18. The Darkest Hour

“Here am I literally entombed alive by fraudulent means, for a wicked purpose, by the despotic will of my husband. My life is almost daily and hourly endangered and I am allowed no communication with the outside world.”

— Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard. “The Prisoners’ Hidden Life, Or Insane Asylums Unveiled.”

My dear Watson,

Having spent a lovely afternoon in the stacks of Vassar’s Library, my research proved instructive. Hudson River State Hospital for the Insane opened in 1887 as one of the new facilities adopted throughout the State of New York as asylums. Immediately it applied the fashionable Pinel and Tuke’s philosophy of “Moral Treatment.” This achieved for the state the consolidation of its mentally imbalanced citizenry, who had gained a refuge from the gutters, jails, and alms-houses.

Sadly, all too soon, this approach failed in the large state institutions. It quickly became a regime of enforced occupational therapy, food austerity and exercise-yards. The workhouses emptied, hospitals and families dumped into the asylums their enfeebled, elderly, and poor. In the resultant overcrowding, morality became obsolete. In the financially driven search for a better method, emergency restraints returned, and superintendents allowed experimental approaches. The inconsistent motives of aiding lunatics and of protecting the community from them conformed all too well to the new theory of eugenics. Purporting that mentally ill people are subhuman and need to be purged from the general population. A classist concept carried to the extreme!

This enormous asylum was built on the popular Kirkbride design as two five-storied, red bricked fortresses with large public spaces, a multitude of outbuildings and classrooms. The imposing facade of this fearsome architecture is perched atop a massive hill, camouflaged with rolling greens and tended gardens. Its coveted view of the Hudson River is breath-taking. From their locked and barred windows, the inhabitants stare wistfully at the river’s illusory freedom.

As you know me to be, dear fellow,

Very sincerely yours,

S. H.

Help Wanted, Male & Female

BEGIN a career in Mental Health and receive personal satisfaction, security, good salary, advancement opportunities, liberal fringe benefits. Most positions are for: Psychiatric Attendant or Food Service Worker. High school diploma or experience helpful but not required. Apply at Hudson River State Hospital, Personnel Office, Main Bldg., Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 452-8000.

Mr. Adam Newton had telegraphed Hudson expressing interest in the job. On Friday, I embarked upon my introduction to the asylum as an employé and was loudly greeted at the entrance by two policemen wrestling with a screaming patient. One of them called to the attendant at the door. “We got another one, Mac, caught him down by the river trying to hop on a sleigh.” Orderlies arrived and stuffed the patient into a straitjacket. They picked him up and carried him, still screaming his anguish and despair. The policeman continued. “He bit poor Fred, on the hand, there. It’s all part of the job, right, Fred?”

The nurse addressed him. “Come in, we’ll take care of it. Human bites can be nasty. We are a hospital after all.”

I coughed. “Where will they take that patient, nurse, what’s next for him?”

She turned to me, her face expressed—Not from around here. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

A young doctor pushed in. “Are you Newton?”

“Yes.”

“He’s here for the orderly job. I’m Dr. Simons. Call me Joey.” I entered and shook his hand.

“That was some commotion. Are you called upon to handle such extreme situations on a regular basis?” Dr. Joey was the Superintendent’s brother? Was he reliable, a follower, or a henchman, someone not to be trusted? He has an easy-going countenance, mud on his boots, and somewhat intelligent eyes. How can a doctor have dirty fingernails? The way he hefted that screaming patient showed strength, but also an apathetic nature. What else was behind those eyes? Was he under his brother’s thumb or was it the other way around?

“Because of my size, I’m always called in to restrain a difficult patient. My duties encompass the whole of Hudson, but this is my least favourite.” He looked as if he had swallowed something distasteful.

“Is this a weekly or daily thing?”

“Two or three times a week.” Dr. Joey said.

I studied the inside of the bleak building, synchronized it with the map in my mind: Main entrance locked, guarded: Forced exit possible depending upon the guard. There are bars on every window. Patients look disheartened, alone, afraid, sedated, and lost. There are no small groups talking together, no conversation at all. Other exits go out to the garden from the north side of the building.

“Are there any other exits besides those near the garden? Are they locked?”

“No, it’s open all day. Everything’s locked up at five o’clock. The upper floors are always locked. There are four wards on the first floor, four on the second floor, and one on the third floor, next to the infirmary. The men’s ward is located on this side and the female’s on the other.”

“Thank you, Dr. Simons. I appreciate taking your time.” I took out my cigarette case. “May I smoke here?”

“No, the only place to smoke indoors is the orderlies’ locker room.”

We entered the locker room. “Your uniform put it on.”

I hung my coat, and put a match to my cigarette. He lit his pipe and that was all I could get out of him. He withdrew into himself as he smoked. Would he prove to be the man I am searching for?

From the locker room, I walked through cold, dreary corridors into the bright atrium with a view of the snow-covered gardens. Residents read and sat in the light that streamed in through windows and skylights. Behind that image, I observed a high level of palpable fear, despair, fresh knife or nail cuts in various stages of being healed. I recognized bruises purpled on faces, ankles and wrists, hands trapped in gauze, similar to Miss Rita’s maltreatment. Shortened hair that had been cut to extremes, or pulled out by inmates doing horrible things to them-selves: I looked into tortured eyes that didn’t see me, contorted faces, and drug-hollowed stares, their minds full of nothing, their bodies clenched, cringing at the screams within and around them. The smell of strong disinfectant assaulted the senses. My discriminating hearing pinpointed muffled repetitive, banging coming from the locked wards.

In this enormously overcrowded hospital, some trifles stood out. My attention was drawn by two patients in wheelchairs. One woman extremely distressed expeditiously rolled herself around the room, knocked into others and over feet in her agitated search for a certain lady reading quietly in the sun. She spoke fast-paced gibberish as if her clockwork spring had been over-wound. Every muscle of her face expressed intense emotion and worry. Yet, her words were unintelligible. The woman she had anxiously sought answered her clear as a bell. “That must have been hard to do.” The other exploded in happy gibberish, her face relaxed. She smiled, and patted the other’s hand, calming the wordless.

As I headed out the door, I searched for Dr. Joey and found him in the Conservatory. Bundled up in sweaters, wearing a flap cap, his hands in gloves with fingers freed to sift the dirt and an intense look on his face as he potted a seedling. “This will become part of daffodil hill.” He said with pride in his voice.

“How about taking me on that tour?”

We walked out and behind the asylum building. I lit a cigarette and drew the map on my shirt cuff. “You can see the new Edgewood buildings, the visitor’s building, laundry and tailor shop, carpenter shop, classrooms and the School of Nursing. Everything opened at eight a.m.” He paused between thoughts, stopped, and looked at his watch.

I opened the door of the nearest classroom, nodded to the teacher, said. “Bonjour!” Most of the students looked cold and bored. After answering me the teacher continued with a very basic French lesson. Yet, in the back Rita was staring at me, smiling she pantomimed twirling a moustache. I tipped my hat, and left before our exchange was noticed.

“The south wing is this way.” Dr. Joey said.

“What time of day is it in operation?”

“Anytime.” He shrugged. “Herman’s always tinkering with his new electrotherapy batteries.”

We went down two levels in a large hydraulic lift that opened into an ample, concrete sub-basement area. He lit a lamp. The light showed that it inhabited half of the building area above it, divided up into a succession of rooms with white-tiled walls and floors. Observation windows on each door faced the hallway. The therapeutic facility was empty, the air full of fresh hygienic solution.

Dr. Joey rattled this off in a flat tone: “Above us is our kitchen on the first basement level. On this level are sound-proofed seclusion cells with padded walls and floors. The electrotherapy rooms, and force-feeding stations equipped with restraint beds. The operating theatre for psychosurgery, hysterectomy and male or female castration: The bathing area and Bath of Surprise for cold water shock.” He abruptly stopped.

“It’s called ‘bath of surprise?” I smiled. The room had multiple drains in the floor. A ladder led up to a ten foot high wooden box frame with a trapdoor lid, like a gallows. Below it was the ice cold bath.

“It can stop a heart.” He said.

Add to my inner map: Two ways in or out, lift required an operator, and stairs. There were no other exits: no windows, no pillows, no blankets, and no towels. These empty torture chambers, how can one think of them any other way? I envisioned the slammed doors of padded cells, the unacknowledged pleas. The snap of manacles onto innocent hands and feet, the terrible jolts of electricity, and the surgeon’s scalpel as it cut irretrievably into brain or womb filled me with apprehension and dread.

“Is there a way to turn the electricity on, here in this room?”

We walked over to an electrics room, and he demonstrated. “Yes I think Herman is working on that. We have six of Dr. Stohrer’s Dresden double batteries they can each increase to 150 milli-amperes of electricity. Positive pole electrodes are applied to the head. Basins of acidulated water for the feet and by having both hands and feet in the water it is possible to send a current up or down both extremities and the spine at the same time.”

We ascended as we came. “How does one acquire the idea that the body of a mentally ill person is fodder for experimentation?”

Dr. Joey shook his head.

“Thank you. When do I start, and the pay is $28.00 a month?” I said.

“Tomorrow at 8 a.m.” He turned away.

I called after him. “See you then. Good afternoon.”

Marcello arrived, and I cabbed to my class at Vassar pondering Dr. Joey’s eccentricities.

Saturday became my first day of official employment at Hudson. The Simons brother’s perplexities were still to be solved. I looked forward to weekend quiet and the chance to interview the inhabitants.

While on duty in the atrium, I observed a young woman, Miss Helena, dressed like a suffragist in long skirt and man’s jacket, she was speaking to a small group of inmates. They were looking around, biting their nails, pulling their hair, and bouncing up and down in their chairs. She spoke with the attitude of a preacher. “Can flesh-and-blood people just disappear? Who is buried in unmarked graves? I don’t know but I know where they are.” She pointed dramatically behind the building. “They’re, out there!” My interviews began with Miss Helena, whom I also asked to draw a map of the burial ground. “Thank you, I am grateful for your diligence.” I secreted it in my jacket.

Suddenly, a hand grasped my right arm and short, pot-bellied Dr. Simons appeared. I winced at his tight compression and he let go. His skin was bumpy, face misshapen, his nose a blob beneath two small eyes lost in his sunken wrinkles. His mouth was like the deep cuts in my arm, a large gash in the lower half of his face. His grey moustache was a formless smudge on his lip. His clothes sagged as if rarely pressed. Jacket and tie had crumbs and stains upon them. Proportionately his hands were over-large, fingernails clean. He looked to be in his late fifties yet as energetic as an 18-year-old.

“I’m Dr. Herman Simons and you are new here orderly?”

“Adam Newton, sir,” and put out my hand, which he grabbed and squeezed hard. I pulled away, “Really sir!”

“Forgive me, please. Let’s begin your training in the Simons’ Method then. I’ll introduce you to our little atrium group. Our patients are like members of our family.”

“I’m honoured, thank you.”

A woman half-dressed and singing to her doll was wandering around the atrium. “Take her hand!”

“This is not ethical, sir.”

“Ethicality!” He took me aside, spoke in an angry whisper. “Many of these people are here because they have syphilis; how is that ethical? What treatment do they deserve? But they can fulfil a purpose for society and redeem their lives with the kind of experimentation I have devised. Do you know in Austria they are curing it with malarial fever?”

He took her doll, stroked it. The patient screamed and gesticulated wildly. “My baby!”

He said. “Can’t I hold your baby? I will be careful.”

The patient said. “Don’t drop her!” She grabbed her doll and ran away into the crowd.

“She must be missing her child.” I said.

“You are quick, Newton, but she is insane.”

“You’re the doctor, sir.”

Simons reached for my head and I stepped back from him. “Phrenology is the study of the bones of the head: just by placing my hands on your head I can determine intelligence, information about your character, whether or not you lacked a certain personality trait, and even criminality. It should be required at every school in the land!”

He went for the hand of a young woman whose hair was cut incredibly short, pink skin showing through. “Miss Sarah, give me your hand.” She complied as if under hypnosis. “Pretty Miss Sarah, she is a little shy about her beauty.” He placed his hands on her head. “She is of moderate intelligence, lacks faith in life, larcenous.” Took his hands from her head and drew a butter knife from her pocket. “Miss Sarah, where are your manners, say ‘Hello’ to this very handsome gent.” He pocketed the knife and twirled her around to face me.

Miss Sarah, her eyes on the floor, said very quietly. “Hello.”

I took the hand Dr. Simons thrust upon me, half bowed. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Sarah. Do you like it here?”

She spat on the floor then ran back to her seat. Arms wrapped tightly around her body she rocked back and forth and was swallowed up by the crowd. Dr. Simons laughed. “You see how shy she is, and completely unaware of her beauty. We try to remind them of the qualities they have forgotten.” His diligence at greeting every patient in some way was laudable and time-consuming, my interviews waited for another day.

“In preparation for the job, I read your founder’s tenets.”

“You want us to go backward, son? No, the Simons’ Method will reach results in much less time. You’d be surprised how many of these sick people are entrusted to us by their families. It is more the norm than the exception.”

Dr. Simons pounced on a nurse; playfully put his arm around her. “Our Nurse Nancy oversees this area and also teaches at our School for Nurses. Nurse, this is Adam Newton, the new orderly. Isn’t he handsome?” I tipped my bowler.

She looked uncomfortable, and gently pushed Simons away. “How do you do, Mr. Newton, and welcome to Hudson. I’m sure you have been hearing about all our brand-new equipment and Dr. Simons’ ideas.” She put out her hand, I shook it.

“Thank you, nurse. Please see to your patients.” He waved perfunctorily to the general area. “Upstairs are the bedrooms, showers, and dressing rooms. The south wing houses our modern therapeutic treatments.

“Dr. Burckhardt over in Marin, Switzerland, has some views of his own. I’ve applied them in conditions deemed to be intractable. He asserts that disordered minds are but a reflection of disordered brains, and that the best way to cure a patient is to remove the offending sections. Here at Hudson we have the most modern surgical theatres of any like hospital. We recently treated a young sodomite who was incapable of self-vigilance. He was cured in our operating theatre by castration.”

Aghast at what I had just heard. “I’d like to speak with him, is he here?” I looked around at the patients in the atrium.

“Unfortunately he expired following his successful surgery.” He watched for my reaction. “The positive aspects of this research are carried through for the future, to help others.” He smiled.

I noticed there were no patients near the south wing. I buttoned my coat and swirled my long scarf around my neck. The hill was covered with new snow, but the paths were clear. I turned back. “Sir, when I arrived this morning, there was a serious event at the entrance. Will that man get a chance to talk with someone about why and where he was headed?”

He grabbed my left arm and positioned me as if I were his confidant, lowered his voice. “We saved that patient’s life, he wouldn’t last an hour dressed like that, out in his slippers in this weather. They have no common sense!” His grin widened. “The insane don’t know what they want or need. We doctors, have the years of study, like fathers to wayward children, we know better. If one is committed here, it is frequently for life.” He let go my arm, thumped my back, and pushed me toward the doorway. “Good reflexes and good balance. Do you box?”

“Yes, but I quit it.”

He felt the muscles of my left arm. I stepped away. “Stopping before it altered your face was prudent.”

I shook his hand and thanked him for his time.

This conundrum was well-defended. “Tight as wax,” my partner would say. The techniques applied here were repellent but acceptable practice in this field. The Simons brothers remain unanswered questions in this dark horror. Dr. Joey seemed a generalist, he preferred to be professionally involved in all aspects of this pile, from the obligations of the lowest orderly and hiring, to all the legal paperwork generated from within the superintendent’s office. While his brother persevered with his specialized quest for a cure, he represented Hudson at Lunacy Commission meetings. One may wonder which Simons was actually running Hudson. Yet, how could I keep Miss Marcello safe?

I walked out and lit a cigarette. Breathing in the cold air, I was frozen to my spot by the sight of a long line of women climbing up the hill to the shelter of the asylum. They were secured to each other by a long cable fastened to wide leather belts, the belts locked around the waists of fifty women. Guarded by brutish attendants: they screamed, cursed, prayed, sang, and their distorted faces showed just how far each woman’s journey from sanity had led.

These were the violent patients out for an airing while their ward was cleaned. But why were these women shackled like convicts? And they were filthy. How was that medically necessary? The wind had no answer, it picked up, blowing the snow into drifts. Groups of well-supervised male patients with shovels headed inside, holding onto their hats. Dr. Joey took charge of the shovels. Who answered for this? Neither Simons’ brother, it seemed. Was there some other evil embodiment hidden here? Without facts this was merely conjecture. Speculation combined with the awful dread of the asylum would lead me to unwelcome diversions.

In the cab ride to Meyer’s, I shared some of my less worrisome thoughts with Marcello, grateful for my dinner with him and the Houdini brothers. In the tavern we discussed plans for the rescue. I apprised Marcello of the position of the communications box which held the asylum’s telegraph and telephone equipment and pressed upon him the necessity to arrive armed. Houdini and Dash explained their marvellous burlesque program to us and our warm laugher carried me home through the cold night.

Palm Sunday was my second salaried day in the asylum. While the patients were at Sunday service, I jogged through the cramped, dusty grey light into the atrium’s bright open space to Nurse Nancy. She led me to a remote outside classroom, where we sat in wooden chairs near the fireplace. I had hoped this meeting would clear some of my suppositions.

“Miss Anthony and I are working in concert to help release Miss Rita Marcello,” I said.

“Do you mean Mrs. Pinto?” I nodded. “Mr. Newton, I hope you can, she is in danger. She speaks up for herself, and that is never a good thing. At Hudson, doctors are the top of the hierarchy, patients down at the bottom.” I lit a cigarette, leaned forward and encouraged her to continue.

“Would you mind if I also smoked? Some suffragists do.”

I offered my case and lit her cigarette and enjoyed the uncommon pleasure of smoking with a lady. This was not a rough dock woman with her cuty pipe, whom I have also had occasion to share tobacco with. But an educated, intelligent young medical professional and teacher, a real lady. It was one of my most pleasantly unique American experiences.

“Most of those who question the doctors wind up in our experimental rooms.” She looked in my eyes. “They don’t make it back from that.”

“Do they go to another hospital? Is there anything you can do from the inside to help Mrs. Pinto?”

She whispered. “I don’t know what happens to them. They just disappear and are purged from the medical records. I can make sure she gets the things that have been taken away from her, like meals.”

“Are you saying she is being starved?”

“No, just kept hungry. But I see family members are bringing picnics, encourage them to continue. Don’t get me wrong, Rita is a good patient. She questions a doctor’s decision when she thinks it could be harmful, and they see that as rebellious. She is more intelligent than most of the doctors at Hudson and they don’t acknowledge a woman’s intelligence, so they see it as a problem.”

“What about her safety, can you help with that?”

She looked at the door. “I have no authority over either Dr. Simons, or any of the doctors, on the wards, but I can help her.”

“What would they do to her?”

“People like Rita are usually scheduled for frequent private sessions.” She shook her head.

I waved her on to elaborate, leaned back in my chair, and closed my eyes.

“Some doctors enjoy keeping patients awake to their total power over them. They feel it’s quite a challenge to whip their wayward children into shape. Their poor charges, women and men alike, need iron discipline.” I was intently listening to her. I opened my eyes, and she was looking directly at me.

“I am not squeamish, pray continue.” I closed my eyes, put my fingertips together.

“In their quest to break her down, they refuse her things, access to the showers, meals, her personal things. They have so little here, but all of it can be removed on a doctor’s say-so: Blankets, clothing, outside access, the gardens, classes, safe wards. And then there are restraints, which some use as punishment. She can be thrown up to the violent ward at any time and they will do their dirty work.”

I urged her on.

“What goes on in those private sessions? I don’t know. They are cloistered and confidential. But a woman patient once told me she was raped. Though I’m not sure what she meant by that, vaginal, oral, anal, or did he just touch or kiss her? I wasn’t the examining nurse, and women grow up so insulated. I have dressed men’s caning wounds. Some believe the patients need to be purified or shocked awake. And I think some of the doctors enjoy it a little too much.”

I opened my eyes. “Do you think there are sadists at Hudson Hospital, Nurse Nancy? Do you know who they are?”

“Yes. But finding them won’t be easy.”

“This will need more consideration on my part. The situation is very dark. But if you can keep Mrs. Pinto safe, I will do all I can for her release and to bring these doctors to justice.” She nodded.

“How will you do that, Mr. Newton?” I lit another cigarette and offered her one.

“The Simons brothers are alone in their high towers. The other doctor’s feelings are personally involved. They are as yet unknown to me. One of them will make a mistake. They have probably made many already. But now you and I are watching and we will catch them.”

“You sound so sure.”

“I have seen many like men go down.” I released a swirling cloud of smoke above us. “Villainy will always be conquered by those whose hearts and minds are inclined to justice.”

“Justice in a State Hospital for the Insane?”

“Justice is a right of citizenship.”

“There is one doctor you may meet today, Dr. Edwards. He’s a weekender, and usually here on Sundays.” She pitched her cigarette into the fire and said with a shake of her head. “What will you do if justice fails you?”

“An escape has been planned and your assistance appreciated.” I put out my fag.

“Yes I’ve heard.” She smiled.

“So what can you do to keep her safe?” I lit us both another cigarette.

“I can get her out of restraints, out of the violent ward immediately. I’ll talk with her after her sessions. Remove any restrictions placed on her.” She put her hand to her throat, said in a quavering voice. “If they notice I’m doing this, they’ll probably kill us both.” She crushed out her cigarette.

“Kill! That is a serious charge.”

“There are rumours that two bodies are buried in unmarked graves on the grounds.”

“Is there any evidence, Nurse?

“Nothing.”

“I would be careful about repeating injurious rumours, Nurse Nancy. I am not asking you to put yourself in harm’s way, but to help Mrs. Pinto when it is safe for you to do so. Please get a message to me if your lives are threatened or if you catch a doctor in an indiscretion.” I wrote down my Vassar information. We walked out of the schoolroom and returned to the asylum building and the continuance of our work day.

I positioned myself to encounter Dr. Edwards as he entered the hospital. “I am Orderly Newton, sir, glad to meet you.”

He blandly shook my hand. “Orderly, bring my first patient.”

He was mousey, medium height and build, brown hair, and brown eyes. Pug nose, nails bitten to the quick, like Lestrade he wore greyish brown. His overall mien was one of invisibility. He was soft-spoken, genteel, with a pencil moustache lining his thin upper lip.

Edwards was to attend patients privately throughout the day. I escorted an exceptionally beautiful young man to Edwards’ door. The patient’s name was Will, and he spoke the Queen’s English in a resonant baritone. When he came out he was clearly in pain and holding back tears.

“Will, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“I am new at Hudson and petitioning patients about their treatment by the staff. I want to weed out the bad apples. Can you help me?”

“I’m afraid of what they’ll do to me.”

“I can help you son. You must trust me. I am not under anyone’s thumb here, but a free agent.” I put my hand on his shoulder and he winced and pulled away.

“I have a smoking area behind the schoolroom, come out and we can talk.”

He drew me a picture of pure sadism and I directed him to Nurse Nancy for the immediate attendance of his wound. Dr. Edwards’ Gladstone bag was filled with scourges. The horrible devises that some believed would bring them to a holy state and one of the reasons I decried religion. His therapy was comprised of directing his patients to painfully scourge themselves, while he recited their sins. For the rest of the day, I ensured no patients entered his office. It seemed a summer complaint had infected the men’s ward. I left a full report on Simons’ desk. A trap set to spring.

Watson, it is a cruel world.

The innocent souls trapped inside that red brick fortress haunt me. This is the new way of the state; yet, I can see nothing but torment here. Both brothers, the Superintendent and his assistant, seem distasteful, yet I can find nothing to hang them on. Do I not have the expertise?

How does it help the unbalanced mind to be treated thus? How are doctors deluded into thinking this is an ameliorative environment? Once again we see society’s foolish application of power and control against the powerless. But who, who is regimenting this? I have unmasked one villain, but he is no general.

I will see justice done!

Goodnight, dear Watson. The great Cicero I think had our partnership in mind when he wrote: “Amicitiae nostrae memoriam spero sempiternam fore:—I hope that the memory of our friendship will be everlasting.”

As you know me to be, dear friend,

Very sincerely yours,

S. H.