Ten Days in a Mad-House and Other Stories by Nellie Bly Page A
Authors: Nellie Bly
Tags: General, Social Science, Medical, Biography & Autobiography, Editors; Journalists; Publishers, Psychology, Mental Illness, Psychiatry, People With Disabilities, Hospital Administration & Care
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always said it was the imagination of our diseased
brains, and besides we would get another beating for telling. They
would hold patients under the water and threaten to leave them to
die there if they did not promise not to tell the doctors. We would all
promise, because we knew the doctors would not help us, and we
would do anything to escape the punishment. After breaking a
window I was transferred to the Lodge, the worst place on the
island. It is dreadfully dirty in there, and the stench is awful. In the
summer the flies swarm the place. The food is worse than we get in
other wards and we are given only tin plates. Instead of the bars
being on the outside, as in this ward, they are on the inside. There
are many quiet patients there who have been there for years, but the
nurses keep them to do the work. Among other beating I got there,
the nurses jumped on me once and broke two of my ribs.
84
Ten Days in a Mad-House
“While I was there a pretty young girl was brought in. She had been
sick, and she fought against being put in that dirty place. One night
the nurses took her and, after beating her, they held her naked in a
cold bath, then they threw her on her bed. When morning came the
girl was dead. The doctors said she died of convulsions, and that
was all that was done about it.
“They inject so much morphine and chloral that the patients are
made crazy. I have seen the patients wild for water from the effect of
the drugs, and the nurses would refuse it to them. I have heard
women beg for a whole night for one drop and it was not given
them. I myself cried for water until my mouth was so parched and
dry that I could not speak.”
I saw the same thing myself in hall 7. The patients would beg for a
drink before retiring, but the nurses–Miss Hart and the others–
refused to unlock the bathroom that they might quench their thirst.
85
Ten Days in a Mad-House
CHAPTER XV.
INCIDENTS OF ASYLUM LIFE.
THERE is little in the wards to help one pass the time. All the asylum
clothing is made by the patients, but sewing does not employ one’s
mind. After several months’ confinement the thoughts of the busy
world grow faint, and all the poor prisoners can do is to sit and
ponder over their hopeless fate. In the upper halls a good view is
obtained of the passing boats and New York. Often I tried to picture
to myself as I looked out between the bars to the lights faintly
glimmering in the city, what my feelings would be if I had no one to
obtain my release.
I have watched patients stand and gaze longingly toward the city
they in all likelihood will never enter again. It means liberty and life;
it seems so near, and yet heaven is not further from hell.
Do the women pine for home? Excepting the most violent cases, they
are conscious that they are confined in an asylum. An only desire
that never dies is the one for release, for home.
One poor girl used to tell me every morning, “I dreamed of my
mother last night. I think she may come to-day and take me home.”
That one thought, that longing, is always present, yet she has been
confined some four years.
What a mysterious thing madness is. I have watched patients whose
lips are forever sealed in a perpetual silence. They live, breathe, eat;
the human form is there, but that something, which the body can live
without, but which cannot exist without the body, was missing. I
have wondered if behind those sealed lips there were dreams we ken
not of, or if all was blank?
Still, as sad are those cases when the patients are always conversing
with invisible parties. I have seen them wholly unconscious of their
surroundings and engrossed with an invisible being. Yet, strange to
say, that any command issued to them is always obeyed, in about the
86
Ten Days in a Mad-House
same manner as a dog obeys his master. One of the most pitiful
delusions of any of the patients was that of a blue-eyed Irish girl,
who believed she was forever
brains, and besides we would get another beating for telling. They
would hold patients under the water and threaten to leave them to
die there if they did not promise not to tell the doctors. We would all
promise, because we knew the doctors would not help us, and we
would do anything to escape the punishment. After breaking a
window I was transferred to the Lodge, the worst place on the
island. It is dreadfully dirty in there, and the stench is awful. In the
summer the flies swarm the place. The food is worse than we get in
other wards and we are given only tin plates. Instead of the bars
being on the outside, as in this ward, they are on the inside. There
are many quiet patients there who have been there for years, but the
nurses keep them to do the work. Among other beating I got there,
the nurses jumped on me once and broke two of my ribs.
84
Ten Days in a Mad-House
“While I was there a pretty young girl was brought in. She had been
sick, and she fought against being put in that dirty place. One night
the nurses took her and, after beating her, they held her naked in a
cold bath, then they threw her on her bed. When morning came the
girl was dead. The doctors said she died of convulsions, and that
was all that was done about it.
“They inject so much morphine and chloral that the patients are
made crazy. I have seen the patients wild for water from the effect of
the drugs, and the nurses would refuse it to them. I have heard
women beg for a whole night for one drop and it was not given
them. I myself cried for water until my mouth was so parched and
dry that I could not speak.”
I saw the same thing myself in hall 7. The patients would beg for a
drink before retiring, but the nurses–Miss Hart and the others–
refused to unlock the bathroom that they might quench their thirst.
85
Ten Days in a Mad-House
CHAPTER XV.
INCIDENTS OF ASYLUM LIFE.
THERE is little in the wards to help one pass the time. All the asylum
clothing is made by the patients, but sewing does not employ one’s
mind. After several months’ confinement the thoughts of the busy
world grow faint, and all the poor prisoners can do is to sit and
ponder over their hopeless fate. In the upper halls a good view is
obtained of the passing boats and New York. Often I tried to picture
to myself as I looked out between the bars to the lights faintly
glimmering in the city, what my feelings would be if I had no one to
obtain my release.
I have watched patients stand and gaze longingly toward the city
they in all likelihood will never enter again. It means liberty and life;
it seems so near, and yet heaven is not further from hell.
Do the women pine for home? Excepting the most violent cases, they
are conscious that they are confined in an asylum. An only desire
that never dies is the one for release, for home.
One poor girl used to tell me every morning, “I dreamed of my
mother last night. I think she may come to-day and take me home.”
That one thought, that longing, is always present, yet she has been
confined some four years.
What a mysterious thing madness is. I have watched patients whose
lips are forever sealed in a perpetual silence. They live, breathe, eat;
the human form is there, but that something, which the body can live
without, but which cannot exist without the body, was missing. I
have wondered if behind those sealed lips there were dreams we ken
not of, or if all was blank?
Still, as sad are those cases when the patients are always conversing
with invisible parties. I have seen them wholly unconscious of their
surroundings and engrossed with an invisible being. Yet, strange to
say, that any command issued to them is always obeyed, in about the
86
Ten Days in a Mad-House
same manner as a dog obeys his master. One of the most pitiful
delusions of any of the patients was that of a blue-eyed Irish girl,
who believed she was forever
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