will not be exercised against inanimate objects… …I might tell you further, gentlemen, I have reason to believe that in many of these asylums, which show reports of non-restraint (I have it from some of the officers of such), that restraint is winked at when indulged in by subordinates, and yet, they publish reports of the success of non-restraint. Whether you put on the camisole, or put a patient under the power of drugs, it does not matter ; both are restraints, and I prefer the mechanical restraint as more conducive to recovery… I prefer to be free, open, and candid, in these matters, rather than to desire to ride on a popular name, and the same time, behind the door, allow restraint to be used. »
Une fière leçon celle-là, honneur à celui qui a eu le courage et l’honnêteté de la faire. MM. les Dr Gray d’Utica et Gale de Kentucky ont écrit, contre la non-restraint, des rapports bien connus des aliénistes. Cette opposition à une doctrine insoutenable est le résultat de l’expérience universelle et, de plus, est, en tout état de cause, fondée en raison. Si je voulais faire ici, par représailles, une peinture des accidents multipliés et des actes de brutalité produits en Angleterre par la pratique de la non-restraint, rien ne serait plus facile ; mais je me contenterai de quelques citations. Un aliéniste américain, M. le Dr Browers, dit, entre autres choses, dans le numéro de Juin 1881 de l’American Journal of Insanity : — « I have now, in my mind’s eye, the picture of a scene I witnessed in an English asylum. A restless and violent patient seated on a bench with a strong attendant on either side, holding him down by main force. I shall never forget the contortions, the squirming, and the struggles of the man to free himself from their grasp. There is nothing so irritating to some restless and excitable patients as to be held by manual force ; but Englishmen are unwilling to admit that this is a species of restraint, nor will they admit that the padded room, without a particle of furniture, and with small windows near the ceilings, which let in only a dim light, is a restraining machine. »
Le Dr Gale dans son rapport de 1882, page 21, dit : — « About 1840, one John Conolly came forward with a theory, which finally merged inte a hobby with him
