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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1839 Excerpt: ...to be seen' are to be accepted as an unquestionable reason for shrouding from inspection, even of the weekly-appointed visitors, any insane patient to whom they are applied, a convenient cloak will be ever at hand to cover any severity, neglect, or other abuse. It is superfluous to mention the extreme danger of any mistaken delicacy in the Official Guardians of the Patients, with regard to a personal inspection of their condition. The seeds of abuse exist in every institution: and the example of other asylums has painfully shown how difficult they are to be eradicated when they have once taken root; and how governors the most honorable and humane may be drawn into a misplaced confidence. Even respectable persons may, by habit, become reconciled to spectacles, which would startle a stranger, and which could not, for a moment, be endured under the public eye. From the peculiar nature of an asylum for the insane, the most horrible abuses may exist within its walls without suspicion, and almost without the possibility of detection. Sir Andrew Halliday has observed, 'The mystery which has been made to hover round the precincts of a mad-house, was sufficient to baffle common enquiry; and the utter seclusion so insidiously inculcated, made it next to impossible to discover the scenes of horror that took place within its walls.' Hence our attention should ever be directed to a system of prevention, which can be rendered effectual only by keeping our grounds, courts, galleries, cells, offices, and as much as possible, the persons of the patients, open to that rational inspection, which our rules have provided for, and which general experience has shown to be safe as well as necessary. The surest evidence of the good conduct of any estab...

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