Tag Archives: St. Elizabeths

The Prominent Insane

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Mary Todd Lincoln

Insane asylums were not just for the poor and friendless. Though they were more typically cared for at home through private physicians and attendants, wealthy people also went to insane asylums. Because they were paying patients, they usually received better food and more attentive care. Here are a few patients who stayed in public insane asylums:

Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald — McClean Asylum

Ezra Pound- poet — St. Elizabeths

Stanley McCormick, family fortune from McCormick harvesting machine — St. Elizabeths

Mary Todd Lincoln, widow of Abraham Lincoln — Bellevue Asylum

Vincent Van Gogh, artist, Saint-Paul-de-Mausole Asylum, Saint Remy, France

Romeo Singer, founder of Singer Sewing Machines — Amityville Insane Asylum

Woody Guthrie, singer — Greystone Park State Hospital

Ezra Pound

Zelda Fitzgerald

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Livestock Problems at the Canton Asylum

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Hog Cholera Pamphlet

Hog Cholera Pamphlet

Dr. Hummer had one advantage at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians that his counterpart at St. Elizabeths didn’t: acreage to raise livestock. Hummer walked into his job knowing nothing about agriculture or animal husbandry, but he soon learned the advantages of growing his own supplies.

When Hummer took over the facility in 1908, he had three dairy cows and no bull. He wanted to build up his herd so that it could supply all the facility’s milk. By 1923, he increased his holdings of dairy cattle to 17; he routinely sold or slaughtered extra calves. Hummer continually asked for more grazing land so he could increase his herd.

Hogs were a little easier to manage than cattle, and when his herd of hogs increased sufficiently, Hummer was able to cut his beef consumption in half. In the fall of 1923, however, hog cholera struck. Hummer immediately shipped four healthy hogs to the Sioux Falls market, and braced himself to lose the rest. He typically used 200 pounds of fresh pork each week, so it was a blow to lose his  home-grown supply of meat. Hummer asked for funds to buy 12-15 brood sows the next spring, to start a new herd.

Hog Buyer in the Middle of a Hog Pen, 1921, courtesy Library of Congress

Hog Buyer in the Middle of a Hog Pen, 1921, courtesy Library of Congress

USDA Scientists Examine a Pig

USDA Scientists Examine a Pig

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Saving Money at the Insane Asylum, Part Two

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Army Surplus Tents From the Spanish-American War

Army Surplus Tents From the Spanish-American War

Dr. Hummer did not rely on patient labor alone to hold down his costs at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians. Like many others in the federal service, he took advantage of government surplus products to stretch his supply dollar. At least in this area, he had an advantage over his fellow asylum  superintendents, since only one other insane asylum (St. Elizabeths) was within the federal system.

Items held by Indian schools, Army posts and the like, sometimes became surplus. The items would be listed and passed along to other federal agencies, who could then pick out any useful items for their own facilities. In March, 1923, Dr. Hummer was able to snag (among other items) 22 pairs of men’s winter drawers, size 44; 60 pairs of men’s winter drawers, size 42; and over 200 undershirts of various sizes.

The pictures here represent the types of items available through the surplus system. Dr. Hummer did pick up 48 surplus Army cots for 30 cents each in August, 1923, though no pictures exist of the supplies he actually used.

Soldiers Packing Cots in Crates, 1917, courtesy Library of Congress

Soldiers Packing Cots in Crates, 1917, courtesy Library of Congress

Soldiers Folding Blankets, 1917, courtesy Library of Congress

Soldiers Folding Blankets, 1917, courtesy Library of Congress

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Hydrotherapy

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Continuous Bath, Life Photograph

Continuous Bath, Life Photograph

The plunge bath, douche bath, continuous bath, needle bath, and so on, fell under hydrotherapy treatment. In theory, the treatment should have been effective and fairly humane. Warm, soothing baths would help patients sleep, while a plunge bath, using water at temperatures between 45-70 degrees, might shock a violent patient into settling down. Though uncomfortable, such a treatment was preferable to being wrestled to the ground or restrained.

Hydrotherapy Wrapping, St. Elizabeths, courtesy National Archives

Hydrotherapy Wrapping, St. Elizabeths, courtesy National Archives

Even at the best of times, hydrotherapy tended to be uncomfortable. Many doctors thought cold water treatment was superior to warm, and believed treatments should be administered in the morning just as the patient arose. Many medical people believed that warm baths opened up the pores so that a person could catch cold more easily.

Plunge baths and other cold water hydrotherapy were  believed to be invigorating for patients, though other doctors thought it absurd to think that any person–sick or well–would enjoy emerging from a warm bed in order to plunge into a cold bath. Unfortunately, patients had no say in the matter and had to live with whichever theory their own doctor adhered to.

Hydrotherapy Apparatus

Hydrotherapy Apparatus

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Hospital Dining

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In the early days of psychiatry, there were few medicines available to treat mental illness. Diet and exercise, along with work and light amusement, were often the only prescriptions a doctor could give.

Oregon State Insane Asylum Exercise Yard, 1905, courtesy Oregon State Hospital Records

Dr. Harry Hummer

Dr. Harry Hummer

St. Elizabeths was under Congressional investigation for patient abuse in 1906. Dr. Harry Hummer, who later became superintendent of  the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, testified about the food served at St. Elizabeths.

Hummer said that sick patients were given an extremely liberal diet of eggs and milk: 17 dozen eggs daily and 35 gallons of milk for between 125 and 130 people, along with other food. Patients in the dining hall did not receive milk to drink, though they received food that used milk in preparation. Hummer also stated that employees complained about tough meat and that they could not eat the oleo (margarine).

Early Oleomargarine

Early Oleomargarine

Epileptics, who were considered insane by most doctors, ate at a special table in the dining hall. Hummer said that they were “not allowed to have anything that we think will upset them in the nature of corned beef or cabbage, and heavy indigestible food.”

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Eggzact Details

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Athens Insane Asylum Kitchen, circa 1930

Athens Insane Asylum Kitchen, circa 1930

Insane asylums were subject to a great deal of scrutiny and interest, and no detail was too small to catalog. Inquiry by the surgeon general into the number of eggs served at the Government Hospital for the Insane (St. Elizabeths) during 1904 revealed the following:

January – 3463 and 1/2 dozen

February- 3148 dozen

March – 3569 dozen

April – 3972 and 1/2 dozen (the high number was due to Easter falling within the month)

Vintage Easter Card

Vintage Easter Card

Dr. William A. White, St. Elizabeths’s superintendent, said that eggs were served in “considerable quantities” in the wards with acute cases of insanity. He stated that “from one diet kitchen 122 patients are served with 152 dozen eggs per week.”

Though White did not attribute a specific therapeutic value to eggs, it was generally believed that eggs and milk were exceptionally nutritious fare for insane patients.

Egg Carton

Egg Carton

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Drowning In Data–Not

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St. Elizabeths, N-building, courtesy Library of Congress

St. Elizabeths, N-building, courtesy Library of Congress

Senator Richard Pettigrew’s suggestion for an insane asylum just for Indians created a flurry of activity within the Indian Office. The acting commissioner of Indian Affairs, Thomas P. Smith, was certainly open to the idea. He wrote to the secretary of the interior in favor of it, saying in a (July 2, 1897) letter that the establishment of an insane asylum would materially advance the Indian service.

Furthermore, he said such an asylum would relieve the overcrowding at the Government Hospital for the Insane (St. Elizabeths). He finished his letter by saying: “Without having very much data on the subject, easy of access, to regulate its judgment, the opinion of this Office is that an asylum that would accommodate fifty patients would be ample.”

As it turned out, the Indian Service could only discover seven insane Indians, and only five of them were at St. Elizabeths.

St. Elizabeths, 1909, courtesy Library of Congress

St. Elizabeths, 1909, courtesy Library of Congress

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A Superior Institution

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St. Elizabeths, circa 1909, courtesy Library of Congress

St. Elizabeths, circa 1909, courtesy Library of Congress

The Canton Asylum for Insane Indians had little beyond fresh air and exercise to offer its patients. Superintendents allowed a little beadwork and craft-making to occupy patients’ time, along with field work and housekeeping for the able-bodied patients. It had no hospital in 1910, nor means of quarantining patients effectively.

St. Elizabeths had a training school for nurses, quarantine rooms, and a full hospital where operations ranging from appendectomies to hysterectomies were performed. The dental department performed extractions and cleanings for patients, and created false teeth for them.

Most tellingly, the psychiatric department conducted research and published its work in professional journals, like the American Journal of Insanity. It conducted additional research through its pathology laboratory, conducting autopsies and studying tissue samples to understand the changes disease caused in the body.

St. Elizabeths was a psychiatric and teaching hospital, while the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians was merely a warehouse.

St. Elizabeths Hydroptherapy Patients, courtesy Library of Congress

St. Elizabeths Hydrotherapy Patients, courtesy Library of Congress

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Back In the City

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Dr. William A. White, Superintendent of St. Elizabeths, courtesy Library of Congress

Dr. William A. White, Superintendent of St. Elizabeths, courtesy Library of Congress

St. Elizabeths cannot really be compared to the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians. Except for the fact that both institutions were run by the federal government, they were as different as night and day. St. Elizabeths was a huge institution, with over 2,700 patients in 1909; it required its own power plant. The institution had almost ten times the number of cattle (50) as the Canton Asylum, and enough poultry to require a hennery.

In common with its sister asylum, St. Elizabeths was often overcrowded. Because its DC location was closer to the center of power, however, superintendents could more easily make their case for additional money and facilities. St. Elizabeths housed (for the most part) soldiers and sailors, who had more public sympathy than Canton’s Indians.

Government Hospital for the Insane

Government Hospital for the Insane

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Comparing Canton Asylum

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O.S. Gifford

O.S. Gifford

The Canton Asylum for Insane Indians was too small to compare to the large institutions created by Kirkbride, and it wasn’t built with any particular treatment plan in mind. Its first superintendent, O.S. Gifford, (see 2/25/2010 post) was not even a medical man. He had to travel to Washington, D.C. to see an example (St. Elizabeths) of the kind of institution he was to run.

Canton Asylum was a two-story building with four wings, and had a seven-foot fence around it. In keeping with other government institutions of its kind, however, it was lushly landscaped with over 1,000 trees and bushes that in time looked lovely.

Because Gifford wasn’t an alienist, he defaulted to a type of moral treatment that consisted of giving patients chores to do, allowing them to fish and play games when possible, and even allowing them to act like Indians. He allowed native dancing except when it proved too much for excitable patients, and let women create beadwork. This was in direct contrast to most governmental attitudes toward Indians.

His laissez-faire approach both helped and hurt the patients at Canton Asylum. Though he had no pet psychological theories to impose, he also couldn’t be bothered with setting up real programs to enable cures. When patients ran away or became hard to handle, his staff just got out the shackles.

Beaded Vest (1890-1900), courtesy Western History/Genealogy Department, Denver Public Library

Beaded Vest (1890-1900), courtesy Western History/Genealogy Department, Denver Public Library

Tobacco Bags (1895) courtesy Western History/Genealogy Department, Denver Public Library

Tobacco Bags (1895) courtesy Western History/Genealogy Department, Denver Public Library

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