THE COLONIZATION OF 
EPILEPTICS. 
BY 
FREDERICK PETERSON, M. D. 
REPRINTED FROM 
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 
December, 1889. 
M. J. Rooney & Co., Printers, 
Corner Broadway and 35th Street. 
NEW YORK. THE COLONIZATION EPILEPTICS.1 
By FREDERICK PETERSON, M.D., 
Attending Physician to the New York Hospital for Nervous and Epileptic; Lecturer on Ner- 
vous and Mental Diseases at the New York Polyclinic and Vanderbilt Clinic. 
IN 1887 I wrote an account of a visit I had a short time 
previously paid to the Bethel Epileptic Colony at 
Bielefeld near Hanover in Germany ;2 and I have long 
desired to give a more comprehensive description of that 
institution, and to agitate the establishment in this country 
of a somewhat similar charity under the government of a 
State or at the instigation of private philanthropy. For 
every other defective class provision has been made in 
greater or less degree, for the insane, for idiots, for the deaf 
and dumb and blind, for the sick and the crippled, for the 
aged and infirm, for young malfactors in reformatories, for 
the negro and for the Indian-and for all of these, improve- 
ment in care, treatment or development is continually pro- 
gressing. 
Almost alone, however, has the sufferer from epilepsy 
been left to shift for himself, usually an outcast from his 
family, expelled from the schools, denied industrial employ- 
ment, shunned to a great extent by his fellows, left to grow 
up in idleness and ignorance, friendless, a prey to one of 
the most dreadful and most hopeless of human ills, refused 
admission to general hospitals, generally drifting at last to 
the almshouse and insane asylum. He is given refuge in 
the insane asylum, not as a rule because he is deprived of 
reason, although many epileptics do become demented or 
unmanageable, but because there is no other place for him 
to go. Hundreds, nay thousands, of epileptics are in 
American asylums at this moment, who do not really 
1 Read before the Section on Public Health, etc., of the New York Academy 
of Medicine, Dec. 6, 1889. 
2 New York Medical Record, April 23, 1887. , 2 
FREDERICK PETERSON. 
belong there, and of whom many will be found who show 
not even the slightest mental aberration. It is an injustice 
to the epileptic, and it is a detriment to the insane. 
When we take into consideration that a large proportion 
of these unfortunates are gifted with as much intelligence 
as ordinary human beings, that they are as capable of edu- 
cation, as well adapted for industrial pursuits, quite as able 
to be self-supporting as most people, the unutterable woes 
of this class become more apparent. 
The conditions under which they may secure their 
proper mental development and their meed of occupation, 
must be such as combine medical supervision with wise 
industrial teaching and training. Society has here to per- 
form a sadly neglected duty. 
Actuated by such considerations some twenty-four years 
ago, a Lutheran clergyman, Pastor von Bodelschwingh, 
purchased a farm in the suburbs of Bielefeld, and with four 
epileptics as a beginning, established a colony, which for 
nobility of conception and excellence of results is unique in 
our civilization. 
It seemed to this benignant man that it was feasible to 
create a refuge where these sufferers might be cured, if 
curable; where their disease might be ameliorated, their 
intellectual decay prevented ; where they might have a 
comfortable home if recovery were impossible ; where they 
might develop their mental faculties to the utmost; might 
acquire trades, or engage in whatever occupation they cared 
to choose; finally growing into a community of educated, 
useful, industrious, prosperous and contented citizens. 
From that small beginning there has been a gradual evolu- 
tion and expansion of the colony. In 1878 it had 250 
epileptics; in 1880, 458; in 1882, 556; in 1886, 830; and at 
the time of this writing considerably over 1,000. 
During the twenty years from 1867 to 1887, 2,407 epilep- 
tics had been received and treated at the colony. Of these 
156 or 6% per cent, were discharged recovered, and over 
450 improved. 
But the dispensation of good by the colony is not lim- 
ited to its immediate inhabitants, for upon application, with or without payment, medicines are sent to epileptics in 
every part of the world, without regard to sect or nativity, 
and the enormous extent of this export of remedies may be 
appreciated from the fact that 800 pounds of potassic 
bromide are now consumed per month by residents and 
correspondents. Some 48,000 epileptics have been benefi- 
ciaries of this charity. 
Education and Employment.-The industrial pursuits 
at Bielefeld are numerous and varied. Occupation not only 
ameliorates the mental and physical condition of epileptics, 
but the incurably afflicted are offered opportunities for 
culture and callings not attainable anywhere except in 
institutions of this character. 
The Bielefeld Colony now consists of 55 houses, 150 
families and over 2,000 inhabitants, inclusive of teuchers, 
nurses, industrial trainers, co-laborers and patients. The 
arrangement of these houses can be seen in the accom- 
panying plan. It will be observed that the colony has 
little or nothing about it to suggest an institution, but is 
rather similar to a country village, with its variegated 
cottages and pretty gardens and farms. The houses are 
scattered over 320 acres of beautiful woodland and meadow. 
A synopsis of the uses of most of the buildings is given 
below : 
Female Division. 
2 cottages for patients of the better class. 
1 house for feeble-minded women and girls. 
1 house for half-demented girls. 
1 house for convalescent girls. 
14 houses for school children and workers. 
Male Division. 
2 houses for patients of the better class. 
1 house with 3 schoolrooms for boys and youths. 
9 houses for hand-workers. 
4 houses for gardeners and farmers, with gardens, farms 
and brick-kiln. 
5 houses for more or less demented patients, 2 of which 
are for those still able to work. 
THE COLONIZATION OF EPILEPTICS. 
3 4 
FREDERICK PETERSON. 
Wald 
w<aa- 
Wald 
Plan of Grounds and Distribution of 
Buildings at the Bielefeld Epileptic 
Colony. THE COLONIZATION OF EPILEPTICS. 
5 
One of the chief features of the colony is the system of 
decentralization, the division of the patients as much as 
possible into small families, occupying cottages, the sepa- 
ration of the sexes, of the feeble-minded from those with 
normal mental faculties, separation according to age, social 
standing, former occupations, etc.,-a system likewise ap- 
plicable, I may say, to the insane in the ideal psychopathic 
hospitals of the future, and already to some extent applied 
in the Saxon institution Alt-Scherbitz, and in the new 
Manicomio di Roma. 
For the purpose of securing a sufficient number of male 
and female nurses, and of a superior order of kindly and 
sympathetic care, it was deemed expedient to found at the 
Bielefeld Colony also nurses' training schools, and as a 
result of this, not only have they well-trained brothers and 
sisters forming an order of deacons and deaconesses for 
their own use, but they have been enabled to supply vari- 
ous hospitals and insane asylums with a high class of care- 
takers. For my own part, and from my experience in 
institutions, I shall always feel that the highest order of 
care and nursing for such unfortunates as the insane and 
epileptics can only be obtained by the employment of those 
who enter upon these most arduous of duties from a deeply 
religious motive. 
To observe more closely the variety of employments in 
vogue, one must make a personal visit to this remarkable 
colony, which I did in the Winter of 1886-'87. 
We find here schools in which instruction is given in all 
the branches usually taught in ordinary public schools; 
and to those who desire these, opportunities for higher 
studies in languages, arts and sciences are granted, many 
of the richer patients even employing private tutors for this 
purpose. 
In the sewing-room, singing or being read to, may be 
seen sixty or more young women, making and repairing 
clothing, knitting stockings, doing useful fancy work, man- 
ufacturing wearing apparel and bed clothes. 
In the kitchen and in the vegetable garden they may be 
seen busy with the preparation of meals, and the proper 6 
FREDERICK PETERSON. 
rearing of garden produce. The bedrooms, dormitories and 
dining-rooms, the laundries, drying and ironing-rooms, 
furnish occupation for a very large number of other women. 
The men naturally have greater variety of employment. 
There are the book store, printing establishment and book 
bindery; a room for those who delight in illuminating 
picture-cards and mottoes for mural decoration, a favorite 
art everywhere in Germany ; at the bindery, pictures are 
framed, books bound, envelopes made, and some leather 
work done; the books printed are in particular popular 
works for the dissemination of moral and religious instruc- 
tion ; twenty men are employed at this work. Floriculture, 
agriculture and fruit-raising require large numbers of em- 
ployees, particularly so, since so much flower and vegetable 
seed-produce is garnered, put in packages and shipped and 
sold from their own seed-store. 
A joinery, bakery, tailor-shop, paint-shop, locksmith- 
shop, blacksmith-shop, foundry, tin-shop, shoe-shop, sad- 
dlery, dairy, brick-yard, drug-store and grocery, all provide 
occupation to numberless inhabitants of this colony, even 
to some suffering also from old hemiplegias. 
Some of the houses have been planned by epileptic 
architects, the brick made by sixty epileptic patients at the 
brick-kiln, the masonry done by epileptic workmen, the 
woodwork made by their own carpenters, the ironwork by 
their own smiths, the painting, glazing, furnishing by their 
own adepts in these various trades. 
For men alone there are over thirty different callings. 
From this it will be seen how noble was the conception 
of this truly philanthropic institution. And not only in 
manifold employment has the genius of its conceiver been 
made manifest, but in all things that might tend to distract 
the minds of the patients from themselves and their mis- 
fortunes. Games and amusements are many, walks in the 
gardens, out-of-door sports, evening entertainments, sing- 
ing schools, an orchestra made up from their own number, 
a museum for the collection of stamps, coins, gems, auto- 
graphs, bronzes, antiquities, articles of ethnographic or 
historical interest, and specimens from the animal, vege- THE COLONIZATION OF EPILEPTICS. 
7 
table and mineral kingdoms-all have been carefully 
thought out for the perfect evolution of this little social 
world. 
When the evil disorder attacks one in the field or gar- 
den, willing hands are near to attend to him, and every 
workshop has its mattress within convenient reach on 
occasions of emergency. 
To sum up the objects of this colony, it is in the first 
place a hospital for the cure of epilepsy, and attempts at 
cure are made upon every patient without exception. It is 
a school for the instruction and education of epileptic 
children. It is an industrial institute for epileptic youths 
and adults. It is an asylum for those who become demented 
from the effects of the disease. 
Although the colony is under the domination of the 
•church, and has a Lutheran pastor at its head (I do not 
know that a physician or ordinary layman with his more 
sordid purposes would be as efficient a superintendent), 
three physicians are employed to supervise the medicinal 
treatment, one of whom is resident in the colony. 
Treatment of Epilepsy.-It is to be expected that, 
something should have been learned of the best methods of 
treating this disease after an experience of so many years 
with such immense numbers of patients. As a result of the 
experience of the colony, the following is the course now 
pursued: 
1. Employment of mind and body.-This is paramount. 
Out-door work is best. It has already been shown how 
admirable is this therapeutic feature in the Bielefeld colony. 
2. Restrictions in diet.-Food must be plain, not rich, 
and little acid. Spirituous liquors are to be avoided. 
(Smoking is allowed in moderation.) Coffee and tea must 
be weak and mixed with much milk. A good milk diet is 
preferable to meats or soups. Supper should be early and 
light. 
3. Baths.-Cold shower baths gradually prolonged, and 
cold sponge baths are beneficial. 
4. Drags.-Everything recommended in the pharma- 
copeia has been tried as to its efficiency in this disease, and 8 
nothing found to succeed so well as the bromide of potas- 
sium alone. All of the bromide salts have been experi- 
mented with both singly and in combination, and though 
the mixed bromides are often of great value, the potassic 
salt has in every respect proved to be the most satisfactory. 
It has been found that most patients can take it year after 
year without gastric disturbance. It cures some cases, 
lessens the frequency of seizures in most, soothes the ex- 
cited nerves, and serves to diminish the tendency to mental 
enfeeblement. The usual prescription is 
Pot. brom., - - 20 grammes, (3 v.) 
Aquas purse, - - - 200 " (§ vi.) 
Sig-Take one tablespoonful three times daily, immediately after eating, 
for the first week. 
If the seizures diminish in frequency, keep to the same 
dose ; if not, increase to four tablespoonfuls daily in the sec- 
ond week, five in the third week, and so on until eight such 
doses are taken daily if necessary. If eight prove injurious 
mentally or cause severe eruptions, particularly on the legs, 
the dose is again gradually diminished. In rnany cases 
minimal doses only are borne and should then be persisted 
in for indefinite lengths of time. The above dosage is for 
patients over sixteen years of age. From ten to sixteen, 
begin with three tablespoonfuls, but do not exceed five or 
six. Under ten years begin with two such doses daily and 
increase to four. Very young children should be given still 
less. 
Particular pains should be taken to procure a thoroughly 
pure drug, as the bromide generally sold contains impuri- 
ties, such as chlorate of potash and other foreign substances, 
often to the extent of six per cent. An especially pure 
drug is prepared for this colony, containing not above 0.5 
to 0.7 per cent, of foreign matter. 
Even after the cessation of attacks the remedy should 
be persisted in with gradually lessening doses, for as long 
as eight to nine months. 
Other Colonies for Epileptics.-Sine the success- 
ful establishment of the Bielefeld colony, a number of 
FREDERICK PETERSON. THE COLONIZATION OF EPILEPTICS. 
similar institutions for epileptics have sprung into existence 
on the Continent, particularly in the various provinces of 
the German Empire. Among these are Rotenburg also in 
Hanover. 
Mariahilf near Munster and Olpe in Westphalia. 
Alexianer-Kloster at Aix-la-Chapelle and Rath near 
Dusseldorf for the Rhinish province. 
Neinstedt-Thale for Saxony. 
Tabor near Stettin for Pomerania and Posen. 
Karlshof near Rastenburg for East and West Prussia. 
Potsdam for Brandenburg. 
Haarlem in Holland. 
Zurich in Switzerland. 
Thus the beneficent work is extending im many direc- 
tions, and surely it is time that philanthropic minds should 
in this country also turn their attention to one of the most 
unhappy classes of our people, a class more deserving of 
commiseration, more deserving of the title of "the children 
of the State" than many vicious classes whom we endeavor, 
usually vainly, to reform in large government institutions. 
At the usually accepted ratio of two epileptics per 
thousand of population, the United States have much over 
one hundred thousand persons suffering from this disorder, 
the circumstances and conditions of most of whom are 
such as have been described. There is probably not an 
almshouse or asylum in any county of this Union but has 
a few or many epileptics among its inmates. As far as I 
know there is no institution in this country existing espe- 
cially for this class, save the small beginning recently 
made by the State of Massachusetts in converting a private 
asylum for epileptics into a public one subsidized by the 
Legislature. The New York City Hospital for nervous and 
epileptic, on Blackwell's Island, of which I am one of the 
attending physicians, is hardly to be called a hospital for 
this class alone. 
In New York State there are some 12,000 epileptics. 
The poorer classes have drifted to a large extent into pub- 
lic institutions, chiefly almshouses. In the more important 
State asylums there are now about 300. Utica has 21, 
9 10 
FREDERICK PETERSON. 
Binghamton 80, Middletown 19, Willard 160, and Buffalo 
22. They are far from desirable patients to associate with 
the insane, and are taken into these institutions only 
because there is no other place for them. They are re- 
ceived under a sort of compulsion. 
Dr. J. B. Andrews, superintendent of the Buffalo State 
Asylum, writes me : "I should prefer a separate institution, 
especially for the younger class of epileptics." 
Dr. G. Alder Blumer, superintendent of the Utica State 
Asylum, writes me: "In my opinion there should be a 
special State custodial institution for epileptics." 
Dr. T. S. Armstrong, superintendent of the Binghamton 
State Asylum, writes me: "We have thought there should 
be a separate institution for this class. We find epileptics 
often have a depressing influence upon our other patients." 
Dr. S. H. Talcott, superintendent of the Middletown 
State Asylum, writes me: "Epileptics should not, in my 
judgement, be admitted to general asylums for the insane. 
Hospitals should be constructed especially for their needs." 
New York City which is largely representative of every 
thing in the Union, is also representative of what the 
Republic has done, or rather has failed to do, to mitigate 
the misfortunes from which this class suffer more than any 
other. In the first place a great proportion of epileptics 
are cared for in their own homes, wretched as these may 
be, and seek in large numbers the consolation of treatment 
at our city dispensaries. I know personally of perhaps a 
hundred who are or have been regular attendants in the 
Nervous Departments of the Vanderbilt Clinics and Poly- 
clinic within the past year. 
When even this doubtful solace of idly living at home, 
without education or employment, and of frequenting the 
dispensaries, cannot be continued, the City reluctantly 
extends to them its hospitality-the hopeless comfort of its 
almshouse and its numerous asylums. There are large 
numbers of epileptics in the almshouse on Blackwell's 
Island. My wards in the Nervous Hospital contain some 
fifty within its cheerless walls. There are large numbers in 
the Women's Insane Asylum on Blackwell's Island, in the Men's Insane Asylum on Ward's Island, and other of the 
City's capacious charities open to them some sort of refuge 
from the world's calamities and distress. But the utter 
inadequacy of such institutions to the needs of the epileptic 
is too apparent to require further word of mine. 
This essay has been written in the hope that some pub- 
lic sentiment may be aroused as to the necessities of this 
neglected class of defectives, in the hope that it may prevail 
upon some religious sisterhood, some private philanthropist 
or some public official to provide for the early estab- 
lishment in this or some other State of an epileptic colony, 
which shall become a home for the homeless, a place of 
refuge from many miseries, an educational institute for 
those who are forbidden the public schools, an industrial 
college for those to whom the ordinary avenues of trade 
are closed, a hospital where cure or palliation shall be 
possible, and where the highest scientific minds may be 
enabled to discover sometime a specific against one of the 
most woful of human ills ; in short, a prosperous, industrious 
and thriving community, to serve as a model for many 
other such yet to be founded on this continent. 
THE COLONIZATION OF EPILEPTIC. 
11 
201 West 54th Street.