Chapter 8

It is the insanity in chronic form which escapes asylum care and custody except in its exacerbations; it is the insanity of organism which gives so much of the erratic and unstable to society, in its manifestations of mind and morals; it is the form of unstable mental organism which, like an unstrung instrument jangling out of tune and harsh, when touched in a manner to elicit in men of stable organisms only concord of sweet, harmonious sounds; it is the form of mental organism out of which, by slight exciting causes largely imaginary, the Guiteaus and Joan d'Arcs of history are made, the Hawisons and Passanantis and Freemans, and names innumerable, whose deeds of blood have stained the pages of history, and whose doings in our day contribute so largely to the awful calendar of crime which blackens and spreads with gore the pages of our public press.

We may cherish the sentiment that it were base cowardice to lay hand upon the lunatic save in kindness; and yet restrain him from himself and the community from him. We may couple his restraints with the largest liberty compatible with his welfare and ours; we may not always abolish the bolts and bars, indeed we cannot, either to his absolute personal liberty in asylums or to his entire moral freedom without their walls, yet we may keep them largely out of sight. Let him be _manacled when he must and only when he must_, and then only with silken cords bound by affectionate hands, and not by chains. We may not open all the doors, indeed we cannot, but we can and do, thanks to the humanitarian spirit of the age in which we live, open many of them and so shut them, when it must need be done, that they close for _his_ welfare and ours only; that he may not feel that hope is gone or humanity barred out with the shutting of the door that separates him from the world.

We may not always swing the door of the lunatic as facilely outward as inward--the nature of his malady will not always admit of this--but we should do it whenever we can, and never, when we must, should we close it harshly. And while we must needs narrow his liberty among ourselves, we should enlarge it in the community to which his affliction assigns him, to the fullest extent permissible by the nature of his malady.

Liberty need not necessarily be denied him; and to the glory of our age it is not in the majority of American asylums for the insane, because the conditions under which he may safely enjoy liberty, to his own and the community's welfare, are changed by disease. The free sunlight and the fresh air belong as much to him in his changed mental estate as to you or me, and more, because his affliction needs their invigorating power, and the man who would chain, in this enlightened age, an insane man in a dungeon, because he is diseased and troublesome or dangerous, would be unworthy the name of human. Effective restraint may be employed without the use of either iron manacles or dismal light and air excluding dungeons.

The insane man is one of our comrades who has fallen mentally maimed in the battle of life. It may be our turn next to follow him to the rear; but because we must carry him from the battlefield, where he may have fought even more valiantly than ourselves, we need not forget or neglect him. The duty is all the more imperative that we care for him, and in such a manner that he may, if possible, be restored. Simple sequestration of the insane man is an outrage upon him and upon our humanity. "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them," is the divine precept, which, if we follow it as we ought, will lead us to search for our fallen comrades in the alms-houses and penal institutions and reformatories, and sometimes in the outhouses or cellars of private homes, to our shame, where errors of judgment or cruelty have placed them, and to transfer them to places of larger liberty and hopes of happiness and recovery. The chronic insane are entitled to our care, not to our neglect, and to all the comforts they earned while battling with us, when in their best mental estate, for their common welfare and ours.

Almshouses and neglected outhouses are not proper places for them. They are entitled to our protection and to be so cared for, if we cannot cure them, as that they may not do those things, to their own harm or the harm of the race, which they would not do if they were sound in mind. Society must be protected against the spread of hereditary insanity, hence such kindly surveillance, coupled with the largest possible liberty, should be exercised over them as will save posterity, so far as practicable, from the entailment of a heritage more fatal than cancer or consumption.

The insane man is a changed man, and his life is more or less delusional. In view of this fact, we should endeavor always to so surround him that his environments may not augment the morbid change in him and intensify his perverted, delusioned character.

Realizing the fact that mind in insanity is rather perverted than lost, we should so deport ourselves toward the victims of this disease as in no wise to intensify or augment the malady, but always, if possible, so as to ameliorate or remove it.

Realizing that the insane man in his best estate may have walked the earth a king, and in this free country of ours have been an honored sovereign weighted with the welfare of his people, and contributing of his substance toward our charities, we should, with unstinting hand, cater to his comfort when this affliction comes upon him.

We should give him a home worthy of our own sovereign selves, and such as would suit us were we providing for ourselves, with the knowledge we have of the needs of this affliction, pending its approach to us.

That his home should be as unirritating and restful to him as possible it should be unprison-like always, and only be an imprisonment when the violent phases of his malady imperatively demand restraint. An hour of maniacal excitement does not justify a month of chains. Mechanical restraint is a remedy of easy resort, but the fettered man frets away strength essential to his recovery. Outside of asylums direct restraint is often a stern necessity. It is sometimes so in them, but in many of them and outside of all of them it may be greatly diminished, and asylums may be so constructed as to make the reduction of direct restraint practicable to the smallest minimum. Direct mechanical restraint for the insane, save to avert an act of violence not otherwise preventable, is never justifiable. The hand should never be manacled if the head can be so influenced as to stay it, and we should try to stay the hand through steadying the head.

Every place for these unfortunates should provide for them ample room and congenial employment, whether profitable to the State or not, and the labor should be induced, not enforced, and always timed and suited to their malady. A variety of interesting occupations tends to divert from delusional introspection.

Most institutions attempt to give their patients some occupation, but State policy should be liberal in this direction.

Deductions are obvious: Every insane community of mixed recent and long standing cases, or of chronic cases exclusively, should be a home, and not a mere place of detention. It should be as unprison-like and attractive as any residence for the non-criminal. It should have for any considerable number of insane persons at least a section (640 acres) of ground. It should be in the country, of course, but accessible to the supplies of a large city. It should have a central main building, as architecturally beautiful and substantial as the State may choose to make it, provided with places of security for such as require them in times of excitement, with a chapel, amusement hall, and hospital in easy covered reach of the feeble and decrepit, and accessible, without risk to health, in bad weather.

Outhouses should be built with rooms attached, and set apart from the residence of trustworthy patients, for farmer, gardener, dairyman, herdsman, shepherd, and engineer, that those who desired to be employed with them, and might safely be intrusted, and were physically able, could have opportunity of work.

Cottages should be scattered about the ground for the use and benefit of such as might enjoy a segregate life, which could be used for isolation in case of epidemic visitation. Recreation, games, drives, and walks should be liberally provided.

A perfect, but not direct and offensive, surveillance should be exercised over all the patients, with a view to securing them the largest possible liberty compatible with the singular nature of their malady.

In short, the hospital home for the chronic insane, or when acute and chronic insane are domiciled together, should be a colonial home, with the living arrangements as nearly those which would be most congenial to a large body of sane people as the condition of the insane, changed by disease, will allow.

It is as obvious as that experience demonstrates it, that the reigning head or heads of such a community should be medical, and not that medical mediocrity either which covets and accepts political preferment without medical qualifications.

The largest personal liberty to the chronic insane may be best secured to them by provision for the sexes in widely separated establishments.

It is plain that the whole duty of man is not discharged toward his fallen insane brother when he has accomplished his sequestration from society at large, or fed and housed him well. The study of the needs of the insane and of the duty of the State in regard to them is as important and imperative a study as any subject of political economy.

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THE COURAGE OF ORIGINALITY.

Most of us are at times conscious of hearing from the lips of another, or reading from the printed page, thoughts that have existed previously in our own minds. They may have been vague and unarranged, but still they were our own, and we recognize them as old friends, though dressed in a more fitting and expressive costume than we ever gave them. Sometimes an invention or a discovery dawns upon the world to bless and improve it, and while all are engaged in extolling it some persons feel that they have had its germs floating in their minds, though from the lack of favorable conditions, or some other cause, they never took root or became vital. An act of heroism is performed, and a bystander is conscious that he has that within him by which he could have taken the same step, although he did not. Some one steps forward and practically opposes a social custom that is admitted to be evil, yet maintained, and by his influence lays the ax to its root and commences its destruction; while many, commending his courage, wonder why they had not taken the same course long ago. In numberless instances we are conscious of having had the same perceptions, the same ideas, the same powers, and the same desires to put them into practice that are shown by the one who has so successfully expressed them; yet they have, for some reason, lain dormant and inoperative within us.

When we consider the waste of human power that this involves, we may well search for its cause. Doubtless it sometimes results from the absorption (more or less needful) of each one is his individual pursuit. No one can give voice to all he thinks, or accomplish all that he sees to be desirable, while striving, as he should, to gain excellence in his own chosen work. Conscious of his own limitations, he will rejoice to see many of his vague ideas, hopes, and aspirations reached and carried out by others. But the same consciousness that reconciles him to this also reveals much that he _might_ have said or done without violating any other obligation, but which he has allowed to slip from his hands to those of another, perhaps through lack of energy, or indolence, or procrastination. The cause, however, most operative in this direction is a strange disloyalty to our own convictions. We look to others, especially to what we call great men, for thoughts, suggestions, and opinions, and gladly adopt them on their authority. But our own thoughts we ignore or treat with indifference. We admire and honor originality in others, but we value it not in ourselves. On the contrary, we are satisfied to make poor imitations of those we revere, missing the only resemblance that is worth anything, that of a simple and sincere independent life.

We would not undervalue modesty or recommend self-sufficiency. We should always be learners, gladly welcoming every help, and respecting every personality. But we should also respect our own, and bear in mind, that "though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to us but through our toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to us to till." To undervalue our own thought because it is ours, to depreciate our own powers or faculties because some one else's are more vigorous, to shrink from doing what we can because we think we can do so little, is to hinder our own development and the progress of the world. For it is only by exercise that any faculty is strengthened, and only by each one putting his shoulder to the wheel that the world moves and humanity advances.

There is nothing more insidious than the spirit of conformity, and nothing more quickly paralyzes the best parts of a man. A gleam of truth illuminates his mind, and forthwith he proceeds to compare it with the prevailing tone of his community or his set. If it agree not with that, he distrusts and perhaps disowns it; it is left to perish, and he to that extent perishes with it. By and by, when some one more independent, more truth-loving, more courageous than himself arises to proclaim and urge the same thing that he was half ashamed to acknowledge, he will regret his inglorious fear of being in the minority. We are accustomed to think that greatness always denotes exceptional powers, yet most of the world's great men have rather been distinguished by an invincible determination to work out the best that was within them. They have acted, spoken, or thought according to their own natures and judgment, without any wavering hesitation as to the probable verdict of the world. They were loyal to the truth that was in them, and had faith in its ultimate triumph; they had a mission to fulfill, and it did not occur to them to pause or to falter. How many more great men should we have were this spirit universal, and how much greater would each one of us be if, in a simple straightforward manner, we frankly said and did the best that we knew, without fear or favor? Soon would be found gifts that none had dreamed of, powers that none had imagined, and heroism that was thought impossible. As Emerson well says, "He who knows that power is inborn, that he is weak because he has looked for good out of him and elsewhere, and so perceiving throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly rights himself, stands in the erect position, commands his limbs, works miracles, just as a man who stands on his feet is stronger than a man who stands on his head."--_Phil. Ledger._

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A CIRCULAR BOWLING ALLEY.

The arcades under the elevated railroad which runs transversely through Berlin are used as storehouses, stores, saloons, restaurants, etc., and are a source of considerable income to the railway company. The owner of one of the restaurants in the arcades decided to provide his place with a bowling alley, but found that he could not command the requisite length, 75 ft., and so he had to arrange it in some other way. A civil engineer named Kiebitz constructed a circular bowling alley for him, which is shown in the annexed cut taken from the _Illustrirte Zeitung_. The alley is built in the shape of a horse-shoe, and the bottom or bed on which the balls roll is hollowed out on a curved line, the outer edge of the bed being raised to prevent the balls from being thrown off the alley by centrifugal force.

The balls are rolled from one end of the alley, describe a curved line, and then strike the pins placed at the opposite end of the alley. No return track for the balls is required, and all that is necessary is to roll the balls from one end of the alley to the other. A recording slate, the tables for the guests, etc., are arranged between the two shanks or legs of the alley.

It is evident that a person cannot play as accurately on an alley of this kind as on a straight alley; but if a ball is thrown with more or less force, it will roll along the inner or outer edge of the alley and strike the group of pins a greater or less distance from the middle. A room 36 ft. in length is of sufficient size for one of these alleys.

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PATENT OFFICE EXAMINATION OF INVENTIONS.

_To the Editor of the Scientific American:_

It is with considerable surprise that the writer has just perused the editorial article in your issue of March the 28th--"Patent Office Examinations of Novelty of Inventions" It seems to me that the ground taken therein is diametrically opposed to the views heretofore promulgated in your journal on this subject, and no less so to the interests of American inventors; and it appears difficult to understand why the abolition of examinations for novelty by the Patent Office should be recommended in face of the fact that the acknowledged small fees now exacted from inventors are sufficient to provide a much greater force of examiners than are now employed on that work. If inventors were asking the government to appropriate money for this purpose, the case would be quite different; although it may be shown, I think, that Congress would be fully justified in disposing of no inconsiderable portion of the public money in this way, should it ever become necessary.

Recognizing the fact that the patent records of all countries, as well as cognate publications, are rapidly on the increase--and particularly in this country--making an examination for novelty a continuously increasing task, and that the time must come when such an examination cannot be made at all conclusively without a vastly increased amount of labor, from the very magnitude of the operation, it is nevertheless true that this difficulty menaces the inventor to a much greater extent, if imposed upon him to make, than it can ever possibly do an institution like the Patent Office.

Dividing and subdividing patent subjects into classes and sub-classes, and systematizing examinations to the extent it may be made to reach in the Patent Office, may, for a very long time to come, place this matter within the possibility of a reasonably good and conclusive search being made without additional cost to the inventor, provided what he now pays is all devoted to the furtherance of the Patent Office business. If, however, we hereafter make no examinations for novelty, an inventor is obliged to either make such a search for himself--with all the disadvantages of unfamiliarity with the best methods, inaccessibility to records, and incurring immensely more work than is required of the Patent Office examiner, who has everything pertaining thereto at his fingers' ends--or blindly pay his fees and take his patent under the impression that he is the first inventor, and run every risk of being beaten in the courts should any one essay to contest his claims; the probabilities of his being so beaten increasing in proportion as the number of inventions increase.

The inventor pays to have this work done for him at the Patent Office in the only feasible way it can be thoroughly done; and the average inventor would, or should, be willing to have the present fees very largely increased, if necessary, rather than have the examinations for novelty abolished at the Patent Office; for, in the event of their abolition, it would cost him immensely more money to secure himself, as before the courts, by his own unaided and best attainable methods.

The inventor now, however, pays to the Patent Office, as you well know, a good deal more money every year than the present cost of examinations, including of course all other Patent Office business; seeing a part of what he pays yearly covered into the Treasury as surplus, while his application is unreasonably delayed for the lack of examiner force in the Patent Office.

Let the government first apply all the moneys received at the Patent Office to its legitimate purpose, including the making of these examinations, and, when this proves insufficient, you may depend that every inventor will cheerfully consent to the increase of fees, sufficient to insure the continuance of thorough examinations for novelty, rather than attempt to do this work himself or take the chances of his having reinvented some old device (which it is very well known occurs over and over again every day), and being beaten upon the very first contest in the courts, after, perhaps, investing large amounts of money, time, and anxiety over something which he thus discovers was invented, perhaps, before he was born.

For an inventor to obtain a patent worth having, and one that is not more likely to be a source of expenditure than income to him, if contested, it goes without saying that examination for novelty must be made either by himself or some competent person or persons for him; and it is strictly proper and just that the inventor should pay for it; and it is too self-evident a proposition to admit of argument that the organized and systematized methods of the Patent Office can do it at a tithe of the expense which would be incurred in doing it in any other way; in point of fact, it would be impossible to do it by any other means so effectually or so well within any reasonable amount of cost.

Your summing up of the case should, instead of the way you put it, read: The Commissioner of Patents attempts to perform for two-thirds the sum paid as fees by inventors what he is paid three-thirds to accomplish, so that one-third of it may go to swell the surplus of the United States Treasury, and finds it an impracticable task to ascertain the novelty of an invention in a reasonable time for such a sum. To perform it, however imperfectly, he feels authorized to delay the granting; of patents, sometimes for several months, simply because Congress will not allow him to apply the moneys paid by inventors to their legitimate purpose.

I have had, for several years, always more or less applications on file at the Patent Office for inventions in my particular line, and now have several pending; and probably there are few, if any, who have suffered more from the great delays lately obtaining at that institution than myself, particularly in connection with taking out foreign patents for the same inventions, and so timing the issue of them here and abroad as not to prejudice either one. But great as the annoyance and cost have been in consequence of these delays, I would infinitely prefer that it were ten times as great, rather than see the examinations for novelty abolished by the United States Patent Office; and, so far as I know and believe, in this preference I most completely voice that of inventors in general.

JOHN T. HAWKINS. Taunton, Mass., March 28th, 1885.