46 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



treatment of the sick that the hospital benefits not only by the more 

 efficient service rendered, but also by the attraction of a superior class 

 of applicants for the positions. "Much has been accomplished in 

 rescuing the insane from chains, gloomy cells and scourgings," says 

 Letchworth, "but the measure of reform in their behalf will not be 

 complete until there is no possibility of their being subjected to the 

 humours of ignorant, unfeeling and incompetent attendants." That 

 training schools are an efficient means of accomplishing this reform 

 there can be no doubt. 



A most notable advance in the treatment of the insane was the 

 introduction of the system of non-restraint — the disuse of all mechan- 

 ical devices for restraining the freedom of bodily movement. This 

 was first demonstrated to be practicable by Mr. Gardner Hill at the 

 Lincoln Asylum, England, in 1836, and Dr. Connolly put the system 

 into full operation at Hanwell in 1840. At first ridiculed as "the 

 freak of an enthusiastic mind, that would speedily go the way of all 

 such new-fangled notions" it was bitterly opposed for years by the 

 superintendents of the large county asylums of England, and to Dr. 

 Connolly is due the honor of having demonstrated its practicability 

 and of having overcome after a prolonged struggle the opposition and 

 prejudice against it. Men like Todd, Woodward, Butler, Ray — names 

 memorable in the history of American psychiatry — were not unmind- 

 ful of the remedial value of sympathetic and kindly treatment, and, 

 while the controversy over non-restraint was waged abroad, were 

 independently carrying out the same humane doctrine and conducting 

 their institutions on the same 'enlightened principles of conciliation 

 and kindness.' At the present day the system of absolute non-restraint 

 is more in vogue in England than here where the necessity for some 

 form of restraining appliance is still maintained to exist in certain 

 instances. But it is evident from the annual reports of the American 

 hospitals that the use of restraint is lessening each year. In some 

 institutions it is entirely abolished; in all it is used to a very limited 

 extent and only upon the order of the attending physician. The 

 means of restraint employed consist chiefly of the canvas camisole to 

 restrain the movements of the hands and arms, the canvas or leather 

 muff for the hands and the use of a strong sheet fastened across the bed 

 if the patient is not in a conditon to be up and about the rooms. In 

 place of the sheet the hands and the feet may be restrained while 

 the patient is in bed by soft rolls of cheesecloth. 



The most recent advance in the care of the acute insane is in the 

 movement toward the establishment of psychopathic hospitals for treat- 

 ment and for clinical and pathological research in or near the large 

 centers of population. In this most advanced work Europe has taken 

 the lead, and such hospitals have been in existence for some years in 



