348 READINGS IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE 



downs in those who appear to be showing symptoms of incipient difficulty. 

 Mental hospitals, or at least the more progressive ones, are centers of re- 

 search and of teaching — a trend which is rapidly developing. 



Even the most vigorous opponents of "state medicine" have always ad- 

 mitted that the care of the mentally ill is a proper function of government. 

 As the public becomes more acutely aware of the true importance of mental 

 disease in the community and the needs of hospitals administering to this 

 group, we may look to see the standards raised and greater efficiency 

 brought about in the humane care and treatment of the mentally disordered. 



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MENTAL DISEASES * 

 BERNARDJAFFE 



"Everywhere, skin deep below our boasted science, we are brought up 

 short by mystery impalpable, and by adamantine gates of transcendental 

 forces and incomprehensible laws." This was Charles Kingsley's reaction 

 to the panorama of the onward march of science, an advance which seemed 

 only to demolish every obstacle in its path. He was thinking of man's ef- 

 forts to banish not only all the multitudinous sicknesses of the body but also 

 the countless tortures of the mind. Millions of souls with their minds in 

 ruins — one out of every twenty-two destined for mental hospitals — is the 

 dark picture which still confronts science as its outstanding challenge to 

 redeem mankind from illness. 



Throughout the ages four furies pursued those frames from which the 

 mind had gone awry. Superstition, nourished on a demonological concep- 

 tion of insanity, burned, harassed, and beat those frames to exorcise the 

 devils playing havoc with their thoughts and behaviors. Skulls were 

 trepanned to allow egress of demons, bats, snakes, crows, vultures, and other 

 animals housed within the sacred precincts of what would otherwise have 

 been rational men. And when the devil was too firmly intrenched and 

 would not leave, thousands of unfortunates, as late as the beginning of the 

 eighteenth century, were burned amidst heinous cries of "witch." 



Brutality, under the cloak of necessity, tortured these "wild beasts" by 

 methods worse than those of the Inquisition, strapped them into choking 

 straight) ackets, shackled them to tranquilizing chairs, crucified them on the 

 bed saddle — a steel cross strapped to the bed — and pinned them down in 

 restraining sheets of canvas. To frighten the insane into submission when 

 they became difficult to manage they were placed in wells where the water 

 rose slowly until it reached their mouths, ice-cold water was poured down 

 their sleeves to the aching armpits, or they were whirled on rapidly rotating 



* Reprinted from Outposts of Science by permission of Simon and Schuster, Inc. 

 Copyright 1935, by Bernard Jaffe. 



