Dr. Benjamin Ward Richardson, of London, in a recent article, entitled, "Medicine Under Queen Victoria," dated July 25, 1887, has clearly shown by indisputable facts, that this first great advancement in the science of medicine commenced practically in the year when Queen Victoria ascended the throne half a century before, and consisted in the adoption of the method of treating the insane without violent physical restraint.
What the practice of medicine in the treatment of the insane had been previous to 1837, it is in this day almost impossible to conceive.
Dr. Benjamin Ward Richardson says:
"There was in it no science and certainly no humanity. I remember perfectly as a youth, climbing the wall of a barn in order to look through a small grated window at a poor lunatic, who for twenty-five years had been chained in one corner of the place, and in that condition had been