or six times in succession, the patient was in that manner violently precipitated on the floor. Thus he was brought into the other hall. Here, no doubt manifests it- self the poor patient's folly (inspired in him by the evil spirit) who causes him to resist to be thus crushed down five or six times successively. Here also manifest them- selves the keeper's folly and cruelty, who repeatedly crushed down this poor fool because he resisted him, in- stead of taking good care of him. Both of them are fools TREATMENT AND CURE. 145 more or less dangerous. The patient more or less invol- untarily. The keeper more or less voluntarily. Both are actuated by the evil spirit, only in some different man- ner. The patient possessed of evil spirits is rendered in- sane by them. The keeper though considered as sane, is nevertheless also animated by the spirit of error and evil. His conduct proAaes it. He wants by all means the insane to submit to his Avill. Now it seems to us that those examples of maltreated patients, just cited, fully suffice to give the reader an idea more or less correct of the treatment of the patients more or less out of their mind, in this hospital. Generally the patients more intelligent are not so maltreated. As a gen- eral rule the most maltreated patients here are the most insane and those of the poor class. But we must now say that what we have related on the subject is only a part of the facts which we have seen. AATe must also remark that while a great part of the time locked up in a ward, we generally could not see what occurred in the 27 other wards, where very likely the same outrages Avere perpe- trated to a greater or smaller extent. Now should some citizens of Wisconsin doubt the truth of the facts related, there is a simple Avay to convince themselves of their reality. It is to proceed, by legal means, to a serious investigation (as such investigation ought to take place) and such an investigation must re- veal some facts graver yet than any Ave have related. Only how conduct this investigation is the question. For we very well knoAv that sharp reporters, judges or lawyers may come, investigate the Avhole business and buildings for long hours and see nothing Avrong. Some relatives of patients may come, and do daily come here, and after hav- ing been shoAvn all the building, return home believing that their loved ones are well treated and have here a 146 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, home! a residence! Listen: The first time my wife came to the hospital, she was conducted by the Supervisor Huntley all OA^er the building before seeing me. During that time my keepers put on me a new suit of clothes, and fixed me up, for during my three last weeks of boister- ous folly, my raiment had been torn by them and was not jet replaced. Then, Avhen introduced to me, my Avife said most sincerely, 'Wou're Avell here, Frank, you must like it under circumstances." "Dear," said I, "I am here beaten, bruised, strangled." And I showed her the eruption on my cheek, and told her its cause; and told her of the companion I had for several Aveeks to sleep with. She Avept.....But she b id been so cruelly deceived about the character of this institution, that for the three subsequent years, she has stood by me, prayed, worked, helped and encouraged me to put out this publication, believing that it was a real duty for us to show the people how the insane are treated in th's house —to deliver them from their sufferings. Just what ren- ders this state institution so aAvfully dangerous and mischievous, is the diabolical craftiness of its managers to conceal the evil from the visitors and investigators and shoAv them only Avhat is clean, bright and beautiful. AA'e have pondered this question of investigation, and have a plan laid out for the people to assure themselves that all we reveal in this book is true, too true! and that even graver facts exist. What is this plan? AVe keep it to ourself until we see the people of Wisconsin ready, and really in earnest to proceed to this necessary investiga- tion. Then Ave will tell them our plan of investigation, if they want to know it, to use it for the relief and deliverance of our maltreated brethren. For the present, citizens, let me rather tell you, as a matter of fact, that, as once it was urgent to investigate TREATMENT AND CURE. 147 what transpired in the Romish monasteries, and submit them to the control of the civil authorities, to protect the inmates against maltreatment, and the abuses committed therein, just as urgent now is it to investigate Avhat daily occurs in this hospital (and it is to be supposed in almost all such institutions) and establish a sufficient control thereof to protect the insane against maltreatment. For we have seen what responsibility the doctors have, who manage this house, in this maltreatment of the patients. AVe have seen that the medical authority is to a great ex- tent responsible for this state of things.* If the doctor superintendents,havesometimes discharged attendants who had abused the patients, this profits nothing, while they keep right long in the service of the hospital, those at- tendants AVHOM AVE HAVE SEEN TREAT THE PATIENTS AS wild beasts. How could those doctors reform the per- sonnel of employes, while one of the best disciplinarians among them, Dr. AArigginton, himself declares: "Without flattery, I think Ave have a very excellent corps of at- tendants, of which the institution and all concerned in its management may well feel proud. (Second biennial re- port of the Northern AVisconsin hospital, page 142.) But hear citizens, what was told me by one of the most sensible of the patients,in the spring of 1885, after having been de- tained for several years in this house: "If the people of AVisconsin, he said, should knoAv Avhat takes place in this hospital, they would come and tear down the building. (literally.) Let us rather say, that, in such doctors and keepers there is folly also, surely. A folly of quite an- other sort than the folly of the patients of course,but it is nevertheless a furious, dangerous folly, which when arrived at its climax, forces to this conclusion, certain, necessary, *Of course this does not exculpate the guilty keepers who have abused the patients, while they should take good care of them. 148 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, inevitable, inexorable: Kill to heal!! It is Satan's wisdom. Kill instead of healing. I said so to the first at- tendant of ward 9. (March '86) AVhy! is it not to this that the employes and doctors of this house must come with their blind, and diabolical science and principle? With such treatment, are not the patients necessarily sent to the grave instead of being sent back cured to their homes, and business? And after a patient has been beat- en, dragged, strangled, whipped, dropped, bruised, mocked, vilified, maltreated and strapped down, as some are in this house, is it not evident, that, (for the managers.) the best place for such patient is the silent grave? Is it not evident that for them, the best place for me to go myself, was the silent grave to bury there with me all the revela- tions contained in this book? And avIio will be sur- prised that Dr. R. M. Wigginton, superintendent Avas very anxious to have me sent back into Belgium, by the Wausau authorities, at the time of my discharge from the hospital. Ah! in view of such treatment of these unfortunates, we have cried to the God of Heaven. How long? oh! Lord, how long? . . . And he will answer. He has already an- swered. Is He not the God who takes care of the afflicted and miserable? He has said so, and would He not do it? Should the arm of the strong God, He, the only AArise, only Good, Immortal and Almighty, the arm of the God of Abra- ham and Isaac and Jacob be shortened, that He could deliv- er no more? God forbid that we believe so. This second folly would be worse than the first one. The deliverance shall come for our brethren! Such is my trust in God! Only let us keep in mind, citizens, that in such work of relief, deliverance and salvation of our fellowmen, God wants to make us workers with Him. And let me tell you that while no letter of patients for outsiders ever gets ! TREATMENT AND CURE. 149 out without being inspected by the doctors, and that any letter which speaks against the institution has no chance to get out Ave have seen here the patients essentially, as a general rule without protection, delivered up to the mercy of their keepers, who treat them as shoAvn in this book. Let therefore the citizens provide for the patients as soon as possible, in awaiting better things, the protection against maltreatment which their deplorable situation in this hospital demands, and in some others as we have seen. Let those interested in the question see in the 15th annual report of the State Homeopathic asylum for the insane, at Middletown, N. Y., (1886) page 28 and 29, the protection provided therein for the patients, by means of a letter-box, placed in each Avard, in which box letters for the trustees maybe dropped, by any of the patients, at any time.* Behold! Citizens of AArisconsm, we have shown you, Avithout hatred as Avithout fear, how are treated in the Northern hospital, our fathers, brothers, sons, and the husband; and probably almost identically treated are our mothers, sisters, daughters and waves. AAliat are you going to do? At any rate something must be done. As for me, as long as the insane hospitals are not trans- formed, never, either the wife or child whom God has given me, shall enter an insane asylum, while I can pre- *ln St. Peter asylum I asked Dr. Kilbourne from whom the patients could get redress when beaten and strangled by their keepers. He answered me: "I don't know."—To the same question Dr. Booth, of the Northern Wisconsin hospital, answered me: "They can claim redress from me. No attendant doing that can stay here." But the trouble is that every time a doctor passes through the wards, he is, as I have seen, always accompanied by one or several attendants; and how could the abused patient make complaint to the doctor in presence of the attendants who have abused him, and may do so again as soon as the doctor is out of the ward. This is so morally im- possible that it never occurs. And thus I have seen the patients, in fact, literally delivered up to the mercy of their keepers, without protection.— Thus it is evident that the system of protection by means of those letter- boxes in the Middletown Homeopathic asylum, is already a good improve- ment. Nevertheless, it is still insufficient, because a demented patient may be abused for a long time before he gets sense enough to write a letter of complaint and drop it in the box and as a general rule, the most maltreated are always the most out of their senses. 150 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, vent it. No, I love them too much, I have prayed too much for them, to deliver them up into the hands of the tormentors of insane hospitals! Of course I don't mean at all that there is no danger in keeping the insane at home. AVe know alas! too Avell that there is danger. But the question is, because one insane perhaps in half a hundred, (Avhat do I know?) might be led to commit murder, ought we to send all the insane to the tormentors of insane hospitals? For us we do not believe it, and thus we have resolved to keep, if the case happen, our own ones at home, after our experience of the treatment at such institutions! But now, it is evident that by thus settling the question of my loved ones, that in no wise helps the unfortunates locked up in this house. And the same question presents itself as before. "What will you do for those maltreated patients?" Citizens, my brethren, we cannot help our- selves here! It is for you from outside to come to our rescue! If Ave resist they do us violence, they torture us. But when wre extend to you our trembling hands, when we shoAv you our faces disfigured by bruise and torture, when we show you our limbs hurt, bruised, broken by the violence of the blows, will you refuse to come to our as- sistance? American citizens, I tell you that I know enough about your generous heart and character to feel certain that if some speaker, even of doubtful probity, should come this evening and tell you that in some remote part of the world, in China or Japan, for instance, some of our brethren were thus treated, you would send some missionaries out there to relieve and deliver these afflicted, if possible. But noAv, I say you, hold on, stop. Do not run to China or Japan just now. Those things are taking place in our midst, in the United States, in the ciAahzed state of Wisconsin, four miles north from Oshkosh, second TREATMENT AND CURE. 15-1 city in the state, at Winnebago, in the Northern hospital for the insane. Citizens. I tell you tjiat it is here that the sufferers are from those outrages which I have suffered,, and seen some others suffer. AATHAT AVILL YOU DO ABOUT IT? At any rate, Ave hasten to add that we don't want any aid by mob violence. AAre demand that the organized citi- zens proceed by peaceable and legal means to transform those institutions so far as to make of them asylums man- aged for the good of the insane and not for the profit and satisfaction of those who run them. AVe declare strongly before all, that violence has been here clone to us and our brethren, without the least necessity. But we do not de- mand that violence shall be done to those who have in- jured us. They have got outside of legality in regard to us, 'tis certain. But Ave want to stay within legality in regard to them. In treating us in that manner, surely they have broken the divine, human and natural laws. But now we demand that they shall be judged according to the law. To add more illegalities to the illegalities committed, would never re-establish legality. "Two wrongs never made a right." At any rate we demand not vengeance. AVe demand not the punishment of the cul- prits. AVe demand justice. AVe demand the deliverance of our brethren the patients from all the wrongs by which they are uselessly afflicted! in this hospital! ! This appeal was written over two years ago in the North- ern AVisconsin hospital, in behalf of the abused, mal- treated patients confined therein. But now Ave have seen how, in like manner, same appeal ought to be made in fa- vor of the unfortunates confined in other insane asylums. 152 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, CHAPTER VIII. RUNNING OF THE HOUSE, CONTINUED—BOARD, CLOTHING. Let us uoav come to the maintenance of the patients confined in this hospital. Let us first see what board they receive, and the real value of such board. For breakfast the patients receive two or three days in a Aveek, a little meat, beefsteak or sausage, with very little butter, and sometimes syrup, some bread and coffee and a potatoe. A couple of days a week, instead of meat they got fish,'fresh or salt. Another day hash, and one day, Irish stew. There is generally oatmeal or boiled rice not sugared. Sometimes corn cake. And common crackers generally at every meal. Now, the days Avhen the patients got some beefsteak, or sausage, if they had meat and butter enough they Avould make a tolerable breakfast. But it is far from it. Generally each patient receives a couple of small ball sausages. Some eating in the halls got only one. Now a person of ordinary appetite may eat three or four of those ball sausages, and this is so clear, that there is generally set aside enough for each employe to get that number of them. The beefsteak (Avithout gravy) and fresh fish, are distributed to the patients in the proportion of the sau- sage. AVhen, rarely, there are eggs, instead of meat or fish, each patient received a couple of them. The em- ployes had set aside at least three or four or moreego-s for each one of them. The great majority of patients eat at the table; and for those ones, in using the old pieces of bread, brought back from the previous meals, there is gen- erally bread enough to eat. (Not so for those eating in the halls.) But it very ofteu happens that a patient could eat yet, and as he has no more butter, nor meat, nor TREATMENT AND CURE. 153 syrup—it is, in such case, only dry bread to eat—here the patient must cease to eat for lack of victuals. This re- mark equally applies to the supper, and sometimes to the dinner of the patients. For dinner, the patients get two or three days a week some roast beef Avith gravy. (But the gravy being always cooled on the plate, not many patients eat it.) And some bread and potatoes. At noon the patients got no butter. Sometimes they got syrup. Ordinarily they got soup a couple of days a Aveek! One of those days tiiey get salt fish that many of them eat not. The other day they got ' neither fish nor meat. They get a piece of pie sometimes. One day a Aveek there is corn beef, and rarely pork, fresh or salt. There is generally oatmeal or rice not sugared. One day a week some pudding, sometimes hominy. Some- times cabbage, or onions, or pickles. But one must have partaken for a certain time of those dinners, without but- ter, even sometimes no syrup, without tea or coffee, but only cold water, to see how poor and cheap they are. But the supper of the patients is Avorse yet. The supper properly (oasists of bread, with their beak- ful of butter, and tea. That's all; except that each one gets sometimes over this only one cooky, or a very small piece of cake instead. Sometimes also each one gets a piece of cheese a little heavier than a butterfly's Aving, all the same. Some days, too, they received at supper a little sauce or preserves (dried apples, peaches or prunes). For supper the patients never get any meat in our Avard 9 S. Noav Ave see that the employes, while the patients take this meagre supper, have some meat and always butter at will. And of those cookies, cakes, cheese, and prunes, peaches and apples (in sauce) it is visible that those three em- ployes, served generally for themselves, as much of those things as is divided between ten or twelve patients, more 154 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, or less.—Every Sunday the patient's dinner consists of dry bread, some beans, and mashed potatoes, with a small piece of pie. The patients got neither meat, nor butter, sometimes even no syrup, nor tea nor coffee at noon on Sunday. So it is at least in Avard 9 S. Now the ward 9 is the one where are kept the most intelligent patients, except one, the ward 8.—To these general rules there are a feAV exceptions. Thus the patients Avho serve at the table, at the meals that the patients got no meat, they used to serve to themseh'es a good piece of meat. Not so foolish for supposed fools. There is also a couple of pa- tients in Avard 9, who got some meat every day for supper just as the employes. AArhy? I don't know, except that those patients are paying in part or m full, their board to the hospital. At any rate since there is given those patients and the employes some meat and butter at every meal, Avhile the patients are deprived of it, at some meals, it is a recognition of the fact, that it would be better for every one to get some, and that it is cut off the patients' meals by economy or avarice. AAre clearly see, while the patients got generally morning and evening, scarcely half the butter they could eat, and got none at noon, that the employes have three times daily, all the butter they could eat and more. Also that while the patients are AATithout meat for dinner, the day they have beef soup, that that day the em- ployes received very good looking fresh boiled beef, but ahvays all for them, the patients have none of it. AVe have also seen the share that the patients received of eggs, sausage, beefsteak, etc. etc., and the share that the em- ployes received. Noav in view of those facts, and in virtue of the right that ought to give us our participation in the expenses occasioned by this hospital, in the payment of our taxes, every year at AVausau, Ave demand the doctors and trustees of this hospital, to establish before the people TREATMENT AND CURE. 155 of AVisconsin, that the eggs, sausages, beefsteak, cheese, cakes, pies, dried prunes, peaches, apples, butter, boiled beef and gravy are doing more good in the stomachs of the employes, than in the patients' stomachs, or else if they cannot demonstrate that, to admit that they are judges Avith iniquitous thoughts! avIio govern this house to the profit and welfare of the employes against the interests of the patients.* This request addressed to the doctors and trustees, we turn to the people of AArisconsin, and say to them: Citi- zens if such is your desire and will, to feed the insane as they are here, truly Ave have no complaint to make about it. We accept the board as it is, Avithout any recrimina- tion on our part, at least. But if you say that you are paying, to the state in your taxes, sufficient to provide reasonable and proper board for the patients of this hos- pital, as appears to be the case, then citizens, my brethren, I tell you that robbery is in vogue in permanency in this house. Then let the people generously take some small cords and make a Avhip, to drive the guilty parties out of the temple. AA7e mean of course to get them out by legal means, without mob violence or riot. But listen: Having kept account day by day, month after month for several years, of all the house expenditures concerning alimentation, we are able to see so well, Ave think, how much such or such board may cost per day per person, that we may safely say that the board as provided to the patients of the Northern hospital, does not amount to ovTer 12 cents per day per patient. If the citizens of the state doubt the truthfulness of this assertion, let them have a committee of a few men thoroughly honest, ap- *0f course so far as the doctors are concerned, those demands were ad- dressed to Drs. WiggintoD, Craig and Pember, then doctors in charge of the hospital, but inasmuch as the affairs in this r-spect are now on the same footing, they are just as applicable to the doctors incumbent. 156 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, pointed to take charge for a month at least of the hospital boarding house, who will make, prepare and distribute to the patients, during that month, such board as they have received for all the time of our sojourn in the hospital, and that they have probably received at least until our last visit there (May 25.1888) and if they keep a fair account of all expenses, Ave confidently believe, they will surely find out, that the cost of such board amounts to not over 12 cents per day, per patient. Now at this rate of 12 cents per day, my board at the hospital, for the 547 days of our detention in that house, would only have amounted to the i>um of 865.64. There has been claimed from us, at Wausau, for our board in the hospital, 899.00, that we have paid. Now let it be well understood that those $99.00 are only the share paid by the county for my board to the hospital; the rest which amounted to about twice as much, must haA-e been paid by the state. In other Avords, while I might have eaten, dur- ing 18 months in the Northern hospital, about 65 dollars worth, there has been paid bj me and the state for my board during that time, about §300.00 (three times 899 and some cents.) Now if there is not need of investigation of the manage- ment of the affairs of this hospital, I don't knoAV Avhere investigation is needed, surely. Now how much the clothing may cost of the patients yearly is a more difficult question to ansAver. Generally the patients arrive here with more or less clothing, and they receive none from the hospital until their own are more or less worn out. Then there are some patients, clothed in part or altogether by their relatives, or friends. It is in that way that I received 87.00 worth only of clothing from the hospital in one year and a half.* As *We must state here that they lost or stole from us in the hospital a sum of over $8.00 in clothing, consisting of drawers, under shirts, over-shoes, TREATMENT AND CURE. 151 far as the clothing of female patients is concerned, it must really cost little as they are clothed in calico in a great measure. At any rate we see in the report of the hospital that there is carried to the expenditure of this institution, for cloth- ing 87,800, for the year 1885; 85,900 for 1886, and that there is allowed for each of the years 1887 and 1888 $6,300 for clothing. Now in taking that average sum of $6,300 per year for clothing, for the number of 630 or 631 pa- tients, kept annually on an average, male and female in this hospital, it would cost yearly for the clothing of each patient, on an average, the sum of $10. Now the board at the fixed price of 12 cents daily, per patient would amount to 843.80 per year. And in adding to this sum the8l0 for clothing, the cost of the maintenance of the patients, clothed and fed as they are in this hospital would not amount to over $54 in round numbers, yearly per patient on an average, for board and clothing. Now in adding to this sum 810 more per patient, yearly, forbearing, light, bedding expenditure, and the expenses of preparing food and taking care of the clothing, which ap- pears to be a liberal allowance for ohose objects, the cost of the maintenance of each patient, clothed and fed as they are in this hospital must not exceed $64 a year. It cost at Gheel, Belgium, 1 franc and 65 centimes daily per patient (Avhich amounts to about 8120 a year) for board, lodging, clothing and all the care taken of the insane included. Let us state right here, that we see it has already cost the state and tax payers of AVisconsin up to 8336 yearly socks, etc. And in spite of there being no one single article lost through our own fault, and despite ail the claims we made, we never could receive any- thing in compensation, but now on the other side, when I got out of the hos- pital a sum of §7.00 was claimed from me, at AVausau, and which I have paid, for clothing received at the hospital. Well if that is justice, it is insane hospital justice, no doubt. Now, sad to say, but true, I have seen some other patients fixed that way with their clothing. 158 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, per patient on an average, for their maintenance in this hospital, all expenses included of course, and that the least it has ever cost yearly per patient, is 8167 on an average. (See second bi-ennial report of the Northern Wiscon- sin hospital, in the table, page 17.) But now, citizens to this lowest rate of 8167 yearly per patient, there is yet paid, by the tax payers, 8103 annually per patient, to keep them in this hospital, more than it would cost to keep them at home, so fed and clothed, since we have seen that that must not amount to over $64 annually, per patient. Now I tell you that to pay 8103 yearly per patient to have them kept in this hospital, treated as they are treated, this seems a little clear, does it not, citizens? Yes, it does surely, but this hoAA'ever is but one side of the question. For if Ave now consider that a much greater number of patients are cured in the hospital re- ceptacles of New Zealand, the most of them Avithout doctors or medicines * than in this hospital; if we above all consider that while the doctors of the Northern Wis- consin hospital report 12 per cent, of recoveries f that the ratio of recoveries, at the colony of Gheel, Belgium, where they generally receive the most of incurable cases, and where the patients are taken care of by simple country- men, amounts to 28 and 30 per cent, for the years 18S6 and 1887, if those figures mean anything, do they not show up clearly, first that a patient wdio would be kept and tak- en care of at home, as the insane are at Gheel (save the hard work) would have two or three times more chances of recovery than to be sent to this hospital! and that we consequently pay 8103 yearly per patient, to get them *See "The Curability ot Insanity" by Dr. Pliny Earle. tSee second bi-enhial report of the Northern Wisconsin hospital, 151 recov- eries for the two years 1885 and 1886, on a number of 1,258 patients uuder their treatment during that period, table page 143. TREATMENT AND CURE. 159 kept and treated in this hospital, with twice or thrice chances less to be cured, than to be kept at home? But let us look a little further. In some particulars received from Belgium we read that there are now at Gheel 1,300 patients. That the township is divided into four sections, and that a doctor Avith the derisive salary of 300 francs ($60) per year, is attached to each section, with an inspector. Now each doctor of the Northern hospital received on an aA^erage a yearly salary of 81,120 (5,600 francs) if the sum of $4,480 annually alloAved to them (four) Avere equally divided. But we see that the doctor super- intendent takes of the total sum $2,300, then the first assistant gets $1,000, then there is $700 for the second assistant, and there only remains $480 for the lady physi- cian ;peculiar division of salary indeed !* If the salaries Avere thus divided between the four doctors of Gheel, the fourth one should live, he and his family of the pure air of Cam- pine surely. And then blind is this division of salary, for certain it is that the doctor superintendent casts not one more devil out of the insane for $2,300, than does the lady physician for 8480. But we must pass over this. We say that the four doctors of the Northern Wisconsin hospital, with a yearly aA-erage salary of $1,120 (5,600 francs) give us now 12 per cent, of recoveries, while the four doctors of Gheel, with a yearly salary of 860 each give from 28 to 30 per cent, of recoveries. Thus the four doctors of the Northern hospital in giv- ing us 75 recoveries per yearf for the total salary of $4,480, wc pay them for the recovery of each patient at the rate of $60 in round numbers, for doctor's salary above their board. And the four doctors of Gheel,in giving at the ::=Since the above was written, the lady physician has been replaced by a third male assistant, with a salary of $600. t :'ee second bi-ennial report page 143. 160 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, average rate of 29 per cent. 377 recoveries on the number of 1,300 patients,for the total salary of $240,there is paid to them about 64 cents per recovery of each patient on an aver- age, and they board themselves, I think. That is, for the sum of 860, paid to the doctors at the Northern Wis- consin hospital, above their board, to have a patient re- stored to reason, the doctors of Gheel lead back to reason 93 patients, and board themselves, I think.* Of course we don't believe in the science of the doctors to cure insanity. But now the doctors of the Northern Wisconsin hospital are necessarily placed in this dilemma, not pleasant indeed for their glory: They must grant us that the patients discharged as recovered have not recov- ered by their treatment, or else that their treatment as doctors' salaries, cost to the tax-payers 93 times what cost the treatment of the doctors of Gheel, Avithout board. AVe had previously demonstrated, Ave believe, by reasoning that this institution wis one of the greatest humbugs of this century, managed as it is. Now Ave have demonstrated the fact mathematically—by figures. And in view of those facts and figures, I do think that the reason, good sense and purse of the citizens demand strongly and unan- imously, that this institution for the insane be quickly transformed or shut up. It is a humbug. It answers not the purpose for which it was created It is not a simple humbug either. But a great, awful, disastrous humbug ! wherein our unfortunate fellowmen may lose their health, their liberty and life through maltreatment! In fact the idea that a person of good sense may get out of this hos- pital, after having been here a long time, is this: This ♦Truly, it is less than two years ago that a lady physician was added to the three male doctors of the Northern AVisconsin hospital. But as this lady doctor received only S180 per year, out of the total sum of S4.4>0 paid annually to those doctors, this change cannot much affect our figures, nor much diminish the cost paid per recovery of patient, for all the time the hospital was ruu without a third assistant. TREATMENT AND CURE. 161 house, is, as a general rule, but a miserable place of deten- tion for the more or less intelligent patients; a place of woe and torture for those out of their mind,* and an abode of princes for doctors and high officers. In fact it took a heavy pressure last summer (1887) to force one of those doctors out of the Northern hospital. Another thing; while there is allowed the four doctors of the Northern Wisconsin hospital a yearly salary of $4,480f they visibly receive eighteen fold what the four doctors of Gheel receive, their annual total salary being only $240. Now while the doctors of Gheel have under treat- ment 1,300 patients Avhen the doctors of the Northern AVis- consin hospital have generally less than 650 patients, this doubles again the salary of those last ones, making it, with respect to proportion of patients under treatment, thirty-six fold what the doctors of Gheel receive. And yet there is not a very great difference in the cost of maintenance between the patients kept at Gheel and those kept in the Northern Wisconsin hospital. The cost at Gheel being generally $120 annually, and $167 now at the Northern hospital. And the doctors of Gheel who only receive, Avithout board, the thirty-sixth part of the salary paid to those of the Northern AVisconsin hospital, above their board give twice or thrice as many recov- eries as the Northern Wisconsin hospital doctors, though as a general rule, Gheel is the institution where the great- est number of incurable cases is admitted. And right here is the secret of the whole business: Not to give the money spent in behalf of the insane to the doctors who ♦There are some exceptions to this rule. We have seen here some patients very well tre.ited; and some persons of note or influence even having a special attendant to walk with them out outside of the crowd of their ward. Of course such have no complaint to make agiinst the management' But that favoritism helps not the rest of the patients surely. fTheir yearly salary amounts now to S4,000, making it nineteenfold the Gheel doctor's saiary. 162 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, cannot cure the insane. It is certain that the doctors can kill the insane, we have seen it; heal him, he cannot, have Ave seen also in view of the nature of the trouble. But a good, christian, devoted keeper may lead back the insane to reason by the grace of God. Therefore here is wisdom, here is the Avay to spend the money in behalf of the insane: for good, devoted keepers, and not in doctors, drugs, and all such appliances, or in foolish expenses of supervision, all things that, generally speaking, cannot cure or even relieve the insane. CHAPTER IX. INSANITY INCURABLE BY THE DOCTORS. We have seen that while Ave Avere condemned by the doctors, ready to die in their hands, in our folly, how we have been permanently cured, in a moment, by the grace of God, and a passage of Scripture. Glory be to God. We have seen that our recovery cannot be due to the cruel, inhuman, senseless treatment received at the hospital, since such treatment proves itself to be but folly, cruel- ty, and sheer charlatanism. These are facts. Now we really believe that this is, as a general rule, the ca»e of all the patients discharged as recovered from this hospital, and others. They cannot have been cured by the earthly, blind and senseless science of the doctors, since they ignore completely what is the real cause of the trouble. AVherefore, while the everlasting AATord of the Almighty and Omniscient God reveals to us clearly, what is the real, immediate, effective cause of insanity and epilepsy—Satan speaking and acting through the patient— while we have clearly seen ourself the evil spirit speaking TREATMENT AND CURE. 163 and acting through the insane, we cannot hesitate for a moment to pronounce insanity incurable by the DOCTORS. Therefore, based on such foundation that neither criti- cism nor argument, nor sophistry, nor theory, nor erudition, nor ignorance can ever remove, we say to any person who has any relative or friend smitten with in- sanity: Your loved one is possessed of one or several de- mons. Whether you believ e it or not, there are demons— Christ declares it—and it is those demons who render in- sane our loved ones, by taking possession of them. Again, the Lord Jesus Christ has revealed to us this fact. Where- fore friend, any doctor who stands as a healer of insanity or epilepsy, ask him gently: "Doctor, have you received the power to cast out the demons as Peter, as Philip, as Paul, or any other of the Master's disciples?" And so long as he cannot prove his ability to thus cast out the demons, do not believe he can cure your loved ones, afflicted with insanity. The doctor is either deceived or deceiving you. He is a knave or a fool. He cannot escape this fatal dilemma. Of course we don't say that insanity is an in- curable trouble of itself. No, many insane have been seen again, clothed and in their right mind. We only say that the trouble being produced by an invisible, im- palpable, spiritual power, the cause therefore escapes all the senses and science of the doctors, and cannot be re- moved either by medical science or by any human power. Now to any doctor who Avould contest this, we shall say in advance; for us we are nothing; but to prove we are wrong on this subject and that you can heal the insane by medical appliances, you must prove that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator of the soul, spirit and body was mistaken about the cause and cure of insanity and epilepsy, and the word of God to be untrue. 'Tis a hard task 164 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, for a mortal man to perform, be he doctor or not! Now it is evident in those conditions, that our insane hospitals become a great useless burden, a harm, a nuis- ance in the state. If those hospitals were built for the purpose of keeping and taking care of the insane therein, as the county insane asylums, the harm would be infinitely less. But, as all knoAv, they are built for curative insti- tutions of insanity, and provided with all the appliances that medical science could suggest. There are kept doctors with considerable salaries, to do the sad Avork that we have shown they do, at least in the Northern AAriscon- sin hospital. In regard to these expenses, we say the harm is comparatively small, because after all it is only a pecuniary loss endured by the community. But the harm is exceedingly greater, when it is a question of citizens, who have patients in this hospital, and for many unfortu- nates confined herein. (And this is equally true in regard to some other insane hospitals.) Listen: The insane are sent here, in many cases, Avith the hope that the doctors can cure them, while we have seen they cannot. Now citizens, see what evils new from this fatal, ruinous error —to believe that the doctors can cure insanity. The insane person is sent and confined in this house, suffering, in many cases moral, mental and physical tortures, that only those can comprehend who have suffered them, on account above all (notice well this point) of the depriva- tion of their own dear ones, who could surround the patient with affectionate care, while he is here badly abused, without the least necessity whatever. It seems most certain to us, that so many unfortunates stay in this hospital suffering what they suffer here, treated as they are treated, because their relatives ignore their doom in this house of woe and torture, otherwise they would not let them stop here. Citizens, listen: To beat, strangle TREATMENT AND CURE. 165 and torture the patients, and so forth, are deeds of dark- ness, surely, and generally—not always—those who com- mit those deeds hide them more or less. This we have seen. And when the patient speaks to his relatives, if he has a chance to see them, of Avhat he suffers in the hospital, they generally do not believe him, because he is insane, although all that he says here is only too true. They think wrongly that it is some delusion. Then, if per- chance they believe the patient has in fact been punished, then they think it had been necessary to punish him, for who after all, in possession of a mind and heart, would or could have ever believed that the employes can beat unto blood, strangle almost to suffocation, and bruise sorely the patients Avithout the least necessity whatever? This, it seems to us, is the case of the insane, sent and left in the hospital by their relatives or friends. At any rate, here are, and stay the unfortunate insane, the sport and victim of the employes in many cases; and probably to the profit of the managers of this house. And this evidently, in many cases, on account of the fatal, ruinous error, which induce the people to believe, that the insane might get cured better in the hospital than to be kept at home. Now have we not demonstrated all the awful truth con- tained in those words of an insane, sane on this subject: "It is not here the place to cure, but to get crazy. Hum- bug, humbug." Humbug indeed, it is! Now the worse of all this is, that the doctors and man- agers of this house endeavor to get the people to believe that the insane generally find here a home! Here they can- not escape the fatal dilemma. They are blind or hypo- crites. They ignore how the unfortunates are treated in this house—this is a fatal blindness, or knoAving it, they conceal the awful truth from the people—this is an alarm- ing hypocrisy. 166 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, Then, if the doctors don't see their inability to cure in- sanity and epilepsy, after having drenched with their medicines some patients for years consecutively, without cure or improvement in their condition, what blindness!! And if they have seen it, why not proclaim their power- lessness to cure such patients in order that the people could see what they have to do, to do right with the pa- tients ? Let us hope now that the most honest among those doctors will do it! Now citizens, you know, some of you at least, that a strong argument in favor of the creation, and maintenance of insane hospitals, is the cases of patients discharged, as recovered from those institutions. But you have seen that those cases of recoveries cannot be clue generally to the treatment of the doctors. But supposing now for a moment that they could make of this, with good reasons, a sound argument in favor of the erection and support of insane hospitals; what argument, my friends, could not Ave make also against these institutions, of all those cases who come to the hospital in a state of mind more or less reasonable, and who become to the sight of the doctors and employes, crazy enough to do all kinds of follies, and sometimes become raving maniacs? And also of those cases, who after having enjoyed for a certain time more or less reason, become insane again, Avhile under the treat- ment of the same doctors? If they tell me that these things occur to but a restricted number of patients in pro- portion, well I grant it. But those cases, all unfortunate as they are, so far, are not the most unfortunate admitted to the hospitals. It is another class—and they are not a small number—more miserable yet, because their doom is forever sealed down here. What is this class of patients? Ah! gentleman, defenders of those institutions, this class of patients are those who, once admitted out of their TREATMENT AND CURE. 167 senses, or getting so after admission, are afflicted here with nameless, numberless pains, anguish and sufferings caused the most of it by punishments and useless restraints, as Ave have stated, and then die in the hospital! 0 men! imagine if you can what could happen worse to those thrice unfortunates if they had been kept and taken care of at home. Tell me. As for us Ave deem that this class of patients at least, Avould have gained much by being kept at home, at least all those avIio possessed a home. Some might probably have recovered, too! well treated at home. AVhence it appears clearly, that even if their argument drawn from the cases discharged as recovered, could be sus- tained in favor of those institutions, there are some grieAr- ances, too true, alas! that cry aloud against them! More- over, if you send an insane person into one of the worst Avards—real pandemonium—where there are already thir- ty-five demoniacs, more or less, Avhere some violent among them may occasionally strike him, and he hears there the terrible yelling, screaming, crying, swearing and cursing at times; and sees all the signs and gestures of all those demoniacs, and is abused and maltreated as some patients are, and dosed, drugged by doctors, who all of them are a great deal more ignorant about the true cause and effects of insanity, than the insane themselves, if you can imagine a more fit place in the Avorld for one to get more crazy you will render me service in telling, for truly we fail to discov- er it this side of hell. Nevertheless we do not demand the abolition of those institutions, but we demand their complete transforma- tion. In the nature of the case they must be transformed or shut. And if they don't want to do that, let all sensi- ble, good hearted people keep their insane at home as we have seen some doing. That will give them a great many 16*8 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, more chances of recovery, besides many other great advan- tages. Citizens, I must also speak to you of another great harm in the state, apropos of these hospitals. Listen: AVhen it is a question of judging a person Avhosoever it may be, of some crime or delinquency, you establish a jury of twelve men, by law, to judge if the accused person must be deprived of his liberty by imprisonment, or of a part of his property by fine; and Ave belieA-e there is much good in the jury's institution,in spite of its defects,and so you do since you maintain it. But don't you see that Ave are 630 persons in this house of woe (and many more in some other hospitals) Avhose liberty—and even life are depend- ing on the will of one man—the doctor superintendent ? and that this man may as he does in fact—by his sole authority keep separated the son from his father, the daughter from her mother, and the husband from his beloved wife accord- ing to his Avill? But now, if this doctor is unjust or sense- less, don't you see what a cheap bargain you make Avith our liberty and life? And don't you know that just men are so scarce that it were not possible to find ten just men Avithin Sodom and Gomorrah to save them from des- truction? Is the history of our race lacking in examples of bad kings, of senseless and unjust ministers, governors, administrators, or of blind doctors? On the contrary the world has never been lacking in charlatans! Well then since you have, at any rate played with the liberty and lives of the citizens of this state locked up in this house, permit me to tell you before the Avorld, that at this very hour Ave are Avriting these lines in the hospital, (May, 1886,)* some persons sane enough to certainly make, if at large, useful citizens, Avorking and producing, are de- *And so was it May, 1888. On'y Dr. Booth told me after my representa- tions in regard ' o this, that he proposed himself to send on furlough these in- telligent patients. TREATMENT AND CURE. 1W.) tained in this house by the arbitrary will of the doctor superintendent. Now listen to a little bit of true history: AVhile we were working every day with our own hands at AVausau, Wisconsin, doing useful Avork for us and family, city and state, while Ave were loving and observing the laws of the country, we were striken Avith insanity and got crazy enough to kill, and in a moment of immense misfortune that most assuredly human science cannot comprehend, we mortally struck the dear, dying brother we loved as ourself. Tavo days later I was brought into the Northern hos- pital to be cured of my folly, and then be returned to my family and society, Avork and business—thought my Avife and myself as soon as I could think of anything. AU lure! Arrived in the hospital the doctor superintendent reproved me sternly, because of ray deed. Dr Craig sneered at me. And Dr. Pember helped to strangle me, to quiet me I suppose, for I found him the best of the trio. The attendants called me "murderer," told me I deserved to be hung, etc., and tiv ited me as related. I was hand- cuffed day and night, and put into a crib bedstead to sleep. My handcuffs were only removed for the night, almost two Aveeks af;er my recovery, and after tAvo requests of ours addressed to the doctors to this effect. And I Avas put into an ordinary bed to sleep over a month after my recovery and at my re- quest. Being yet detained in the worst Avard—5 and 6— over six weeks a'ter my recovery, I asked Dr. Craig (end of May '85) to be changed of ward, he told me, "No."—I asked him Avhy, and he said, "Because your deed deserves twenty years of penitentiary."—And time and again Dr. Wigginton told me I had committed a bad deed.—AVe know that in that awful moment, the devil, through us, 170 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, committed a terrible crime. But by what right—I do ask—do those doctors and keepers make themselves judges in my case?—I was only changed of ward the next month, almost two months after my recovery, and after another request. The 17th day of June, '85, my wife came and visited me at the hospital, for the second time. She found that the best place then for me would be at home. I told Dr. Pember so. He declared, if it was not for my deed, I could be discharged then from the hospital; but I had better speak of those things to the doctor superintendent. A few days later I told Dr. R. M. Wigginton, superin- tendent, that my wife, judging me well enough, wanted me home. He told me he AA'ould do the best he could for me, but he could not let me go then. In August, my wife came again, and finding me well, on her return home, she wrote to Dr. AVigginton that she had knoAvn the patient writer for the last past fourteen years, that she had been married for twelve years to him, and that ahvays he be- haved himself as a real honest man, good husband, and good citizen. But that in taking care, day and night, of his sick brother (who got very insane at last) he unfortun- ately got insane like him, and while completely out of his mind he had committed the deed he knew. But now that again in full possession of his reason, she was as- sured I could hurt nobody, or if there was some danger she would certainly be herself the first in danger. She further offered to put in security for me all Ave possessed, and she prayed the doctor superintendent to let me return home on bail or otherwise. Dr. Wigginton refused to let me go. But again, in the next month (September), my Avife wrote once more to the doctor superintendent, askino- him to send me home, and offered again the same security. This time Dr. AVigginton not only refused to send me home, but refused my wife permission to visit me. And TREATMENT AND CURE. Ill he told me to write my Avife to bother him no more with my discharge, that my case was too bad, and he told me then and several times besides, that if he would let me go, the county judge would not permit it. But when at last, my wife, on the advice of Dr. Wigginton, went to the Wausau county judge, the judge told her: "Your husband has been sent to the hospital as insane, and declared such by two Wausau physicians. I have nothing to do with his case. The doctor has no right to keep him there well." This overthrew completely, the sayings so often repeated by Dr. Wigginton about my case and proved that I Avas detained in the hospital against law and reason, by the sole authority of Dr. Wigginton. Thus, well, and in full possession of our reason—the three doctors of the hospital saying so—we were detained in the hospital until the 23d day of June, 1886, over fourteen months after our recovery, by the sole authority of Dr. R. M. AVigginton without judgment or condemnation, in flagrant violation of the constitution which proclaims that: "No person can be deprived of life, or liberty, or property, without due process of the law." And very likely I would have stayed therein long months, perhaps years more, who can tell ? if I had not the most innocently worked my way out. Listen: Know- ing what was the true cause of insanity—Satan—once when opportunity came, 1 told Dr. Pember: "I know, doctor, you don't know much about insanity." And a little Avhile after I told Dr. Craig: "Doctor, your position as physician here is specially curious, because you don't know what is the cause of the trouble of the patients under your treatment." Then a couple of weeks later, I told again Dr. Pember: "Doctor, the declaration of Dr. Craig about the cause of my headache, is a pure and simple condemnation of your treatment for the past eight 172 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, months." And he admitted it. At the same time, I gave Dr. Wigginton to clearly understand, by my behavior, I had no faith in his science, nor adArice. I requested him to discontinue to me such medicine; he blamed me for reading my Bible too much, and I kept reading it diligent- ly every day. He Avanted me to go to dances, and I never went to dance. He wanted me not to read such books, and I did read those very books. He wanted me to go working out and I stayed in reading and writing. Further, the three doctors had several times assured me that they A\Tere doing and would do the best they could for me. But once I asked the doctor superintendent the per- mission to let me go with my wife, and under supervision. to Oshkosh to buy me a suit of clothes for holidays; he did not even answer me. He refused to send of my own money the price of those books I wanted to buy. He once refused to send a despatch to my Avife at my expense. Then seeing I was detained in the hospital by his sole authority, against his promises and delarations to me, and realizing finally I had to deal with doctor hypocrites who had fooled me right along, I told Dr. Pember: "Doc- tor, you have never been sincere with me." He protested. And I told him: "Doctor, you, nor Dr. Craig, nor Dr. Wigginton, have never been sincere Avith me. Tell it to your colleagues." "How do you know it," he inquired. "I judge you upon your deeds and words," said I. This was probably all they could stand. For Dr. AVigginton came into our ward and told me to do my work in the ward and keep still,not to speak so much. I readily under- stood what he meant, and answered him: "Doctor, I am just doing that way for over one year, I have recovered my reason." He kept still. But he had clearly perceived I was getting Arery inconvenient in the hospital, and when my wife came he sent her to the county judge for my discharge. TREATMENT AND CURE. 173 This brief history of our detention in the hospital shows up Iioav a citizen may be detained here (judged by doctors and keepers AArho have no legal power to do it) against his wishes and the wishes of his family, by the sole authority of a man called doctor superintendent. A very intelligent patient told me once: "This is a damnable institution, wherein the husband is kept separ- ated from his Avife, and the wife kept separated from her husband." (literally). And in fact we have knoAvn in the sole ward 9 S tAvo patients, men of more or less good sense and reason, who declared both of them, that they were detained in the hospital for the sole reason that their Avives did not Avant them at home. One of them after having been detained here for about twenty months, was liberated (May '86) exactly in the same state of mind that he wras when Ave saw him admitted for the second time, about eleven months before. The other had been in the hospital for seven years, I think, and he may be there yet. And does not the late case of Charles R. Brain- erd prove, in its way, the necessity of investigation in the matter of Avrong detention of persons in insane hospitals ? If reform is not needed in this direction, I don't see where reform is needed. 174 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, CHAPTER X. TRANSFORMATION—HOAV TO SPEND THE MONEY? Now while such is the real cause of insanity—Satan*— and consequently that it is impossible for the doctor of medicine to remove it and cure a single case, it is here, citizens, the reform must bear. Listen: $4,600 are now annually paid, for instance, for the doctors' salaries of the Northern hospital, without a single case of insanity or epilepsy cured by them, given in return for your money. Therefore you may, nay, you must, save that money to employ it in a Avay to surely relieve and cure the patients. In like manner, while it is impossible to show, that the members of the board of supervision have ever caused the cure or even the relief of a single patient, employed by the state—by the people—at the enormous salary of $10,000 annually. While they have not hindered the patients being cruelly, wretchedly treated right along. While they have not hindered the making of three dif- ferent kinds of board,one for the doctors and high officers,a second for the employes of second class, and a third one for the patients, avIio are fixed a part of the time with bread and water, instead of ordering a good, substantial board equal for all, according to the simplest principles of equality and equity. Whereas they have not made a single one of the press- ing,necessary,indespensable reforms spoken of in this book. That, if they have made some reparations or improvements in, and around the buildings, and in *We have found by God's grace and light, the author of insanity and ep- ilepsy It is the devil. If any accused person before any honest jury had such testimonies against him, he would be surely pronounced guilty. TREATMENT AND CURE. 175 the yard, that profits nothing to the patients, while they are no better fed, nor clothed, nor treated, nor sooner healed. Then you may again, nay!you must retire the money allowed to them for supervision of the insane hospitals, at least, and employ that money in a way to relieve and cure some patients. Now hoAV to spend usefully, in behalf of the patients, those thousands of dollars, spent iioav uselessly, and Avith- out benefit to the insane, is the question. After having been almost four months insane in the Northern hospital, and having remained therein for over fourteen months after my recovery, examining all things, every day at Avill, I do really belieA e that God has enabled us thereby, to see hoAV that money may be usefully spent for the good and cure of the patients. Then, please, listen: You must put in each ward a sufficient number of good, devoted chris- tians to attend to the mental, moral, and spiritual as well as the physical needs of the patients. Under the present administration, two or three attendants* are placed in each ward to take care of about thirty-five patients: three attendants in the Avards of the most insane generally, and two of them in the wards of more intelligent patients. But we have shown you how the insane are treated by them. They tried to quiet the patients by blows, strangu- lations, opiates and sundry punishments, and they strapped down and handcuffed the violent and even the noisy pa- tients, and worse yet.f (And eat the good things while the patients are deprived of them.) That is the way I have been strapped down almost continually during the At the time of our last visit to the hospital we found that they had in- creased the number of atteadants, and placed two of them in the front wards, three in the middle wards, and four in the back wards. +In St. Peter asylum we have found an unfortunate tightly strapped down on his bed by the upper part of the body. Then he had his two feet strapped down to the foot of the bed. Then each one of his hands strapped on each side of him. AVhat sane man could keep his reason thus fixed? 176 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, three weeks of my last folly, though there Avas not the least bit of violence towards others, about me, at the time. But iioav we have demonstrated by real, living, existing facts, that such treatment renders the patients more crazy, and may kill them instead of healing them. No question about it. Satan don't cast out Satan. The thief come not, but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. But Christ came to save, to heal, to give life. AVell then, this is our advice of reform—transform ition, in this di- rection. Instead of two, three or four, rough attend- ants—actuated by the evil spirit—placed in each Avard for about thirty-five patients, 1 would advise to place, in each ward for such number of patients, six, seven and eight attendants—animated by the Spirit of Christ—and this should be their task. Thus, every attendant should have only five or six patients, and only two or three, if violent or boisterous, under his care, and always the same patients for a certain time at least. Every attendant should have his own patients to take care of. With such a small number of patients, these christian attendants instead of beating, strangling, and strapping them down to quiet them as they do uoav, they should be always and under all circumstances, the best friends of the patients, soothing and calming them through kindness when irritated or disorderly. And those attendants, paid to behave this way tOAvards the pa- tients, should have to doit, or be discharged. Of course it should be expected that those christian attendants, would behave that way and perform all their other duties towards the patients, for the love of God and their insane brethren, more than because the laAvs of the institution should require it. If any being is worthy of compassion, it assuredly is the person bereaved of reason! AVhat we rather need, citizens, in our insane asylums for attendants TREATMENT AND CURE. 117 are persons animated with the Spirit of Christ, devoted to their brethren and sisters, the patients, as those mission- aries, AA'ho, after having renounced the enjoyments of this world, go at the risk of their lives to preach the gospel to the heathen.—But again, with such a small number of pa- tients, each of those neAv attendants should be personally well acquainted with every patient under his care. He should try to discover what is the moral character of his patients as far as possible, their education, previous living, occupation, surroundings, etc. And specially, Avhat is the delusion, or false idea, under Avhich the patient labors, and try to eradicate it every time from the patient's mind, by a wise, kind and sympathetic reasoning to the level of the patient's intellect.* And above all, in all cases, en- deavor, so far as possible, to displace in the patient, the evil spirit, and re-place it by the good Spirit of God. This is the real cure of insanity,established on real, living facts, and confirmed by the word of God. Listen: Last winter (1886-7) Avhile attending a holiness meeting of the Salvation Army, in Minneapolis, there arose a man who declared himself to be an extraordinary being, a man of prophecy. At the close I spoke to the man, and I easi- ly found out, that he labored under the delusion that he was himself the great predicted Anti-christ, and conse- quently could not be saved. Here it is evident, that the man Avas on the best possible way to an insane asylum. Now suppose that his folly had manifested itself, and that he had been taken to an insane hospital, there, the doctors most probably would have given him some medicines to drink, some novels or history to read, invited him to at- tend dances, card and checker plays, and so forth. Now here, addressing myself to the people's common sense, I do *Dr. C. E. Booth agreed completely with us upon the efficacy of this moral treatment. 118 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, ask, Is it not evident that none of those hospital appli- ances could ever rid the patient's mind of the false idea that troubled him, and that he might have remained all his life therein Avithout receiving any benefit from such fool- ish treatment? But some of the brethren explained to the deluded man, with great charity, thank God, that the predicted Anti-christ, must be, according to the Scriptures, a prince, a king, a great monarch of the earth, and prob- ably issu from some royal family, and that he, being a simple workingman, was not and could never be the predict- ed Anti-christ, but that he was only deluded by the devil. And they urged him to give God his heart, and accept Christ for his Saviour and follow Him. And thank God the man is still at large, striving to serve God.* What we must know, before and above anything else, in this matter, is, that the insane has the mind troubled, affect- ed generally, not the body. It is then his mind that must be relieved, purged if possible of the delusion that troubles him. The medicine of the doctor that goes down in the stomach, and which is after cast out into the draught, cannot attain this result, even should the medicine act more or less on the blood, yet the blood is matter, and the part affected is the mind, and sentiment. The doctor may purge the boAvels, and cleanse the blood of the patient, all the }Tear round, and not relieve his mind a particle. But reasoning charitably applied in time may relieve the pa- tient, f In fact if the patient, as we have established it to bo *Now Dr. Cyrus K. Bartlett of St. Peter asylum is in Europe lor three months or more. When the asylum may be run three months or more with- out a doctor superintendent, where is the man bold enough to venture to say it could not be run that way all the year round? But now we say more than this: Remove again the two assistant doctors and run the hospital by a goo 1, honest, christian superintendent, not a medical man,-and you'll see that n<~>t one case less will' be cured, because the cause of the trouble here is such that no doctor can remove it. tThat the insane, of course, very often will not listen, we must expect, be- cause in many cases the insaue do not see things as a sane person does, and also in many cases, they have, for the time being, the hearing and some other senses affected. But if some can't or will not actually listen, it is cer- TREATMENT AND CURE. 119 the case, has his mind troubled by some false ideas, im- planted by the spirit of error and evil, to deliver him com- pletely, radically, from his delusion, preach to him the Word of the Almighty God that cannot lie nor contradict itself, and give him this good word of truth to read, and inspire him with some taste and attachment for the reading of this good word, and Ave believe that any insane, that shall receive in his mind, and heart this Avord of truth shall be healed. It has healed me anyhow. Listen: The patient has the mind troubled by the spirit of Satan and all it takes to cure him is the AVord which emanates from the Spirit of God. Or rather Avhat it needs is the A\rord itself, the living AVord, the Word made flesh—Jesus Christ. It takes the Christ to cast out Satan. Don't you know that it is in the name of Jesus Christ that one casts out the devil? Dost thou now un- derstand my brother,the real remedy for insanity.madness, folly, mental alienation, craziness, lunacy and falling sickness, and of Avhatever name thou mayst call it, is Jesus Christ. Yes, Jesus Christ, I say. Replace the spirit of Satan that has taken possession of the mind and heart and Avill of thy brother, by the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, and thy brother is saved, and gloriously de- livered from his folly and blindness! Glory be to Jesus! And thou, fellow citizen, dcst thou comprehend now all the folly of the doctors avIio refuse to the r patients, un- der pretext that it may hurt them, this Word of God, pure, perfect, sure, sweet, precious, living and piercing, and per- manent forever, this two-edged sword of the spirit, this AVord given and fulfilled by Jesus Christ, this unerring Guide, able to render wise unto salvation through faith in Christ, profitable to teach, to convince, to c rrect and to tain that we cannot hurt them thereby. And surely it wou'd be a great im- provement in insane hospitals, if they only use therein such appliances cannot hurt the patients. 180 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, instruct according to righteousness, this Word intended to> regenerate, enlighten, illuminate, to convert the soul, to sanctify and purify the heart, intended to deliver from the path of destruction, and to comfort and rejoice our hearts, the Word by which we must prove all things,which is a lamp to our feet,and a light in our path? and who want to relieve and cure the insane with novels, dances, card and checker plays, the pushing of swabs, draAving of sand bags, and with ice bags, cold packs, with some medicine as opium, morphia, phosphorus, hyosciamia, strychnia, etc., etc., and with electricity, etc. And does it not seem to thee, just tell me, that here the folly of the doctors exceeds the fol- ly of the patients? And is not this the case, "the great- est fool of the two is not the one Ave thought." And art thou yet surprised that with all such treatment many pa- tients take the door that leads to the cemetery, rather than the door that should lead them towards their homes? Error in a person's mind is far from ahvays bringing insanity. But insanity is ahvays based on some error. Now the soil (the mind) where such seed (delusions or false ideas) may grow must be changed, renewed of course. Aud casting the devil and delusions out of the patient's mind, and re-placing them by the Word and Spirit of God, is the renewing process. There is none other. Thus the remedy we advise, visibly strikes the evil at the root. No medicine, no doctor's appliance can do it. Therefore, the mental, moral and spiritual treatment of insanity above described is alone adequate to effect a cure of this mental trouble. The trouble is mental, moral, spiritual, and it takes the application of a mental, moral, spiritual treat- ment to overcome it. No question about it. Medecin, and medicines have nothing to do here in the generality of cases. Peter, Philip, Paul cured permanently the pos- TREATMENT AND CURE. 181 sessedof devils, (the insane) by the Word of God, through faith. Doctors could not cure them then. The same trouble, produced by th« same cause—Satan—most cer- tainly demands iioav the same remedy. No question about it. Wherefore in this way should be spent the money in behalf of the insane, by treating them, mentally, morally, and spiritually, by faithful disciples of the One wdio has said to the evil spirit: "Hold thy peace and come out of him." But brethren citizens, Avhen you pay thousands of dollars annually to doctors and members of the board of supervision, that profit nothing to the insane, their troubled mind is not improved thereby, and they are none the less wretchedly treated. This I have seen during the eighteen long months of my detention in the Northern Wisconsin hospital. Now however strange may appear to some persons our advice, to dispense, to the greatest extent possible, Avith that costly ministration of M. D's. in our insane hos- pitals, is nevertheless in perfect accordance with real, living, existing facts. Not only have Ave shoAvn that while ready to die in the hands of three doctors of an in- sane hospital, themselves acknowledging it, a single pas- sage of the Scriptures of truth, led me back permanently to reason, and we may cite some other cases of idiocy and madness cured by prayer alone ; but yet when it is evident that two or three times more cases are cured at Gheel, Avhere the patients are taken care of by simple country- men^ and where the most of incurable cases are received,) than in the Northern Wisconsin hospital, and when it is acknowledged by the doctors that more patients are cured in hospital receptacles as the ones of New Zealand quoted by Dr. P. Earle from the Journal of Mental Science, Avithout doctors or medicines (their superintend- 182 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, ents being not medical men) than generally in the best insane hospitals in England and United States if such liv- ing facts don't proclaim aloud, the powerlessness of the M. D's. to cure insanity, and that Ave should spend the money in favor of the insane in a better Avay than for doctors in medicine, then I declare that I do not understand any- thing in the usual language. Such observation is applica- ble, no doubt to the salary paid entirely uselessly to the members of the board of supervision. Yes, and if any man Avill contest this, let him sIioav Iioav the presence of the members of that board, in the hospital's office, or around the hospital, or abroad, may relieve the troubled mind of the patients That's the way to do business. Now brethren citizens don't you believe that I am a hater of the M. D's. or of the members of the board of supervision, because we speak in this Avay. No, thanks be to God, Ave have "charity for all and malice towards none." But after our experience and sojourn of eighteen months in the Northern hospital, I have certainly seen that in using the money paid uselessly to the above named gentlemen (doctors and members of the board) in the hiring of a great number of good,devoted, competent chris- tian attendants, as explained above, would certainty relieve, and most probably cure a great number of our unfortunate brethren. And then on the other hand, those doctors re- lieved of a charge Avhere they certainly can do no good, could employ their time and taints to treat perhaps suc- cessfully some bodily disease, and thus render some service to society and humanity, instead of staying in the insane asylums to be laughed at by the devil, the author and true cause of insanity, that they certainly cannot remove by the appliances of their blind science, and laughed at by all those who will henceforth know the true cause of the trouble. TREATMENT AND CURE. 18 And the same observation is applicable to the members of the board of supervision avIio could probably employ also their time and talents in some better Avay than to mingle themselves with the insane business in which they are utterly blind and can do no good. Then I Avould also advise to hire so rar as practicable, some good, faithful disciples of Christ from any denomination filled of faith and Holy Ghost, to go and preach to the insane, Jesus Christ, the great Deliverer from the power of Satan, in all th» insane asylums, and we believe that every insane converted to Christ, would be restored to reason. It cannot be other- wise. Moreover, the Lord Jesus Christ has given the power to his disciples to cast the devils out of the pos- sessed. And since Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day and forever, I do not hesitate to believe that some may receive, in our days, the poAver to really cast the de- mons out of the insane in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and permanently cure them thereby. But to return to the attendants question and so forth. In setting in the wards 6, 7 and 8 attendants, instead of the actual number 2, 3 and 4, this would make an increase of 4 attendants in each ward, which multiplied by the number of 28 wards, males and females, Avould make an increase of 112 attendants for the Avhole building. And in paying each one of them a yearly salary of $400 (in- cluding the cost of their board) it would require a sum of 844,800 to pay them annually. Now Ave contend that for the half of the actual cost of maintenance, the patients could be fed and clothed better than they are noAv. And as this cost of maintenance amounts iioav to 8167 per pa- tient in the Northern AVisconsin hospital, this Avould make a reduction of $83.50 per patient which sum multi- plied by the actual number of 600patients would amount 184 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, to $50,100. This sum Avould cover all the salaries of the 112 new proposed attendants and leave a small sur- plus. Then it would be advisable to appoint over the at- tendants a good, honest, christian superintendent, (not a medical man) with a small salary, since all the needed care would be taken by the attendants. Medicines and all such medical appliances should generally be prohibited in insane asylums in treatment of insanity. If any visible physical cause of trouble exists in any patient, as a frac- tured skull, any limb broken, etc., Ave Avon't say not use a surgeon, or physician in such cases. At any rate, if any dcctor, with a small salary, would be yet attached to the insane institutions, let it be Avell understood that this physician should have nothing to do Avith the running of the institution. For Ave judge that medical science has wronged and maltreated enough our insane to take them out of its hands now. To see Avhether a patient is com- pletely restored to reason or not, the most expert will al- ways be the devoted and intelligent attendant who is in daily, hourly intercourse with him. Then,as soon as it is seen that a patient may be trusted at large on furlough, the best way is to try him outside. And if he fails to be- have, take him back into the asylum. Proper food strict- ly equal for all, patients, employes and managers, should be prepared and distributed, save only in cases of sick or , infirm patients who require a special diet. No patient should ever be set to Avork, except the one who himself asks to work. And if any patient is doing a useful, necessary work, let him be paid for his labor. Oh! Avoe! woe! to the manor set of men, if they don't repent, who have inaugurated the system of paying enormous salaries to doctors and trustees to do nothing, or a useless work to say the least, and keep working all the year around our unfortunate brethren, the patients, and give them nothing TREATMENT AND CURE. 185 for their labor! ! A board of supervision is more than useless here. Not only there is no need at all of them, but they might hinder the good work going on. If some- times repairs or improvements are needed in or around the buildings, call an honest architect to look at it and attend to the work. Such is an outline of the reforms or trans- formation that should be effected in our insane asylums. Some amendments might be made of course according to the dictates of common sense, necessity, circumstances or increase of light on this great question. Thus it seems clear to us that without an increase of expenses, the insane could be better fed, better clothed, and receive the proposed mental, moral, and spiritual treatment that Avould, Ave believe, cure a great number of them.* And then right here, the benefit would be ten- fold. Not only this surplus of recoveries would diminish in proportion the expenses for insane, but how estimate the good, joy and happiness resulting from the restitution to their families and business, to society and liberty of the number of patients owing their recovery to this new mode of treatment? Citizens, let us try this neAV plan of taking care of the insane. I know it will Avork and be good and beneficial. It has in its favor good common sense, experience in insanity, and the approbation of God's word. Let us hope it will obtain also the approbation of any fair minded person who has no personal interest to see the present disastrous state of affairs continue in our insane asylums. And it.is at least certain that the only thing in the vieAV of him that advises this mode of treatment of the insane, is the good, relief, deliverance, cure and sal- vation of those unfortunates; othenvise we have no bene- fit whether our plan be adopted or rejected. And it goes *.v!oney euoueh is spent in behalf of the insane. Only it needs badly to be spent in the right way so that it profits them. 186- INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, without saying that if this plan of treatment be good in the Northern Wisconsin hospital, it will be good in Madi- son, in St. Peter, in Rochester, and all over the land. But brethren citizens, by the way, the devil is crafty, is he not? For centuries he certainly rendered in- sane our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and wives and husbands, our children and friends, and then he caused us to send them to be healed to some doctors, visibly animated by his spirit, and who are his ser- vants. And there of course, Satan casts not Satan out. For we have seen what they do with the insane and hoAV they treat them. So Satan laughs at us. And such is the trick he plays on us since the foun- dation of our insane hospitals! And neither our pastors nor doctors have perceived it! Oh! what a diabolical trick!!* But it is Avell for you 0 men and women (to me first) because the light has come and we have preferred the darkness! Read now only one of the four gospels, my brother, my sister, and you shall certainly see that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator of the body and soul and mind, attributed positively insanity and epilepsy to the power of the devil and evil spirits; and that to deny it one must have the mind blinded by Satan, as our brethren, the Universalists and the doctors of insane hospitals! And how is it possible that no one of us, my friends, neither pastors nor doctors, has had understanding on this ques- tion? But eighteen centuries ago JeAvs and G.mtiles kneAV so Avell that insanity was caused by the power of the evil spirit that they were saying of a man they thought to be insane, or wanted him to be regarded as insane: "He hath a demon, and is out of his senses; Avhy hear ye "Wherefore let us hasten now to get Satan cast out of.the insane in the name of Christ through faith, prayer, and by the preaching of the Word! TREATMENT AND CURE. 181 him?" Others said, "These are not the words of a demon- iac? Can the demon open the eyes of the blind?"* And we did not see it! AVe knew it not! Blind that Ave are! Oh! it is true of you 0 men that it is Avritten: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. AVhere is the wise? AVhere is the scribe? AVhere is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made fool- ish the Avrisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to savje them that believe." Yes, and Ave may say, because the world by human Avisdom could not find what was and is the true cause of insanity, it has pleased God to reveal it to a poor, ignorant insane—in order that he, himself, could not boast to haA^e found it—"because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men......But God hath chosen the foolish things of the Avorld to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of theAvorld to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence." Noav, brethren, citizens, I believe I have done my duty in showing up and unveiling many things hidden in the darkness. Will you do yours? God grant you may. And may the God of peace and light lead and direct you, to bring about relief and deliverance to our brethren, the insane. Their relief, deliverance, cure and salvation, is all the reward I covet doAvn here for my work, though poor, ignorant, without resources, it took me over two years of work, more or less assiduous, to write two editions *John X 20, 21, (Frenchtranslation.) 188 INSANITY, ITS CAUSE, EFFECTS, of this book, one in French and the other in English. And now, though we believe the work to be a very useful md necessary one, yet, as to style, we consider it as a poor literary production, and full of faults and defects. Then I had to sell the inheritance of my father in Bel- gium to get the book published at my expense. But never mind. May only God bless this work of our hands, in relieving and delivering our brethren and sisters, the insane, out of the hands of the Avolves that devour them, through Jesus Christ our Lord, the good Shepherd of the sheep! And blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. Amen. FRA-NCIS Delilez. Minneapolis, June 1888. WM D353t 1888 0006504 NLM DS5m?T, 7 NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE NLM052147997