I observed that he wanted a great deal of room at the table, and took it without consulting the convenience of his next neighbor. I found myself much cramped for room, and his course became quite annoying to me. He would spread himself out, lay his arms on the table, slop over his tea and coffee on the table-cloth, throw his meat and potatoes off of his plate if he did not want to eat them, and had very much to say to other patients while eating. On one occasion he took his seat at the table before I did, spread himself out as usual, and laid his arm on my knife. I took my seat as usual, and sat awhile to see if he meant to remove his arm off of my knife. I saw that he did not mean to do so. I did not understand his object, but I soon found it was to draw me out in conversation, as I had not as yet spoken to him, and he began to feel annoyed about it. I at length asked him to remove his arm that I might take my knife.
He turned and looked daggers at me. “What,” he said, “have you spoken? I have sat by you two weeks, and you have not spoken to me; you need not try to play possum with me?” “What do you mean,” I said, “by playing possum?” He gave his definition of the saying. I then said, “Doctor, I feel under no obligations to you; I know no reason why I should make conversation with you more than others.” This offended him; he lifted up his voice and said, “He did not wonder I was in the asylum—that my folks could not live with me at home, so they had to bring me to the asylum.”
I admitted all his slang to be true, and said, “Yes, yes, doctor, that's so—you and I are here for the same reason, our folks could not live with us at home, so they sent us here.” This roused the lion—and he could roar terribly when roused—but I said no more, and as my reply got the laugh of the table on him, he cooled off, but he never tried me on again. Whether he thought he had caught a tartar, or whether he thought I was a fool and not worth minding, he did not inform me; but one thing I do know, that ever after this he treated me with respect, and died in the asylum in about two years from that time.
As I have already noticed, this is called the first hall on the gentlemen's side, and is on the first floor above the basement. Between this, and what was then called the fourth hall, now I believe called the second, is a billiard room. The patients amuse themselves at this game, and some of them are expert players. I never took any interest in it; I never even took the stick in my hand to strike a ball while there,—neither did I ever elsewhere.
Chess, checkers, backgammon and dominoes, were the principal games played in the asylum, but in none of these did I take any interest; indeed, I never learned to play them. I think if all these games could be confined to lunatic asylums it would be just as well for the world.
As the time of retirement on this floor is just half-past eight in the evening, there is considerable time during the long nights of winter for some kind of exercise between dark and bed-time. So after the hall is lighted up, the patients betake themselves to such kinds of recreation as suits them best—some to reading, some to walking the hall in pairs, which is a good exercise, others engage in the different games practiced on the hall, while some will always sit looking blank, as though all the world besides them were asleep or dead.
There is a state of mind in that institution which I have thought would not be moved if the house were on fire. I once saw it demonstrated on the fourth hall. A young man was brought on to that hall by his friends from the city of Utica, subject to epileptic fits; these fits had injured his mind very much; yet he was as harmless as a child, and a greater mistake never happened than to take a child to the lunatic asylum who has fits, thinking they can be benefited by it; but if it is done to get the child out of their sight, and to throw the care of them on to other hands, why then, that alters the case; but if that were my object, I certainly should not send them there; I would sooner send them to the county poor-house.
But to return to my story. He was sitting at the table; I think it was breakfast; we had all commenced eating; in a moment he fell backward chair and all, with a terrible groan, foaming at the mouth, and uttering most horrible groans; I started up as by instinct; my knife and fork dropped from my hands, and I was about to take hold of him to take him up, when two attendants took him up and carried him to his room. But I observed that more than half of those at the table never looked up nor stopped eating. I made up my mind that if they had been asked after breakfast, what happened at the breakfast table this morning, the would have said, “nothing that they knew of.” That was the state of mind I wanted to be in when I entered the asylum; then I should have had no trouble by anything I saw or heard. I do not wish the reader to understand that I now wish that to have been my state of mind.
Though it may seem a digression from the subject designed in this chapter, yet, while I am on the subject of epileptic fits, I wish to relate a fact which has come under my observation within a few weeks past. I was in a town in the northern part of Saratoga county about the 25th of June, 1868; and while there I was told that one of their neighbors was about to take their son to the Asylum at Utica, who was subject to epileptic fits, and they asked my advice. The brother of the young man who had fits was present. They did not know, that I am aware of, that I had any knowledge of the asylum. I asked them why they were going to take him to the asylum? I saw that he hesitated to answer. He finally said they thought it would be best. I asked him if they thought the doctors there could help one with fits better than other doctors?
I then told him just what I thought, “that many had been deceived by supposing they could cure epileptic fits at the asylum, and that they would miss it if they took him there for that purpose.” They were entire strangers to everything pertaining to the asylum, yet I saw they were intent upon taking the young man there. They started with him the next morning, and took him to the asylum.