The Restraint System, as practised at the North and East Ridings Asylum, and at the Asylum for the County of Bedford

Extract

When the future historian of the manners and customs of the present age shall seek for the most Prominent fact which in this country distinguishes the prevailing spirit as that of humanity, he will scarcely hesitate in awarding the post of honor to the Non-Restraint system of treating the insane. The change which the system of which the total abolition of mechanical restraint is the key stone has effected, has been, where adopted in its entirety, a total one. The change is so complete, that its extent is hard to realize; just as a denizen of this fair country experiences difficulty in picturing to his imagination the hill Sides clothed with dense forest, the postures occupied by poisonous fens, the whole inhabited by painted Celts and other Savage animals. But it has not taken ages nor even the brief space of one man's life, to substitute the most benign features of human gentleness for the savagery of the old mad house. In a public speech at Stafford, the Lord Bishop of the diocese stated, “He never came away from the asylum without a feeling of gratitude and thankfulness. Much had been said of the great improvement which had taken place in the treatment of the insane, he might, perhaps, be allowed to mention one fact which had been told him by Sir Charles Clarke, but which Sir Charles (who was present) had not stated to them. Sir Charles told him, that he remembered when a student, he had often passed Bethlem, and heard the rattling of the chains and the shrieks of the patients. Only think of that, in the crowded streets of the metropolis to hear the rattling of the chains and the shrieks of the patients ! And now, as had been stated by Lord Harrowby, they might go over their own asylum, containing between three and four hundred patients, and not see a single patient placed under restraint of any kind, but all enjoying the utmost possible comfort which their cases would admit of. What a contrast to the rattling of chains and the shrieks of the patients!”