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Former superintendent Smith rejected the ready use of restraints and the wholesale employment of drugs as medical treatment. Superintendent Hughes, though, defended the application of restraining devises, especially among female patients, and the widespread use of alcoholic beverages and opium. "I would part with any other remedy," he argued, "before I would give up opium." Hughes also advocated the infliction of pain through scarification, blisters, and emetics to "rouse" the system and divert the patients from their delusions. In 1872, Hughes was forced to resign, not because of his treatment philosophy, but due to apparent financial mismanagement.
Glore Psychiatric Museum
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Strait Jacket, made by patients at State Hospital No. 2 in St. Joseph, Missouri from mattress ticking. |
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