INSANITY. 337 



Members of that community using the practical common- 

 sense benevolence for which they are so justly celebrated 

 did not complain so loudly as many others whose concern in 

 the matter was less direct. They did better they established 

 an asylum of their own, under the title of the York Retreat ;* 

 and within the walls of this place the non-restraint system 

 was first initiated in these isles.f Slowly, other institutions 

 adopted the non-restraint system ; until the last traces of the 

 old regime vanished from amongst us. At the present time, 

 we English have gone beyond even the most advanced con- 

 tinental nations in the adoption of measures of humanity to 

 the insane. Amongst us, for example, the strait- waistcoat 

 has been wholly discontinued in asylums ; whereas on the 

 Continent it is still used in extreme cases. Seeing this is 

 so, the question will suggest itself to minds new to the con- 

 templation of insanity and its treatment, how the violently- 

 demented are to be treated during the paroxysm of violence. 

 The plan adopted is simple ; founded on an appreciation of 

 the obvious truism, that no paroxysm of temper and raving 

 madness is nothing more will last permanently, if it meet with 

 no opposition. 



Dr. Conolly draws a vivid picture of the phases of mental 

 change w r hich occur to a raving maniac under the system of 

 non-restraint, which he was among the first to inaugurate in 

 this country. He desires the reader to imagine to himself a 

 patient brought to an asylum strait-waistcoated or strapped- 

 down to a stretcher. The patient is furious, as well he 

 may be, insanity or no insanity. No insanity! The poet 

 did not err when he wrote us down all insane. The experi- 

 ence of nearly 2,000 years has neither added nor detracted 

 by one jot or tittle from the aphorism of the Eoman satirist. 

 It is now exactly as then 



* The chief promoter was the late William Tuke, of York. 



f Neither the Tukes nor Pinel wholly did away with mechanical restraint. 

 Charlesworth attempted that ; and Gardiner Hill first carried it out at Lin- 

 coln. 



