Tag Archives: Dr. John Turner

Patient Histories

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Many Physicians Believed Insanity Stemmed from Physical Causes

Many Physicians Believed Insanity Stemmed from Physical Causes

An important innovation in the treatment of the insane was to obtain a history of patients’ past life and behavior. This allowed doctors to see how much the patient was deviating from previous behavior that was “normal” for that person; it also allowed them to see if anything important might have happened to cause the patient’s decline in mental health. Illnesses, shocks, losses, and so on could be precipitating events, as could lifestyle practices such as alcohol or opiate use. All mental illness wasn’t connected to outside factors, of course, but alienists began to realize that for them to understand and help patients, they had to understand what they had been like before they became insane.

Most patient records are missing from the existing files on the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians. Medical files seemed to have been fairly up-to-date when the asylum first opened, since the asylum’s assistant superintendent, Dr. John Turner, could ascertain the date of a patient’s pregnancy by the menstrual records he kept. When Dr. Harry Hummer took over as superintendent, one report mentioned that his record-keeping was modeled after that of St. Elizabeths, where he had been a physician. However, the doctor was criticized in later reports for poor record-keeping. The reports on patients that he sent to relatives varied little from month to month, and Hummer put a stop to even this slight gesture after a number of years.

When patients were transferred to St. Elizabeths after the Canton Asylum closed, staff reviewed what was known about them and then wrote their own assessments after a short period of observation. Sometimes these short notes are the only ones available, and they at least give a glimpse as to why a patient came to the asylum.

In my next couple of posts, I will share a few of these patients notes.

Psychoanalysis Is News, courtesy National Archives

Psychoanalysis Is News, courtesy National Archives

Group of Prominent German Alienists

Group of Prominent German Alienists

Not So Undercover

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Blackwell's Island Lunatic Ball, 1865

Blackwell’s Island Lunatic Ball, 1865

The Canton Asylum for Insane Indians had frequent visitors, who were welcome to tour the facility during visiting hours. (See last two posts about visitors.) When the editor of the Hudsonite showed up unannounced–and not on a visiting day–he was nonetheless welcomed and given a tour by the asylum’s financial clerk, Charles Seely. Continue reading →

Deficits in Care

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James McLaughlin

Inspectors regularly toured the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, and generally found the buildings in order. Even non-medical men, however, could see early on that the institution wasn’t really fulfilling its purpose. A report by James McLaughlin in 1910 says: “The present facilities for care of the insane patients meet requirements as to baths, meals and sleeping accommodations, but for the proper treatment of those who might be benefited by some special course, there are no facilities.”

By this time, Dr. Turner had resigned from his duties at the asylum and his replacement, Dr. Hardin, had also resigned. Superintendent Dr. Harry Hummer was the only medical person on staff–the same situation Dr. Turner had been in under the asylum’s first superintendent. However, Dr. Hummer had to run the asylum as well as provide medical care, since the assistant superintendent’s position was never subsequently filled. Even though Dr. Turner’s attempts at psychiatric care had been modest at best, Dr. Hummer apparently let even these small efforts go by the wayside.

Meeting of the Medical Staff, Kankakee Mental Hospital, circa 1910

Psychiatric Patients in Steam Cabinets, circa 1910, courtesy American Psychiatric Association Archives

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Medical Attention at Canton Asylum

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Paralytic Dementia

At many asylums, medical attention was easier to give than psychiatric attention; the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians was no exception. In his 1906 report, the asylum’s physician, Dr. John Turner, describes both the mental and physical conditions of a few of his patients:

Turner describes a “raving” Bannock woman suffering from syphilitic dementia, who also had foul-smelling ulcers. “Under a course of treatment her ulcers all healed, she gained 19 pounds in weight, and became rational.”

A 65-year-old Pima man was admitted in 1903, with “arteria sclerosis, pulse weak and slow.” Turner said the man also had obstipation (obstructive constipation), anasarca (edema or water retention), and weighed 150 pounds. Turner added, “. .  . upon the occasion of his wife’s death, delusions and hallucinations appeared which rendered him dangerous to other persons. After I had relieved this man’s dropsy (the edema), by a combination of potass bitartras, potass et sodil tartras and digitalis, he weighed only 100 pounds and his mental condition was much improved. I then put him on cascara sagrada (a stimulant laxative and bowel cleanser) and nux vomica (a homeopathic medicine made from the seeds of the strychnine tree) and he now weighs 140 pounds, has no dropsy, and he is active and comfortable.”

It is telling that Dr. Turner usually found mental health improvement only after underlying physical problems were addressed. This raises the question as to how much of the mental illness Canton patients experienced was due simply to physical ailments.

A Woman With Dropsy, courtesy National Library of Medicine

Information About Cascara Sagrada

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Asylum Activities

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Yankton Indian Homes, courtesy Smithsonian Institution

When the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians had a small patient population, physical care was very likely good. The asylum’s physician, Dr. Turner, had as thorough a knowledge of general medicine as any other regional practitioner, and was enthusiastic about working in Canton’s unique facility. He gave patients standard medications (see last post) for their physical ailments, and both he and the asylum’s superintendent set up a system of mental health treatment similar to those in other asylums. Able-bodied patients worked in the gardens and took walks outside, while women more typically helped in the dining room and kitchen, cleaned floors, and went to classes which Turner referred to as “numbers” and “object lessons.”

The asylum’s report for these activities was dated August 29, 1903. A report from another South Dakota agency (Indian Training School, Yankton) made by James Staley that same year, indicates a number of health problems for residents there. Dr. O. M. Chapman, the agency physician begins: “The health of these people has been just about that of the average of former years.” Though he noted that contagious diseases were not a problem–except for a few cases of measles–he also stated that the number of people were declining since there had been 68 deaths and only 60 births. Forty percent of the deaths had been due to tuberculosis, which Chapman called “alarming.”

“The death rate was about 40 per 1,000,” Chapman says. “This is a death rate at least four times what it would be among an equal number of whites.”

Tuberculosis Sanitorium Buildings, Phoenix Indian School, courtesy National Institutes of Health

Group Picture at the Phoenix Indian School Tuberculosis Sanitorium Phoenix, AZ, circa 1890-1910, courtesy National Institutes of Health

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Garden Problems

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A South Dakota Farm During the Depression

A South Dakota Farm During the Depression

Many insane asylums had gardens which grew both flowers and produce. The Canton Asylum for Insane Indians included a garden that provided supplemental fresh food for staff and patients, but sometimes with indifferent results.

South Dakota was subject to harsh and unpredictable weather, with great temperature swings at times, drought, and pests. Continue reading →

Boys Not Exempt

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School Picture of Attawa Indian Boys, 1870, courtesy Library of Congress

Though women, and especially young girls, may have had fewer rights and protections under traditional white sensibilities, boys were also vulnerable to involuntary commitment. Navajo James Hathorn became a patient at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians in 1904, when he was either six or eight years old. (See last post concerning another young patient.) Hathorn’s mother had suffered some problems during delivery, which affected James’s motor skills and language development. His problems were so severe that no one on his reservation could, or would, take care of him. He received ongoing medical care from Dr. Turner, mainly anti-spasmodics and physical therapy, which seemed to be helpful. At the time, there were 23 males at Canton Asylum, so presumably this little boy lived among them.

Though O. S. Gifford was not a trained psychiatrist as Dr. Harry Hummer was, he surely didn’t believe the boy was insane. Though he was probably taken to, and accepted by, the asylum with the best of intentions, Hathorn’s life had to be miserable. Authorities and family at the reservation, Gifford, and Dr. Turner probably understood Hathorn’s medical needs to be extreme, but putting a disabled child into an asylum with patients who were sometimes violent could not have been the best solution. Hathorn died at the age of 19 or 21, with little to indicate that he had improved to any great degree.

Tulalip Indian Boys at Canoe Race, 1912, courtesy Library of Congress

Huron (Wyandot or Wyandotte) Boys Learning to Chop Wood at Wyandotte Mission School in Kansas, 1880 to 1890, courtesy Library of Congress

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Management Incompetence

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O.S. Gifford

Overcrowding was not a true reason for the problems the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians experienced. (See last post.) Its first superintendent, O. S. Gifford, took over a new facility with few patients. He reported in June of 1903 that he had received 16 patients that year, one of whom died, and two of whom recovered. He was expecting to have a total of 24 patients by the next month. His fiscal year, 1904 report reflected that he had 16 males and 8 females. In fiscal year, 1905, Gifford had 23 males and 16 females.  He used a fairly commonsense approach to therapy, and felt that he knew his patients well. He allowed fishing and picnicking, dancing, and other pastimes suited to his patients’ inclinations, and took some of his patients to town. Gifford certainly fell in with the model of a superintendent who had enough time to spend with patients.

Though Gifford could send patients home as recovered, based on his and/or Dr. Turner’s assessment, he didn’t have the knowledge to institute any kind of mental health therapy for them. His assistant, Dr. Turner appeared to take a great interest in his patients’ medical conditions, but also didn’t have the background to set up a comprehensive treatment plan. Gifford’s real mistake was in not following Turner’s medical advice. When he would not allow Turner to operate on a patient, that patient later died and Turner was understandably bitter over it. The situation brought to a head many of Turner’s other grievances, and the resultant investigation made it clear that the asylum’s superintendent needed to be an acting physician. That didn’t necessarily help Turner, because he knew he wouldn’t get the job, but he at least felt vindicated.

Small, Early Asylum in New York

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Employee Frustration

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Unruly Patients at Blackwell's Island, from Harper's Magazine, 1860

Employees at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians didn’t always get along, and the institution’s first big inspection proved that. Dr. Turner had a beef with superintendent Gifford (see last post), but some employees had a beef with Turner.

One attendant in particular, Mary J. Smith, found her work difficult in part because of Turner’s instructions. He did not like to use restraints and wouldn’t often authorize them, but Smith said that she couldn’t do all of her work unless she locked certain patients in their rooms. Her 1908 affidavit stated:

“Doctor had forbidden her to lock certain patients up without his permission . . . ‘he told me if I was doing my duty I would have her (Mary LeBeaux) outside instead of locked in her room, at that time I had locked her in for throwing a cuspidor at me’.” The inspector taking the statement said that “she has marks on her body where the patient has bitten her and has thrown cuspidors at her repeatedly.”

This kind of situation was a quandary for attendants at all asylums: how to handle violent patients without resorting to restraints or reciprical violence. One solution was to call in enough attendants so that the patient could be safely restrained by humans until he/she calmed down. Unfortunately, Canton Asylum had too few attendants for this to be a feasible solution.

Woman Forced Into Cold Shower, from Elizabeth Packard's book Modern Persecution, or Asylums Revealed

Child Patient in Restraints, Georgia State Hospital for the Insane (1940s), courtesy Georgia State University

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Canton Asylum’s Employees

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O.S. Gifford

Like other institutional staff, employees at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians demonstrated a wide range of ability, attitude, and character. Inspectors sometimes complained that employees weren’t always available when needed; sometimes that happened because the employee was shirking his or her duty. More often, however, there just weren’t enough employees to cover all the work that needed doing, plus provide the necessary patient supervision. During the next few posts, I’ll talk about the work situation and some of the employees at the asylum.

One of the first employees to make a stir at the asylum was Dr. John Turner. He was not from Canton, and felt strongly that superintendent O. S. Gifford favored the rest of the employees (from Canton) over him. Turner complained that the attendants often ignored his orders, and that Gifford didn’t back him up. When a patient became pregnant because employees hadn’t followed Turner’s instructions  during his absence, he filed a complaint in December, 1906, with the supervisor of Indian schools, Charles Dickson. Turner’s complaint resulted in Canton Asylum’s first major (and negative) inspection.

Canton, 1907, courtesy Library of Congress

Government Doctor Giving Trachoma Examination on Stillwater Indian Reservation

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