A STUDY ON THE CARE OF THE IDOTS IN THE UNITED STATES

This study reviews the care of the idiots in the United States in the early 19th century. In that country, the schools for idiots were established in the middle of that century. The care of the idiots, the author thinks, proceeded the establishment of these schools. Through the colonial times, idiots -children as well as adults- were usually left with their families. On the course of the time, those people began to be treated in a poor relief systems. Mentally disturbed patients, including idiots, since 1732, had received hospital care in the almshouse of Philadelphia and later, in 1753, in the Pennsylvania Hospital. But the first institution to be established especially for the mentally ill was the Virginia Hospital, founded in 1773. During the first decades of the nineteenth century, the parishes and counties complained about rising expenses for poor relief. In 1821, the General Court of Massachusettes appointeda committee, to investigate the pauper laws of the Commonwealth. Two years later, in 1823, the New York Legislature instructed Secretary of States J.V.N. Yates to collect information on the expence and operation of the poor laws. Following the reports of these committeemen, Massachusettes, New York, and most states of the Union established almshouse and workhouses. Thereafter, all relief applicants were placed into these institutions. There the old, sick, blind, deaf-mutes, cripple, idiot and insane people were thrown together with tramps and vagavonds of all ages. Sometimes one-fourth of the inmates were said to be idiots or insanes. The almshouses became a "human scrap heep" and did not fulfill the hope that had been raised in a reform of the care of the poor. D.Dix of Massachusettes was deeply shocked to find the conditions of mentally deranged persons in a jail. She visited every almshouse, workhouse, jail and prison in this country. In 1843, she submitted a memorial to the Massachusettes Legislature in which she described the shocking conditions which she had found. Insane patients and idiots were chained to the walls in cold cellars, beaten with rods, lashed, and confined in cages and pens. In other states, the conditions were similar to those in Massachusettes. In the meantime, studies of the conditions of the idiots had been made in Massachusettes and New York. Then the schools for idiots were established in these states