Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/230

214 214 A Short History of Nursing by humane methods without forcible restraint. In France, Dr. Philippe Pinel, a physician in charge of La Salpetriere, who had advocated the application to the insane of the Revolution's prin- ciples of liberty, struck off the chains and manacles from their limbs, as shown by an interesting paint- ing in the hospital. This was the beginning of the scientific era. France later paid high honours to Pinel, but England has given Tuke no memorial, though his work led to important changes in legis- lation. His son, Samuel Tuke, also visited asy- lums and tried through his writings to stir up in- terest in the care of the insane poor. The remarkable investigations of Dorothea Dix brought about a reformation in this country, and gave rise to our system of state hospitals. Miss Dix began inspecting the places where the insane were housed, in Massachusetts, in 1841. The result of her report on what she found was the immediate extension of state care for the insane in that state. She then carried on similar inves- tigations elsewhere, during twenty years' time, visiting every state in the Union, and carrying her appeals to every legislature. The policy of apply- ing the principle of taxation for the erection and maintenance of state hospitals was hers, and she saw it first accepted in 1845 in New Jersey.