Rules and Regulations of the Insane Asylum of California / Prescribed by the Resident Physician, August 1, 1861

by Stockton State Hospital

3. Those employed at the Asylum be expected to hold themselves in readiness for duty when directed by its officers; and the neglect of any labor, or duty, on the ground that laboring hours are over, or to hesitate, after proper direction, on such pretexts, will be regarded as evidence against the fitness of the employee for the place he or she may hold.

4. It must be remembered by all the employees, that their duties are peculiar and confidential, and that there is an obvious impropriety in disclosing the names, peculiarities, or acts of the inmates. It should never be forgotten that the most cruel wounds may, by imprudent disclosures, be inflicted on those whose conduct and language, during their misfortune, should be covered with the veil of deepest secrecy. Conversations, in relation to the Asylum and its inmates, sought by the idle and mischievous, should be studiously avoided.

5. All persons employed in the Asylum are required to cultivate a calm and deliberate method of performing their daily duties—carelessness and precipitation being never more out of place than in an insane asylum. Loud talking, hurrying up and down stairs, rude forms of address to one another, and unsightly styles of dress, are wholly misplaced where everything should be strictly decorous and orderly.

6. In the management of patients, unvarying kindness must be strictly observed by all. When spoken to, mild, pleasant and persuasive language must never give place to authoritative expressions of any kind. All threats, taunts, or other kinds of abuse in language, are expressly forbidden. A blow, kick, or any other kind of physical abuse, inflicted on a patient, will be immediately followed by the dismissal of the person so offending.

7. Employees having charge of patients outside of the wards, whether for labor or exercise, will be held responsible for their safe return, unless, by the direction of an officer they shall be transferred to the charge of some other person; and when patients employed out of doors become excited, they must be immediately returned to the wards whence they were taken, and the fact reported at the office.

8. It will be expected of all employed in or about the Asylum, to check, as far as possible, all conversations or allusions, on the part of patients, to subjects of an obscene or improper nature, and remove, when in their power, false impressions on their minds, respecting their confinement or management; and any person who shall discover a patient devising plans for escape, suicide, or violence to others, is enjoined to report it to an officer without delay.

9. The place of duty of those having charge of patients is in the wards, or in the yards, or in the garden with the patients. During the day and while the patients are out of their sleeping apartments, they have no business in their rooms, except for a momentary errand to adjust their own clothing; and any employee who shall enter his or her room, and engage in reading, writing, entertaining visitors, or be otherwise off duty, will be acting in violation of rule.

10. The employees are not permitted to correspond with the friends of patients; and all letters or packages to, or from, patients, must pass through the hands of the Superintendent or Assistant Physician. All making of dresses, working of embroidery, or any mechanism, for the use of employees, is prohibited, unless by the special permission of the Superintendent; and no employee of the Institution shall ever make any bargain with any patient, or his or her friends, or accept of any fee, reward or gratuity from any patient, or his or her friends, without the Superintendent’s consent.

11. Employees will not be permitted to leave the Asylum without the consent of the Superintendent or Assistant Physician, and, when allowed to leave, they will be expected to return by 9 o’clock P. M.—unless expressly permitted to remain out longer. Before leaving they must hang up their keys in the place, in the office, provided for that purpose. Non-residents will not be permitted to remain in the Institution at night without the knowledge and consent of the Superintendent or Assistant Physician.

12. No person will be employed in or about the Asylum who is intemperate in habits, or who engages in gambling or any other immoral or disreputable practice; and as the patients are not allowed the use of tobacco, within the Asylum, the employees are expected not to use it, in any form, in their presence.