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174 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Canadian asylums. He approached it at first very properly with great 

 hesitation and caution, but it only required a few weeks' practical study 

 of the subject to convince him that all that had been said by the 

 advocates of the system was well founded, and restraint in the London 

 Asylum became a thing of the past. Dr. Bucke did not burn his 

 restraint apparatus with religious ceremonies, nor make any flourish 

 of trumpets about it. When tlie proper time came, he simply an- 

 nounced that after eighteen months' trial of absolute non-restraint in 

 an asylum having a population of nine hundred patients he had found 

 the system to be all that had been claimed for it, and that he was 

 new unable to conceive of a case where mechanical restraint, except 

 for surgical reasons, would be necessary; would not be, in fact, posi- 

 tively harmful to the patient. Dr. Bucke's example was slowly fol- 

 lowed by others, until now in this province restraint appliances are 

 unlvnown, and one after another the doctors give in their testimony 

 to the great value of this reform, which was commenced by Connolly 

 and Pinel half a century ago." 



With the abolition of restraint may be said to have disappeared 

 the last trace of the ancient method of treatment of the insane. The 

 Bedlam of history is a thing of the past. Except for the protection 

 of patients against themselves, the straight-waistcoat is no longer in 

 use. Patients are treated as human beings. The law of love has 

 been found effective with them as with the rest of humanity. 



It is gratifying to be assured that the increased proportion of 

 cures effected bears its due relation to the improvement in methods of 

 treatment. 



16. 



It was a work of time to persuade the medical profession 

 at large, that alcohol as a medicine was, as a rule, nnneoessary and 

 even positively injurious. The practice of eminent physicians such 

 as Sir Benjamin Eichardson and Sir William Gull in discountenancing 

 its use in many cases was, no doubt, a strong factor in inducing Dr. 

 Bucke to abandon it altogether. In his first or second year at London, 

 he experimented by reducing the number of patients to whom beer, 

 wine or whiskey was regularly served, and watching carefully the 

 effect. In 1879 he closed the spirit rations entirely. The result 

 warranted his action. " The health of the asylum was never better. 

 I doubt if it w^as ever as good." The death rate was smaller; the 

 percentage of recoveries higher. 



So impressed was he with the importance of the results effected, 

 that he brought the matter before the Dominion Medical Association 



