Body: | Husbands who committed their unwanted wives to a mental hospitals
Historic psychiatric false imprisonment
"Wife-be-gone"
Wanna get rid of your disobedient, naggy or rich wife? Commit her to a Mad House against her will!
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Even if the myth that schizophrenia is a medical condition (instead of behaviour) were true, it is illegal to force medical treatment on someone against their will. A doctor who forces treatment or drugs a non-consenting person who knows they are sick will go to jail even if it saves their life. A psychiatrist who commits someone who is suicidal to an asylum and force drugs them is guilty of a double crime. Psychiatric committal is a violation of the criminal code and doctor-patient ethics.
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Introduction:
If you want to learn how to commit your unwanted, disobedient, naggy
or rich wife to a mental hospital, you have come to the right place. The
first thing you need is a time machine set to the date 1725 AD! But it is
going to cost you a lot of money! We also don't recommend it, since it is
immoral and breaks several of the 10 commandments!
If you had the money, you could get almost anyone committed to a mad
house for almost any reason!
The rise of wicked husbands throwing their virtuous, rich wives in
jail began around 1720 AD. First you have Haywood's novel "Love in a
mad-house" in 1726, then in 1728 AD, Daniel Defoe, writes about this evil
in his, "Augusta Triumphans".
It is clear that mad houses were systems of social control: "As
Foucault points out in Madness and Civilization, the mental hospital
emerged during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as a means of
social control." (The distress'd orphan or, Love in a mad-house, Eliza
Haywood, 1726 AD, introduction by Deborah Nestor, 1995)
"It is likely that outrages did occur, due to the deficiencies of
the legislation; the machinations of self-interested and malicious
relatives or associates of the alleged lunatic; the conduct of
unscrupulous, mercenary proprietors and the complicity of ignorant and
corrupt medical men, who signed the necessary certificates." (The Trade in
Lunacy, William Ll. Parry-Jones, 1972 AD, p 290)
Men like Alexander Cruden, the man of God who created "Cruden's
concordance", was cast into a mental house three times because he would go
around like John the Baptist and condemn the ruling class of sin,
corruption and adultery! In a twisted kind of way, it cost both of them
their "heads"!
The poor "street people" were cast into asylums to clean of the
streets and parks of lazy, dirty vagrants.
There were many people in these asylums that were intelligent and
sane, like the case of William Norris in 1815 AD below in the Report From
The Committee On Madhouses In England, 1815 AD, Testimony of A. Mr. E.
Wakefield.
Women were expected to be "quiet, respectful and submissive" to
their husbands like the Bible says and when they rebelled and disobeyed,
their husbands punished them by casting them into a mental hospital. This
is wrong. The Bible does not authorize husbands to punish their wives! Of
course, biblical submission of women to their husbands is something the
husband has no control over. It is entirely up to the wife to chose to obey
her husband. If she refuses to submit to her husband, there is nothing the
Bible says he is to do. But the men of the 17th century sinned by
attempting to force their wives into submission. Submission is always a
free will thing.
Many women were cast into mental hospitals because they were not
obedient or would not conform to social standards of the day. "hostility to
ordinary middle-class values is associated instantly, automatically, with
insanity; and insanity with confinement." (The distress'd orphan or, Love
in a mad-house, Eliza Haywood, 1726 AD, introduction by Deborah Nestor,
1995)
Sometimes wives were cast into the mental hospital so they could not
inherit their own or their husband's family fortune! Other times husbands
cast their rich wives into prison in order to get their wives fortune!
On the other hand, there were cases of wives faking mental illness
in order to escape their duties. These were committed to mental hospitals
by loving husbands trying to fix their broken wives. The treatments that
seemed to cure were moral treatment like water boarding as seen in Patrick
Blair's cure of a wife who was "mad, neglected every thing, ... kept her
room, would converse with nobody but kept spitting continually". see Cure
of Mad Persons by the Fall of Water, Patrick Blair, 1725 AD. "But the Irish
physician Patrick Blair was equally clear that a wife's refusing to love
her husband was a sign of madness, and that her saying, after the most
horrendous treatment, that she would do so after all and would go to his
bed that night was therefore a sure sign of her cure." (Patterns of Madness
in the Eighteenth Century, A Reader, Allan Ingram, 1998 AD, p 120)
See the case of "Waterfall" where a woman who hates her husband goes
insane but is cured by torture.
A. Play written in 1726 AD "Love in a mad-house"
Here is the link to more: The distress'd orphan or, Love in a
mad-house, Eliza Haywood, 1726 AD
This play written by a woman exposing the common habit of husbands
and relatives sending their wives to the mad house!
It was very typical of the time and the depiction of the mad house
is typical of what continued at real mad houses like Bedlam.
"The Distress'd Orphan focuses on a young woman whose wicked
guardian locks her up when she refuses to comply with his matrimonial plans
for her. ... In the eighteenth century, the fear of wrongful incarceration
and the potential loss of sanity that might accompany it was not entirely
imaginary, especially for women. ... Daniel Defoe, among the earliest of
such critics, addresses the issue in the Review (1706) and in Augusta
Triumphans (1728) where he documents several cases of women incarcerated in
private madhouses by their relatives for financial or sexual convenience.
... Thirty-five years later, the medically unjustified confinement of women
in such institutions was still commonplace according to a 1763
parliamentary committee's published report on the abuses of the private
madhouse: all but one of the cases reported by the committee involve women
committed by relatives - usually husbands-for no valid medical reason.
Looking beyond the immediate financial considerations that might motivate a
husband or family to commit an unwanted heiress, Max Byrd argues that many
of these women "are put away because they have refused to be good bourgeois
daughters," and he suggests that, in many eighteenth-century minds,
rebellion against accepted ideological beliefs constituted grounds for
imprisonment: "hostility to ordinary middle-class values is associated
instantly, automatically, with insanity; and insanity with confinement." As
Foucault points out in Madness and Civilization, the mental hospital
emerged during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as a means of
social control. In England the private madhouse was an especially powerful
instrument for those with funds to pay for such incarceration of friends,
enemies, or relatives." (The distress'd orphan or, Love in a mad-house,
Eliza Haywood, 1726 AD, introduction by Deborah Nestor, 1995)
"The Hour appointed for the Execution of this Enterprize being near
at hand [ie the time she was cast into the mental hospital], Giraldo
order'd all his Family to retire to their. Beds, except one Servant, in
whom he plac'd great Confidence, and was the same who occation'd his
discovering the Correspondence between Marathon and Annilia, by giving him
Intelligence out of what place he had seen Ofepha come. The unhappy Niece
of this barbarous Man was compell'd to rise out of her Bed, where the was
sleeping as secure as her Discontents and Fears would let her, and oblig'd
to put on her Clothes at that unseasonable Hour ; not that the would have
done it at his requeft, but the appearance of all thofe ill-look'd Fellows
in her Chamber, (he having without any regard to Decency, or the Modefty of
her Sex, brought them to her Bed-side made her, with all the haste the
could, throw on a loose Night-Gown, which the had no fooner done, than like
a Lamb among a Herd of Wolves, the was feiz'd by there inhuman Ruffians;
and fome stopping her Mouth, and threatning her if the attempted to refill
; and another taking hold of her, the was rather dragg'd than carry'd down
Stairs, and thrust into the Coach, where the three Keepers immediately
crowding in, render'd frustrate all the faint Hopes the had conceived of
escaping. She saw little of the Horrors of her Prison that Night, every
Wretch, whom either the Malice of their false Friends, or the Misfortune of
their own Distemper, had brought there, being close lock'd into their
several Apartments; and all the Family, who profited by their Misery,
retir'd to Bed, except two Women-Servants, who humouring this new guest in
all the Extravagancies her Wrongs enforc'd her to utter, made her know that
it was to a Mad-Houfe the was brought, and that they took her for one
labouring under that unhappy Circumstance. They compelled her to go into a
Bed they had prepar'd for her, but 'tis not to be imagin'd the could admit
the Approach of Sleep that Night; and earlier than the Day, was the
disturb'd with Sounds, which struck so great a Dread into her, that nothing
is more strange, than that she did nor die with the Fright, or fall indeed
into that Disorder of which the was accus'd. The rattling of Chains, the
Shrieks of those severely treated by their barbarous Keepers, mingled with
Curses, Oaths, and the most blasphemous Imprecations, did from one quarter
of the House shock her tormented Ears while from another, Howlings like
that of Dogs, Shoutings, Roarings, Prayers, Preaching, Curses, Singing,
Crying, promiscuously join'd to make a Chaos of the most horrible
Confusion: but the Violence of this Uproar continued not long, it being
only occasion'd by the &II Entrance of the Keepers into the Cells of those
Wretches who were really Lunatick, and had, for the Addition of their
Anguish, so much Remains of Sense, as to know what they were to suffer at
the Approach of these inhuman Creatures, who never came to bring them fresh
Straw, or that poor Pittance of Food allowed for the Support of their
miserable Lives ; but they saluted them with Stripes in a manner so cruel,
as if they delighted in inflicting Pain, excusing themselves in this
Barbarity, by saying that there was a necessity to keep them in awe ; as if
Chains, and Nakedness, and the small Portion of wretched Sustenance they
suffer'd them to take, was not sufficient to humble their Fellow- Creature.
Besides, what is there to be feared from those helpless Objects of
Compassion, who being Hand-cuffed, and the Fetters on their Legs fast
bolted into the floor, can air no farther than the length of their Chain !
Yet with Barbarity do these there pityless Monsters exert the Power they
have over them, that whoever is witness of it, would imagine they were
rather placed there for the Punishment of some Capital Crime, for which Law
has provided no sufficient Torture, than for the Cure of a Disease, by
their nearest and dearest Relations. To find herself in such a Place, and
that it was made so secure by Locks, by Bolts, and Bars, that all Thoughts
of making her Escape would be in vain, was enough to have made a Woman lets
endued with Fortitude, consent to any thing for her Enlargement ; but she,
in the middle of her Distress, justly reflecting that those who could be
capable of using her in this inhuman manner to force her to a Compliance,
might hereafter, when satiated with Enjoyment, or the leak Disgust, have
recourse to the fame means to get rid of her, as now they took to gain her,
resolved rather to die, than yield to put a greater power into the hands of
Persons, who had made so detestable a Use of what they had already." (The
distress'd orphan or, Love in a mad-house, Eliza Haywood, 1726 AD, p 40-43)
B. Unwanted rich wives cast into madhouses:
In 1728 AD, Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, believed that a
husband could drive his sane wife mad by sending her to a mad house. He
believed insanity was caused by life circumstance, not a disease saying,
"it is much easier to create than to cure madness".
He wrote about a new phenomonea "a practice scarce heard of till of
late years" of the rise of private mad houses and the jailing of unwanted
rich wives by treacherous husbands in some of these mad houses. Whereas mad
houses had been run for altruistic purposes by church ministers, Defoe
shows the rise of many new mad houses by non-church ministers for profit by
housing the relatives of rich people or their unwanted wives. "the vile
practice now so much in vogue among the better sort as they are called, but
the worst sort in fact; namely, the sending their wives to madhouses, at
every whim or dislike, that they may be more secure and undisturbed in
their debaucheries; which wicked custom is got to such a head, that the
number of private madhouses in and about London are considerably increased
within these few years."
Since mad houses were originally started by ministers of churches,
this sudden surge in the number of mad houses marks the beginning of the
profit motive of running mad houses by non-ministers. There is simply no
way that altruistic ministers would jail unwanted wives so their husbands
could spend the wive's money on their new mistress. "How many, I say, of
beauty, virtue, and fortune, are suddenly torn from their dear innocent
babes, from the arms of an unworthy man, whom they love, perhaps, but too
well, and who in return for that love, nay probably an ample fortune and a
lovely off spring besides, grows weary of the pure streams of chaste love,
and thirsting after the puddles of lawless lust, buries his virtuous wife
alive, that he may have the greater freedom with his mistresses?"
But Defoe also believes that the causes of insanity is life
circumstances and not a disease. He notes, "If they are not mad when they
go into these cursed houses, they are soon made so by the barbarous usage
they there suffer ... Is it not enough to make any one mad to be suddenly
clapped up, stripped, whipped, ill-fed, and worse used? To have no reason
assigned for such treatment, no crime alleged, or accusers to confront? And
what is worse, no soul to appeal to but merciless creatures, who answer but
in laughter, surliness, contradiction, and too often stripes ... be not
sufficient to drive any soul stark staring mad, though before they were
never so much in their right senses"
Defoe traces the etiology directly back to the husband as the cause
of insanity, not some disease: "When by this means a wicked husband has
driven a poor creature mad, and robbed an injured wife of her reason, for
it is much easier to create than to cure madness, then has the villain a
handle for his roguery; then, perhaps, he will admit her distressed
relations to see her, when it is too late to cure the madness he so
artfully and barbarously has procured."
Another factor is that it was the rich who initially paid for mad
houses for the upkeep (or jailing) of their relatives. In this case it was
the wife who was rich and the husband who used her money: "and he has not a
shilling but what came from her" ... "for if a man is weary of his wife,
has spent her fortune, and wants another, it is but sending her to a
madhouse and the business is done at once."
Defoe calls for all mad houses to be regulated and seeks for new
licenced mad houses to be created in various parts of town. "In my humble
opinion, all private madhouses should be suppressed at once, and it should
be no less than felony to confine any person under pretence of madness
without due authority. For the cure of those who are really lunatic,
licensed madhouses should be constituted in convenient parts of the town,
which houses should be subject to proper visitation and inspection, nor
should any person be sent to a madhouse without due reason, inquiry, and
authority."
Defoe is an important marker in history for he shows the genesis of
mad houses run by non-church ministers for rich people. (Augusta
Triumphans, Daniel Defoe, 1728 AD)
C. Unwanted Wives cast into Bedlam mental hospital:
Bedlam was the most famous mad house in history!
"The mid-eighteenth century saw a torrent of criticism of the
unregulated state of private madhouses, fed by scandalous tales of alleged
false confinement and intermittent, but influential, appeals for
legislative intervention-all of which were met initially with official
indifference. Eventually, however, the rising tide of complaints of
corruption, cruelty, and malfeasance in the mad-trade provoked some feeble
and flickering interest in parliament, and both Monro and Battie found
themselves called upon to testify in the brief inquiry that was finally
launched in 1763. The proceedings were cursory in the extreme, only four
cases of alleged false confinement being considered, only two madhouses
(Miles's at Hoxton, and Turlington's at Chelsea) being inquired into, and
only eleven witnesses being named as having been summoned." They culminated
in a printed report of just eleven pages, even though the limited testimony
that was taken seemed calculated to raise rather than mitigate public
anxieties. Each case involved women (namely, Mrs. Hester Williams, Mrs.
Hawley, Mrs. Smith, and Mrs. Durant) who had allegedly been falsely
confined by their husbands and other family members (adding ballast to
Foyster's arguments about the manipulable role of the madhouse in marital
disagreements), and in three of these cases there was clear evidence of
abuse, with only one woman seeming to have been insane. Witnesses stressed
the employment of ruses and trickery to initiate and perpetuate these
confinements, and the obstruction of contact with the outside world, in
particular through being locked up and mechanically restrained night and
day, having visitors refused and correspondence barred, and being "treated
with Severity" by keepers." The women themselves complained that they
received no medicines or medical treatment whatsoever and were never even
attended by a medical practitioner, or not, at least, until a habeas corpus
was effected." (Undertaker of the mind: John Monro, Jonathan Andrews,
Andrew Scull, 2001 AD, p 155)
"Battie and John Monro, the two most eminent psychiatric physicians
of the day, supported the view that wrongful consinement in madhouses did
take place. The former quoted, as an example, a case in which a man had
tried to confine his wife in Battie's madhouse and had justified his
conduct by the belief that the house was 'a sort of Bridewell, or place of
correction'. [Report 1763 S.C., J.H.C., Vol. 29, p. 488] Reference to the
findings of this Committee and to the prevailing abuses was made in 1866,
by a writer who signed himself L.T.F.3 A description was given of a
narrative, in MS., dated 1746, in which a lady of distinction was confined
in a madhouse, by her husband's authority, because of her extravagance and
indifference towards him. Other inmates of this particular madhouse, near
Harrow, had been placed there for such reasons as drunkenness, violent
tempers and, in the case of two young girls, to break off love-affairs
which did not meet with their parents' approval. Also amongst those reputed
to have been improperly confined in madhouses in the eighteenth century
were individuals from the ranks of the early Methodists, the revivalist
field-preachers and their followers, who were so often exposed, at this
period, to persecution and derision." (The Trade in Lunacy, William Ll.
Parry-Jones, 1972 AD, p 255)
"Have you visited Bethlem? I have, frequently; I first visited
Bethlem on the 25th of April 1814. What observations did you make? At this
first visit, attended by the steward of the Hospital and likewise by a
female keeper, we first proceeded to visit the women's galleries: one of
the side rooms contained about ten patients, each chained by one arm or leg
to the wall; the chain allowing them merely to stand up by the bench or
form fixed to the wall, or to sit down on it. The nakedness of each patient
was covered by a blanket-gown only; the blanket-gown is a blanket formed
something like a dressing-gown, with nothing to fasten it with in front;
this constitutes the whole covering; the feet even were naked. One female
in this side room, thus chained, was an object remarkably striking; she
mentioned her maiden and married names, and stated that she had been a
teacher of languages; the keepers described her as a very accomplished
lady, mistress of many languages, and corroborated her account of herself.
The Committee can hardly imagine a human being in a more degraded and
brutalizing situation than that in which I found this female, who held a
coherent conversation with us, and was of course fully sensible of the
mental and bodily condition of those wretched beings, who, equally without
clothing, were closely chained to the same wall with herself. ... Many of
these unfortunate women were locked up in their cells, naked and chained on
straw, with only one blanket for a covering." (Report From The Committee On
Madhouses In England, 1815 AD, Testimony of A. Mr. E. Wakefield)
"T. Bakewell (1815) had stated that, at some madhouses, the
pecuniary interest of the proprietor and the secret wishes of the lunatics'
relatives, led not only to the neglect of all means of cure, but also to
the deliberate prevention and delay of recovery, conduct which he
considered a crime that may be perpetrated with perfect impunity as to
human laws'. This statement is in keeping with what Mitford (1825 ?)
claimed to be the rule at Warburton's house, namely: 'If a man comes in
here mad, we'll keep him so; if he is in his senses, we'll soon drive him
out of them." Similarly, 100 years previously, Defoe had stated that if
persons were not mad on entering a madhouse, they were soon made so by the
barbarous usage they there suffer . . . Is it not enough to make one mad to
be suddenly clap'd up, stripp'd, whipp'd, ill fed, and worse us'd ? C.
Crowther (1838) observed that in private-madhouses the rich did not recover
in the same proportion as the poor"." (The Trade in Lunacy, William Ll.
Parry-Jones, 1972 AD, p 241)
D. Sexual assault by the male "Keepers":
"Do you remember a keeper of the name of King, at Bethlem, who is
now at Liverpool? Perfectly. Was not he employed as keeper of the female
patients at Bethlem? He was occasionally. Was not King, when keeper of the
female patients, charged by Mr. Till, the manager of the London waterworks,
with being too familiar with a female patient of great beauty, such female
having been a servant of Mr. Till? I do not know that he was charged by Mr.
Till with too great familiarity, but the patient herself did charge him
with that. He being the keeper of the female patients at that time? Yes;
she complained to me of it. What was the result of that investigation?
There was great asseveration on one side, and denial of it on the other; I
do not know whether we got at the truth. Was not the regulation immediately
made by the governors, for not again employing men as keepers of women?
They had endeavoured to do that long before, upon another business. Did not
the governors, from learning that fact, direct that no man should again be
put as keeper of the women? I do not recollect that they came to any
resolution upon that case; it was about three years ago." (Report From The
Committee On Madhouses In England, 1815 AD, Testimony of John Haslam)
"Some years ago, a female patient had been impregnated twice, during
the time she was in the Hospital; at one time she miscarried; and the
person who was proved to have had connexion with her, being a keeper, was
accordingly discharged." (Report From The Committee On Madhouses In
England, 1815 AD, Testimony of John Haslam)
E. Laws passed regarding committal to Bedlam:
The abuses were being noticed and legislators in the British house
of parliament began to draft private members bills to be passed into law.
At first it was proposed that a person could not be committed to a
man house unless witnessed with the written consent of: the person's local
preacher, 12 neighbors and two doctors. It also proposed that each person
be visited by their own minister and a justice of the peace at least once
every 14 days.
What ended up happening is that ministers were considered mentally
ill themselves, since they believe in God, and were not only excluded from
the process of committing a person to a mental hospital, they were barred
from even entering the mad houses! Psychiatry has had a long history of
being viciously anti-Christian!
"The author appealed for legislation requiring that no confinement
take place without an attestation in writing from the patient's parish
minister and twelve of his neighbors and a certificate of two physicians,
"neither of them concerned in any such house." He also recommended severe
penalties for an improper confinement: a fine of £50 for any convicted
madhouse master or keeper, plus imprisonment for at least three years in a
county gaol [jail]. Additionally, he urged that madhouse servants and
keepers be encouraged to inform on their masters by the enticement of a
£10 fine payable to them for reporting such cases. (The master himself was
to have the [rather minimal] protection of a right of appeal to the King's
Bench, though the act that was finally passed offered no protection
whatsoever.) Concluding, the author of this grand scheme urged that each
house should be visited by the local parish clergyman and JP at least once
a fortnight [every 14 days], with the inspectors guaranteed complete
freedom of access.'" ... Two years later (1774), the Act for Regulating
Madhouses (14 George III c. 49) was finally passed. Perhaps, as Porter has
suggested, the prolonged delay in enacting legislation should be seen as a
function of the opposition of the College of Physicians, some of whose
members "had a large financial stake in metropolitan madhouses." If so, it
is somewhat ironic that parliament handed over the power to license and
inspect madhouses in the metropolis to the College. (In the provinces,
similar authority was granted to local magistrates.) There were other
signs, too, that medical men had successfully lobbied behind the scenes to
protect their interests: the 1772 appeal notwithstanding, commitment under
the new act required only a single medical certificate, and local clergymen
were firmly excluded from any officially sanctioned role in the process."
(Undertaker of the mind: John Monro, Jonathan Andrews, Andrew Scull, 2001
AD, p 159)
"Through its [religions] emphasis on sin and the spirit world, on
hellfire and damnation, it was said to be actually driving its adherents
into madness." (Undertaker of the mind: John Monro, Jonathan Andrews,
Andrew Scull, 2001 AD, p 80)
F. The case of the disobedient wife: Hannah Mackenzie
When the British parliament investigated the unlawful confinement in
mental hospitals of wives by their husbands, the case of "Hannah Mackenzie"
said it all!
Here is an immoral, wicked husband who sends his wife to the mad
house because she protested over her husband having an affair with another
woman! How dare Hannah even open her mouth when the husband, Peter wants to
move the woman with whom he is having an affair into the same house as
Hannah! How dare Hannah point out that her husband's mistress is his niece!
When Hannah's husband brought John Monro (the most famous mad doctor
in England) into the home, Hannah had the nerve to actually run! But was
captured, place under house arrest and dragged her off to a mad house where
she was jailed and tortured!
This kind of unspeakable injustice was common in the 17th century
and illustrates the evil beginnings of psychiatry. Remember, this did not
only happen to wives, but by any one who was the target of a grudge and a
sum of money!
"The surviving trial affidavits for the Mackenzie case, which have
recently been admirably surveyed by Elizabeth Foyster, make it clear that
this confinement was essentially about a marital conflict between Hannah
and her husband, Peter. Indeed, Foyster's account suggests that, through
their involvement in madhouse confinements, mad-doctors like Battie and
Monro may have become, at times, complacent or perhaps unwitting tools,
assisting errant husbands who sought to control their "deviant," unruly
wives. As she shows, Peter Mackenzie initiated the confinement after
attempting to make Hannah's niece (with whom he was having an adulterous
affair) mistress of the household, and he seems to have felt he "had a
right to treat his wife in that way." When Hannah refused to comply with
his demands, his introduction of Dr. Battie into the home understandably
provoked Hannah's flight. The ensuing home confinement under the
supervision of a female keeper evidently specializing in the care of the
insane entailed the customary methods of restraint, such as locking her in
her room, battening down the windows, and straitjacketing her when she
tried to escape-a recourse that Hannah claimed caused her "violent pain"
and profuse bleeding. Days later, the unfortunate woman was conveyed to
Peter Day's Paddington mad-house, from which she escaped with the aid of
John Sherratt ("a lawyer and well-known campaigner against private
madhouses") and others only to find her husband retaliating by issuing a
writ of habeas corpus against them." (Undertaker of the mind: John Monro,
Jonathan Andrews, Andrew Scull, 2001 AD, p 171)
G. The case of William Norris: Poor thrown into Bedlam
Here is a very sane normal man who was able to read books and the
daily newspaper and have an intelligent conversation with government
legislators.
"In one of the cells on the lower gallery [at Beldam] we saw William
Norris; he stated himself to be 55 years of age, and that he had been
confined about 14 years; that in consequence of attempting to defend
himself from what he conceived the improper treatment of his keeper, he was
fastened by a long chain, which passing through a partition, enabled the
keeper by going into the next cell, to draw him close to the wall at
pleasure; that to prevent this, Norris muffled the chain with straw, so as
to hinder its passing through the wall; that he afterwards was confined in
the manner we saw him, namely, a stout iron ring was rivetted round his
neck, from which a short chain passed to a ring made to slide upwards or
downwards on an upright massive iron bar, more than six feet high, inserted
into the wall. Round his body a strong iron bar about two inches wide was
rivetted; on each side of the bar was a circular projection, which being
fashioned to and inclosing each of his arms, pinioned them close to his
sides. This waist bar was secured by two similar bars which, passing over
his shoulders, were rivetted to the waist bar both before and behind. The
iron ring round his neck was connected to the bars on his shoulders, by a
double link. From each of these bars another short chain passed to the ring
on the upright iron bar. We were informed he was able to raise himself, so
as to stand against the wall, on the pillow of his bed in the trough bed in
which he lay; but it is impossible for him to advance from the wall in
which the iron bar is soldered, on account of the shortness of his chains,
which were only twelve inches long. It was, I conceive, equally out of his
power to repose in any other position than on his back, the projections
which on each side of the waist bar enclosed his arms, rendering it
impossible for him to lie on his side, even if the length of the chains
from his neck and shoulders would permit it. His right leg was chained to
the trough; in which he had remained thus encaged and chained more than
twelve years. To prove the unnecessary restraint inflicted on this
unfortunate man, he informed us that he had for some years been able to
withdraw his arms from the manacles which encompassed them. He then
withdrew one of them, and observing an expression of surprise, he said,
that when his arms were withdrawn he was compelled to rest them on the
edges of the circular projections, which was more painful than keeping them
within. His position, we were informed, was mostly lying down, and that as
it was inconvenient to raise himself and stand upright, he very seldom did
so; that he read a great deal of books of all kinds, history, lives or
anything that the keepers could get him; the newspaper every day, and
conversed perfectly coherent on the passing topics and the events of the
war, in which he felt particular interest. On each day that we saw him he
discoursed coolly, and gave rational and deliberate answers to the
different questions put to him. The whole of this statement relative to
William Norris was confirmed by the keepers." (Report From The Committee On
Madhouses In England, 1815 AD, Testimony of A. Mr. E. Wakefield)
H. The case of false committal of Alexander Cruden
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In 1738 AD, Alexander Cruden, who published Cruden's Concordance in
1735, was committed to Bedlam asylum. Cruden's problems began with his
parents putting him into an asylum when he experienced a broken heart over
love at a young age. This labeled him a mad man for life and was the
primary reason for his second false committal to an asylum. Later in life,
when his amorous advances were rejected by another woman, he was committed
to Bedlam. This "psychiatric history" over love lost, was only one problem.
Other reason he got committed, was that the mad doctors of Cruden's time,
like James Monro, and his son John, viewed Christians as mentally ill, even
preventing them from entering asylums for fear of making the patient even
more insane by the visit! When he got out of Bedlam, Cruden sued James
Monro for "false imprisonment for nine weeks and six days at five pounds an
hour, being £8280, and the assault and other damages at £1720." At the
time of his second committal, Cruden worked as a type corrector, which is
where he got his nick name, "Alexander the Corrector". He cleverly
spiritualized his job title as the name that designated his job as a
Christian to "correct the sins of the people". Cruden viewed himself as a
Christian whose responsibility under God involved pointing out the sins of
England. That, of course is every Christian's job, even though few have the
gut or boldness or faith to actually do such. No doubt he was annoying to
many sinners and this is why he was cast into the asylum. A final reason
for his committal, was the work he was doing in producing his "Cruden's
Bible Concordance" three years earlier in 1735. Mad doctors of the time,
believed that madness was caused by these three things: 1. overworking the
brain with meticulous work. 2. concentrating on a single matter for a long
time. 3. too much study late at night. Exactly what is required to produce
a concordance. Cruden's assessment of the psychiatric industry is
shockingly applicable to what we see today in chemical psychiatry: "tho' a
person be not a conjuror he may set up to be a mad-doctor, the chief
prescriptions being bleeding, purging, vomiting, and sometimes bathing: And
if these are not effectual . . . the patient is incurable. . . . What is
Dr. Monro? A mad-doctor; and pray what great matter is that? What can
mad-doctors do? prescribe purging physic, letting of blood, a vomit, cold
bath, and a regular diet? How many incurables are there? ... physicians .
are often poor helps; and if they mistake the distemper, which is not
seldom the case, they do a deal of mischief."
So Cruden had four reasons that all worked against him in getting a
sane man committed to Bedlam: 1. parents wrongly labeling him at an early
age as a mental patient over love lost. 2. he was a Christian who annoyed
people by pointing out their sins. 3. his work in producing the concordance
was believed to actually cause madness. 4. His reputation of love lost
making him go insane. All four of these came together when he got dumped by
a widow named Mrs. Payne, who was probably the instigator in all these
matters behind the scenes over fears relating to the reason he was first
committed by his parents. (Account of the Unparalleled Case of a Citizen of
London, Alexander Cruden, 1738 AD)
H. The case of "Waterfall"
A woman who hates her husband goes insane but is cured by torture
through water boarding.
Here is the machine that was used by Dr. Blair in 1725 AD to cure
the schizophrenia of an adulterous wife who hated her husband and wanted to
leave him.
She was strapped naked and blindfolded into the machine and huge
amounts of water were poured on her head from 30 feet in the air.
She finally agree to go home and sleep with her husband and was
proclaimed cured!
Conclusion:
Historically, there were women whose behaviours were so out of
control that their genuinely loving husbands got them committed to mental
hospitals thinking this was would fix their wife. He was mistaken. When a
husband tried to get his wife committed to a mental hospital because she is
"out of submission", naggy, bothersome or unwanted, it should have been
viewed as a crime. You married her, live with it. She is your cross to
bear!
Modern laws on committal were developed to prevent this historic
injustice from happening. Today a person can only be committed if he is a
physical danger to himself or others but even this is illegal.
In fact there is no reason why a person should ever be committed
against their will to an asylum:
If they are danger to others or themselves, no law has been broken.
If they harm others, send them to a real jail.
If they harm or kill themselves, they have the legal freedom to do
so.
Chemical psychiatrists have created their own "kangaroo court",
where they alone possess the power to arrest and jail the insane and
circumvent the criminal law altogether. On one hand psychiatrists alone
decide, without any scientific evidence, that the insane are incapable of
giving consent for medical treatment and are not accountable for their
actions. On the other hand, psychiatrists alone define what behaviours are
labeled a mental illness in the DSM-5. All psychiatric committals are a
sham legal proceeding where psychiatrists are the lawmaker who defines
insanity, the witness who gives his opinion on who is insane, the jury who
renders the verdict, and the judge who signs the committal order. None of
this happens in court. A psychiatrist has the power to commit you against
your will if he merely forms an opinion, based upon his sole judgement.
Psychiatrists label some but not all delusional thinking as schizophrenic.
Once labeled "schizophrenic" a person is deemed incapable of giving medical
consent based upon the opinion of the same psychiatrist. The truth is that
"schizophrenics" clearly and forcefully refuse consent by bolding saying:
"I do not want to be treated by psychiatrists and be locked up in an
asylum... leave me alone to live my life how I choose." Psychiatric
committal without consent, is therefore always illegal when it doesn't
involve crimes, with real judges, trials and juries. When crimes are
involved, we already have jails. Insanity is not a disease, it is a
behaviour.
Even if the myth that schizophrenia is a medical condition (instead
of behaviour) were true, it is illegal to force medical treatment on
someone against their will.
A doctor who forces treatment or drugs a non-consenting person who
knows they are sick will go to jail even if it saves their life.
A psychiatrist who commits someone who is suicidal to an asylum and
force drugs them is guilty of a double crime.
Psychiatric committal is without exception, a violation of the
criminal code and doctor-patient ethics.
By Steve Rudd: Contact the author for comments, input or corrections.
Send us your story about your experience with modern Psychiatry
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