Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2024 All Rights Reserved USGenNet Data Repository Please read USGenNet Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ =========================================================================== Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== Reports to the General Assembly of Illinois, Vol. II, 1890 [p. 84 - 90] Mr. Wines, secretary of the board, wrote, December 23, 1889, to Dr. Kilbourne, as follows: State of Illinois, Board of Public Charities, December 23, 1889. Dr. E. A. Kilbourne, Elgin, Ill.: My Dear Sir - No doubt you have seen in the newspapers, mention of the scandal respecting the treatment of Miss Schuessler and Miss Boebel in the DuPage county poorhouse. Mr. Whipp investigated the case, during my absence, and found that these women are in cells filthy with excrement, and that they tear their clothing from their bodies, when not mechanically restrained; that there are no female attendants, and that the male keeper has been compelled to bathe them with his own hands, at one time calling in another man to assist him with one of them; and that they have been for considerable periods of time in a nude state. The governor has requested Mr. Trusdell, president of the state board of charities, to make a formal investi- gation of all the facts of the case, hearing testimony for and against the management of the poor-house, of these unfortunate inmates. We expect to enter upon this investi- gation on the 2d of January. I desire to call your attention to the third section of the act to regulate the state charitable institutions, which provides that "in the admission and retention of patients, violent, dangerous, or otherwise troublesome cases shall have the preference over those of an opposite description." We have the opinion of the attorney-general that the meaning of this section is too clear, to leave substantially any ground for construction. On the other hand, Dr. Sedgwick, one of the trustees of the Northern Hospital, stated to Mr. Whipp that these were two of the most troublesome women in the institution from that county, and that it was desired to get rid of them for that reason. The fourth section of the act creating a board of public charities requires them to visit the state institutions and "ascertain whether the laws in relation to them are fully complied with." In the present instance, there appears prima facie to have been a violation of the law, in the discharge of the two female patients named, from the hospital at Elgin, of which they were formerly in- mates. This question will come up in any investigation which may be made as to this case. It is therefore desirable that you be present to answer it. In case the date should be changed, I will notify you; otherwise please accept this as sufficient notice. Meanwhile, I desire to ask you whether these two un- fortunate women can be returned to the hospital at Elgin, and whether you will receive them? Very truly yours, Fred H. Wines. This letter resulted in the return of Miss Schuessler and Miss Boebel to the hospital at Elgin. Notice of the proposed investigation was also sent to the supervisors, through Mr. Milton Ellsworth, the county clerk of DuPage county. On the 2d of January, the president of the board, Mr. Trusdell, accompanied by the secretary, Mr. Wines, began an investigation of the case, in the county court-room, at Wheaton, which lasted during two days, and, after its com- pletion, they made the following report to the governor: Report of the State Commissioners of Public Charities Relating to the Care of Insane Paupers in the DuPage County Almshouse, at Wheaton, Illinois. Hon. Joseph W. Fifer, Governor of Illinois: Sir - We have the honor to submit to you the following report of an official investigation, made by us at your request, of the management of the DuPage county almshouse, and especially of the treatment therein afforded to insane paupers. The Chicago Herald of November 26th published an article in which it was said that on Tuesday, November 19, Miss Mary Knippen and Mrs. Mary Coons, of Wheaton, visited the almshouse, where they saw a pauper inmate, an old woman, named Elizabeth Hildebrandt, in a dying condition, half naked and disgustingly dirty, who appeared to them to be neglected by the authorities in charge; that they also saw an insane woman, Miss Louise Schuessler, who had been discharged from the state hospital for the insane at Elgin, and was confined at the almshouse in a small cell, lined with zinc, and wholly unfurnished, which was in such a filthy state that the odor from it had the effect to nearly make them faint away; moreover, Miss Schuessler was absolutely naked. These two ladies were told that in a cell adjoining there was another insane woman, but they did not see her. At the time of their visit, they learned that there had been no fire in the building for three days. The article in the Herald further stated that Mr. and Mrs. Ehinger, of Wheaton, who were of the party, were not permitted to see either of the two insane women in cells; the keeper of the almshouse refused to exhibit them, on the ground that they had their clothing torn off, and were not pre- sentable, but Mr. and Mrs. Ehinger were disgusted by the odor which came through the door. Finally, the Herald said that two ladies from Wheaton went to the almshouse on Friday, November 22, for the purpose of verifying the truth of these reports, but Mrs. Broughton, the keeper's wife, said that her husband had the keys to their rooms, and would not be back for some time. accord- ingly they did not see them. They received, however, the full benefit of the awful stench, and Mrs. Broughton admitted to them that the women were naked and filthy. She said, in answer to the question, "How often are they bathed?" "Oh, they don't want to be washed." On the 27th of November, the Herald printed a second article containing an interview with Dr. Sedgwick, of Wheaton, in which he condemned the almshouse and its management in severe terms. He espeicially mentioned the case of an insane woman, Mrs. Whitcomb, who was kept there for several days, in the early part of September, with no clothing except a single undergarment on her body and a single sheet on her bed. These articles were the basis of the investigation made by us. We are pained to be compelled to report that, while the charges were not sustained in every minute detail, they were sustained as a whole, by the sworn testimony of witnesses whose truthful- ness was not attempted to be impeached. The evidence introduced in rebuttal principally tended to show that the statements in the Herald were somewhat exaggerated and sensational; that the condition of these insane women, Miss Louise Schuessler and Miss Mary Boebel, was not at all times what it was on the 22nd and 27th of November; and that the county authorities had no inten- tion of doing anything wrong, but supposed themselves to be doing the best for them that could be done under the circumstances. The almshouse at Wheaton is a brick building, thirty-eight by fifty feet, fronting east, with a high basement and two stories above it. On the main floor, on the north side of the building, are two insane departments, one for each sex, one at the east and one at the west end of the hall. Each of them is fifteen feet long by twelve and a half feet in width; and each is divided by partitions into a corridor five feet wide by fifteen feet in length, lighted by one window at the end, and two cells, about seven and a half feet square, in each of which there is a small window, near the ceiling. These windows are covered by gratings. There is a door, with a grated opening, between each insane corridor and the main hall. The almshouse is new, having been completed and occupied in March last. Though not, in its architectural arrangement and construction, a model for imitation, it is nevertheless a fair building, fairly well kept, being clean throughout; and the beds, bedding and furniture are sufficient and comfortable. A large number of workmen, who were engaged on the premises during the summer and fall months have slept in the almshouse and eaten at the same table with the pauper inmates. They testify that the accommo- dations and the food furnished was entirely satisfactory to them. No complaint is made of the treatment of the insane in- mates who have the freedom of the place. The investigation, therefore, was restricted almost wholly to the condition of these insane departments and the treatment of the patients incarcerated in them. It is our opinion that apartments of this description are unfit places in which to keep insane persons, even if comfort- ably furnished and kept perfectly clean because of their insufficient size. We are further of the opinion that there is sufficient accommodation, in the state hospitals for the insane, for all insane persons who require mechanical restraint or isolation, and that no such patients should ever be discharged from the state institutions. In that case, no necessity could rest upon the authorities of any county in the state to provide any insane department, planned, as this is, for the seclusion of insane paupers in single cells. Louise Schuessler and Mary Boebel are chronic cases of many years standing. In the hospital at Elgin, the former gave no special or extra-ordinary trouble; but Miss Boebel was an uncommonly difficult patient to handle. If not the worst case to manage, from DuPage county, there was certainly but one other from that county that would surpass her. When returned to the hospital, her former attendant remarked that she had heard that Miss Boebel was to be brought back, and she had thought of resigning her place in consequence, since she would rather take care of any ten patients in the ward than of her. We have been unable to ascertain who recommended her discharge, but it is impossible to justify it, in view of the language of the statute, which provides that, in the retention of chronic insane patients, preference shall be given to the violent, dangerous, or otherwise troublesome. The excuse given for the action of the trustees, by Dr. Sedgwick, is that Miss Boebel is not a legal resident of the state of Illinois, having been brought from Germany to this country, while still insane. But the state has for years accepted the care of her, and, if not a resident of the state, neither is she a resident of DuPage county. Miss Schuessler was brought to the almshouse from the hospi- tal on September 22nd, and Miss Boebel on October 2d. They remained until December 28th, or about three or four months, respectively. So long as Miss Schuessler was the sole occu- pant of the insane department for women, she had the freedom of the corridor as well as of her cell. But when Miss Boebel arrived, it became necessary to confine each of them in a wooden box, little more than seven feet square. These cells were not originally lined with zinc. But both of the women were destructive and filthy in their habits. They tore their clothing and their bedding; they pounded on the floor with their bedsteads; they emptied the contents of their vessels on the floor, and daubed the walls with filth; they smashed earthen pots, and reduced tin slop-pails to a shapeless mass of metal. The keeper of the instution, Mr. George Broughton, who was a good farmer, and probably a good man, but wholly inexperienced in the management of the insane, first took away their bedsteads; then he removed their beds and bedding by day, putting in ticks filled with straw for their use at night. Finding it impossible to clean the filth from the cracks in the plank walls of their cells, the walls and floors were lined with zinc, in order to enable him to keep them in a somewhat more tidy state. It seemed to him to be folly longer to supply vessels of any sort to women who would not use them; there were no privy-seats in the cells; there were no openings in the zinc lining for drainage; and the result must be apparent, without putting it in words. Mr. Broughton claims that the cells were scrubbed out daily, and oftener if necessary; he employed a man for this pur- pose, because, as he alleges, (but we do not believe), no woman strong enough to handle Miss Boebel could be hired to render this service. The chairman of the county board says that it is useless to deny that there was a stench, and that they did not know how to get rid of it. The man employed to clean the cells threw up his job, in spite of an offered increase of wages, because the discharge of the duties of it made him vomit; and clothes were hung over the opening of the door from the corridor into the main hall, partly in order to prevent the sickening smell from per- vading the building. There were no chains or benches in the cells. These unfortunate women had to stand, or to sit or lie on the floor. Their clothes and person were dirty; they soiled their beds at night. And there was no female attendant to care for them. Mrs. Broughton could not do it for she had not the physical strength needed, and her time was taken up in the kitchen and with the cares of general house-keeping. Accordingly, it was the custom of Mr. Broughton himself, with the help of the hired man, to bathe them in a tub, as he says, several times a week. He claims that his wife was always present, but how to reconcile this claim with her statement that they "did not want to be washed." we do not precisely see. There were no special facilities provided for feed- ing them; food was carried to their cells on a plate, but there was, of course, no table on which to set a plate. They would frequently tear their clothes, or take them off, if left to themselves; and, in order to prevent this, it was his habit to keep their arms and hands tied together with strong twine, sometimes in front of them, and sometimes behind them. They would at times get this twine off, while alone, and might have made use of it for suicidal purposes, if so inclined, to say nothing of the pain which it must have occasioned. The super- visor from the town of Naperville, and a friend who accompanied him, testified that, on one occasion, they saw Miss Schuessler taking her food, lying on her stomach, with her hands tied behind her, from a plate on the dirty floor, and that afterwards she got up on her feet, and, the piece of meat between her teeth being too large for her to swallow or even to bite, she pushed it with her mouth against the wall and the grating of the window, in order to be able to masticate it. Mr. Broughton, the keeper, admitted that he saw the latter part of this performance, without offering to assist her in any way; but he said he did not see her eating from the floor. He explained, however, that he had set her plate on the floor of her cell temporarily, while engaged in feeding Miss Boebel, with the expectation of returning in a few moments. But the fact, as stated, was not disputed. We do not think it essential to present any of the other facts brought out by this investigation, not because they are unimportant in themselves, but because these are the material features of the case, and sufficient to illus- trate the treatment given these women. It is superfluous to say that it was a disgrace to the county, to the state, and to the civilization of the nineteenth century. We are sorry that justice requires us to add that it has been many times duplicated in other county almshouses of this and other states. One circumstance we must mention, namely, that the keeper's residence is detached from the building occupied by the paupers, and that, although the door of the insane department for women was kept locked by day, to prevent intrusion upon them, it was unlocked at night, in order to admit of getting at them in case of necessity; the other paupers were locked in their rooms; but, in the words of the keeper himself, there was nothing to prevent the hired male attendant and the workmen who slept in the poorhouse from having access to these women for immoral purposes, "if they were mean enough to do so." After the exposure made in the Chicago Herald, the board of supervisors of DuPage county, with even a fuller oppor- tunity to know the facts than we had at our command, and although they were notified that sworn testimony could be produced to prove these charges, (if it would be heard), adopted, with only one dissenting vote, a resolution de- claring the management of the poorhouse to be admirable and wholly satisfactory. It is claimed by them that the attack made upon the management was prompted by unworthy and malicious motives. Into that question we refuse to enter, since we are unable to see how the motives of any person or persons could affect the truth or falsity of the charges brought, which was the only issue in which we took an interest, or with which we had any concern. Whatever may have been their motives, the men and women who brought about this investigation rendered a service to humanity, at great personal risk and cost, for which they merit the thanks of every friend of the insane. It is difficult to apportion rightly the responsibility for the state of affairs of which complaint is her made. We absolve the board and its agents of any criminal in- tention or willful and concious cruelty. They were simply ignorant and careless, possibly no more so than the major- ity of men who occupy a similar relation to the care of the insane. They had no experience to guide them; the duty suddenly imposed on them was a novel one, and they had no familiarity with the character of care bestowed upon patients in the state institutions, or even in well managed almshouses of other counties, nor did they take any steps to inform themselves. If they had been less indifferent to the sufferings of paupers, and less absorbed in building, and in caring for the farm, a very little thought and re- flection ought to have made them conscious of their neglect. It needs no expert knowledge to teach men who have never seen an insane woman, that no woman ought to be bathed by the hands of men, or left exposed at night to the peril of a possible criminal assault. It seems to us of greater consequence to point out the way in which similar abuses may be prevented in the future. Miss Schuessler and Miss Boebel, with John Ratjen, an insane man, whose treatment was better than theirs, because he was better able to care for himself, have been taken back to the hospital at Elgin. The two insane departments are now empty, and they will probably remain empty for a long time to come. They have been thoroughly cleansed and disinfected, and the stench which formerly clung to the walls is no longer apparent. But additional legislation is demanded for the care of the insane of Illinois, in certain directions which we proceed briefly to indicate, in the hope that your excellency will bring this subject to the attention of the general assembly, at its next session. For twenty years past, we have vainly endeavored to secure a revision of the lunacy laws of this state, which are very defective. You are aware of the great difficulty of intro- ducing the legislature to acknowledge the demand for additional provision of the insane in state institutions, and to meet it. Even when the additions shall have been made to the four ex- isting state hospitals for the insane, for which the last general assembly approriated money, these hospitals will accommodate little more than one-half of our insane. The rest must be cared for by their families, and if that is impossible, the county alsmhouses afford the only available refuge for them. Yet there is no law on our statute-books to regulate the care of the insane on county farms. It is even a matter of doubt whether they can be legally committed to them or detained in them. The duties of the county boards, with reference to insane paupers, are not defined by law. If they were, no machinery has been provided for compelling them to perform their duty, if indisposed to do so. No doubt a pop- ular impression exists that the state commissioners of public charities have power to prevent, or to remedy, the abuse of the insane on county farms. But they have no such power. Until the legislature shall see fit to lodge the requisite power in their hands, or to vest it in some other agency, in which it may repose greater confidence, there is no remedy, except in public sentiment, for any unconscious and unintentional cruelty to the insane, of which county boards may, in their ignorance or parsimony, be guilty. We have asked the legislature for power simply to appoint local boards of visitors to the county almshouses and jails, to serve without pay, with whom we might be in correspondence, and who might expose abuses where they exist, or correct them by moral suasion, without publicity. But this has been denied. We have asked for power to order the transfer of insane patients not properly cared for on county farms to state hospitals for the insane, without the consent of the county authorities or of the hospital superintendents, at our dis- cretion, but this has been denied. We have asked that the county officials, before erecting buildings for the care of insane paupers, shall be required to submit the plans for such buildings to us for approval, but this has also been denied. It appears to us that the legislature ought either to pro- vide for more efficient oversight and control of the insane on county farms, or else to forbid their reception and re- tention in county almshouses. Some relief will ensue, if the county boards themselves, by concurrent action, can create a public opinion which will justify the legislature in making the large expenditures from the state treasury necessary to provide for the care of all the insane of Illinois. But such relief can only be temporary, since the growth of insanity, all over the United States, is far more rapid than the growth of the population at large. And we must reiterate the conviction which we have so many times expressed, that the perpetual enlargement of the existing state institutions of the insane can be regarded in no other light than as a great public evil, disastrous to the interests of the insane themselves, which is the outgrowth of local greed for increased appropriations, the ambition of superintendents, and a popular delusion that such enlargement is in the end cheaper than proper provision would be in separate and smaller establishments. Notwithstanding our well founded reluctance to see any formal separation of the curable and chronic insane in distinct institutions we are prepared to accept and urge the creation of one or more institutions for the chronic insane alone, to which the insane now on county farms may be re- moved, or give our consent to further additions to the present capacity of the hospitals at Kankakee, Jacksonville, Anna, and Elgin. We respectfully call your attention to the case of Miss Boebel, who is not a legal resident of this state, or of the United States, but who has been, we think, a public charge for about a dozen years, and has cost the people of Illinois, who are not responsible for her care, between two and three thosand dollars. Ought not provision to be made by law for the return to their own homes, in other states or lands, of all similar cases? This is done in New York and Massachusetts. The number of such cases is probably quite large, and they are not covered by any existing legislation. Finally, we point to a fresh illustration of the absurdity of the present mode of commitment of the insane by jury, which came to our knowledge during this investigation. In the case of Mrs. Whitcomb, to which reference has been made, it appears that she had two jury trials, one week apart; that the same physician was foreman of both juries, and that the first jury declared her sane, but that the second jury declared her insane. This physician was on the stand, and he asked to be permitted to explain so striking an anomaly, which he proceeded to do, by stating that the first jury declared her sane, not because she was really sane, but because her aunt was willing to take care of her, and so save expense (although she was a recent and curable case) to the county and to the state. Probably many verdicts rendered by juries in insane cases have no more substantial basis than this. The insane need protection. They are deprived of the oppor- tunity, if not the capacity, to protect themselves. Hence arises the obligation which rests upon the state board of public charities to champion their cause. It was for this special end that this board was created, and we invoke the aid of the press of the entire state in this effort to en- lighten the public as to their number, situation and needs. The people of Illinois do not wish them treated otherwise than with justice and humanity, and have never seriously complained of the cost of properly caring for them. All of which is respectfully submitted. We have the honor to be Your obedient servants, Charles G. Trusdell Frederick H. Wines ===========================================================================