72 On the Lunatic Asylums in the United States. 



safety and that of his keepers. In no case is deception on the pa- 

 tient employed or allowed— on the contrary, the greatest frank- 

 ness, as well as kindness, forms a part of the moral treatment. 

 His case is explained to him, and he is made to understand, as 

 far as possible, the reasons why the treatment to which he is sub- 

 jected has become necessary. 



44 By this course of intellectual management, it has been found, 

 as a matter of experience at our Institution, that patients, who 

 had always been raving, when confined without being told the rea- 

 son, and refractory, when commanded instead of being entreated, 

 soon became peaceable and docile. 



44 This kind of treatment of course does not apply to idiots, or 

 those laboring under low grades of mental imbecility, but it is 

 applicable to every other class of mental diseases, whether mani- 

 acal or melancholic. 



44 In respect to the medical and dietetic treatment, it also varies 

 essentially in the main, from the course adopted at other hospitals. 

 Formerly patients labouring under mental diseases were largely 

 medicated, chiefly by emetics, cathartics and bleeding. At the 

 present time this mode of treatment has given place to intellectual 

 and dietetic regimen, in most European hospitals. The physi- 

 cian of our Institution has introduced a course of practice, dif- 

 fering from both these, but partaking more or less of each. He 

 combines moral and medical treatment founded upon the princi- 

 ples of mental philosophy and physiology. In one class of cases 

 moral, and in another medical treatment, become the paramount 

 remedies, but in each class of cases, both are combined." 



With respect to the chronic cases, Dr. Todd remarks, 44 that 

 the Connecticut Retreat is opened with a broader latitude of ad- 

 mission than is common to other institutions." 



44 The far-famed Retreat at York in England, professedly de- 

 voted to similar objects, admits no idiots, nor maniacal cases re- 

 duced to low grades of mental dilapidation. Of the thirty-four 

 chronic cases stated in the present report, (3d year) nineteen are of 

 the identical description which would have been excluded by the 

 practice of that excellent institution. The remaining fifteen cases 

 on the list, constituted the whole amount in that class, who were 

 properly within the scope of curative treatment, and of this num- 

 ber, only a few were allowed to remain with us through the requis- 

 ite term of trial prescribed, in such instances, by most other insti- 

 tutions. Six months' residence in the Retreat, has been thought 



