Page:Memoir of Isaac Parrish, M.D. - Samuel Jackson.djvu/25

 his long-entertained fears, that however wise, in a moral light, the principle of separating convicts, the administration of the system at the Eastern Penitentiary, was attended by such hygienic and disciplinary defects as must necessarily produce an undue amount of suffering and death. To remedy these defects, however arduous the task, Dr. Parrish at once resolved. But, with characteristic prudence, he determined that neither his own suspicions nor the representations of others, should induce him to resort to active measures, till personal observation had established the truth. He became, therefore, a constant visitor, examining the arrangements of the cells, and closely scrutinizing the health of their inmates. These investigations, in themselves physically and morally repulsive, satisfied him that the amount of insanity and death was quite disproportioned to the number in confinement. Different views, however, were still maintained by a large majority of the Prison Society, and it was argued by them, that a similar scrutiny of the congregate prisons would show an equal degree of physical and mental disease. To solve this question, it was now proposed that a committee of physicians should be appointed to visit the congregate prisons of the Union, and to report on the general health of the convicts."

Dr. Parrish's Recollections of this tour, we have already noticed, and said that they did not lessen his fears for the effects of solitary confinement. He therefore continued his investigations; he discussed the subject earnestly in the Society, as well as in private conversations, and he wrote the important paper already mentioned on the "Health and Mortality of Convicts," which was extensively circulated by the Society, and has made such an impression on our courts that they have acknowledged the propriety of shorter sentences. All the reforms which we have mentioned or alluded to, and some others, are carefully noted by Dr. Given, in his Annual Report, for 1851, published by the Inspectors. Death and insanity have been greatly diminished the last two years, nearly two-thirds; and no other cause can be assigned than the improvements suggested and importunately urged by Drs. Given and Parrish.

[When this memoir was read to the College last January, I was not informed of one fact to which I now request the reader's attention. So earnest was Dr. Given in the prison reformation