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Panel Formed to Look Into Patient Care - Frank Sutherland - Nashville Tennessean
The state commissioner of mental health announced yesterday he has appointed a special committee of professionals and lay citizens to investigate the Farmer complex at Central State Psychiatric Hospital. The Farmer complex includes the building where Tennessean reporter Frank Sutherland stayed for 31 days posing as a patient.
The Nashville Tennessean 1974-01-22
X-"Seven Days in the Madhouse!" - Frank Smith - Chicago Daily Times
". . .'Johnny Ford, there's a visitor to see you.' Attendant 'Denny' Dennison's voice awakened me from my melancholy reveries. I hurried to the visitor's room and found Willis O'Rourke, Daily Times reporter, my quondam brother 'Edward C. Ford,' awaiting me in the doorway. 'Hello, Johnny,' he greeted me. Then after we were alone he looked at my sagging waistline and whistled. 'What the hell are you doing, dieting?' (I lost eight pounds during my week in the madhouse.) 'Yes,' I answered. 'I'm saving up for the juiciest steak I can order, chargeable to the expense account. How about getting me out of this joint?' . . ."
Chicago Daily Times 1935-07-26
VIII-"Seven Days in the Madhouse!" - Frank Smith - Chicago Daily Times
"Somebody shoved Mr. M---- into the room and he at once captured my interest. His temples were scarred and his neck all across the back was scored with slashes, freshly painted with mercurochrome. Louie L-----, the "tub" room trust, greeted me from the door, and explained about Mr. M----. "He's nuts," said Louie. "He's got bad blood, and he tried to kill himself with a piece of window pane. Don't pay no attention to him. Say I've got some swell socks, brand new. I'll sell 'em cheap to you, cause you're my pal." I wasn't interested in socks at the time. Not with Mr. M---- willing to tell me about his suicide attempt."
Chicago Daily Times 1935-07-24
VII-"Seven Days in the Madhouse!" - Frank Smith - Chicago Daily Times
"Johnny N----, the clothesroom man, was fast becoming a friendly source of institutional information. Possessed of a ground parole, he was my one contact with the outside world. He bought my cigarettes, took my clothes to a quick-service laundry, slipped in a savory hamburger sandwich when the "house" meals became unbearable. Johnny should be able to tell me how to get a view of the dance. I asked him. "Ford," he replied, "don't miss the dances while you're here if you possibly can make them. They're a riot. And there are some honeys amongst the nurses. Ask Denny, he might fix it up for you. . ."
Chicago Daily Times 1935-07-23
VI-"Seven Days in the Madhouse!" - Frank Smith - Chicago Daily Times
". . .'What,' I asked Max Savoy, one of A-1's attendants, 'what in heaven's name would you do in case of a fire?' 'We'd do our damndest, Ford,' he replied. "We'd have to depend on some of you half-sane guys to help us out with these other nuts. One of the first duties impressed on new attendants, he told me, is the necessity for speed in opening doors and herding out their charges in an emergency. . ."
Chicago Daily Times 1935-07-22
V-"Seven Days in the Madhouse!" - Frank Smith - Chicago Daily Times Seven Days in the Madhouse!
"According to Oscar's story, he was illegally committed through the machinations of his wife. Family difficulties, constant bickering, had paved the way he related. By subterfuge, he said, he was induced to visit a psychiatrist at the University of Chicago. He was subjected to observation with the result that a month later he was ordered into court for a sanitary hearing. He said: 'I didn't think anything of it. I had to go. BUT what could the judge do except find me sane? I had never had any trouble in my life. For years I had been a clerk in the registry division of the main post office in Chicago. They ought to know if I was crazy. My wife swore I was trying to kill her and the children. All I wanted was to be left alone to study and read in the library I had fitted up in my home on the south side. The social service workers aided my wife in getting me put away' . . ."
Chicago Daily Times 1935-07-19
IV-"Seven Days in the Madhouse!" - Frank Smith - Chicago Daily Times
"Common drinking cups - repugnant source of infections and disease - outlawed for a quarter of a century by the Illinois criminal code - shared with four drooling-mouth cancer patients and a "four plus" syphilitic. This was one of the nauseous conditions I had to endure during my seven days in the madhouse. It was distasteful, but it was a necessary evil. I had a job to do. Sane, I had to share the fate of the insane. I realized all that, and was prepared to go through with my investigation of reported unsanitary conditions. "
Chicago Daily Times 1935-07-18
III-"Seven Days in the Madhouse!" - Frank Smith - Chicago Daily Times
"Finally we stopped near the end of the corridor. I was motioned to an empty bed in a four-bed room. Alcove would be a more descriptive name, for it was walled only on three sides, open to the corridor. I toppled over. The sheets were soiled but I was past caring ..."
Chicago Daily Times 1935-07-17
II-"Seven Days in the Madhouse!" - Frank Smith - Chicago Daily Times
Fifteen hours in a tub of dirty flowing river water. Fifteen hours soaking in the turbid, unfiltered, unsterilized mud wash of the Kankakee river, while pleas for antiseptic to protect open wounds on my hands and arms, sustained in my struggle with attendants, went unheeded. Fifteen hours watching violent patients wander about the hydrotherapy ward, until, captured, they were wrapped mummy-fashion in wet sheets and blankets, or tied in tubs like myself. Worst of all, a stomach-retching spectacle of sadistic brutality.
Chicago Daily Times 1935-07-16
II-"I Was A Mental Patient" - Michael Mok - New York Telegram and Sun
When patients are brought into Kings County in a violent state because of liquor, drugs or madness, they are laced into straitjackets, put under heavy sedation and packed off to Ward 51 on the fifth floor for close confinement and supervision. If they calm down, they are unbound and given the run of 51, under the watchful eyes of its muscular and highly trained attendants.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1961-03-17
I-"I Was A Mental Patient At Kings County" - Michael Mok - New York World Telegram and Sun
Despite the best efforts of its dedicated doctors and nurses, Kings County Hospital disgorges many of its mental patients with their minds scraped raw because its staff and facilities are inadequate for the processing of the mentally ill. Personal inspection of the psychiatric division reveals: Dreadful overcrowding - so bad that patients are forced to sleep in dining areas and hallways. Lack of segregation - frightened children locked in with depraved adults. Improper housing arrangements - slightly depressed patients thrown in with raving lunatics. Inadequate staffing - evidenced by overworked doctors, nurses, attendants and social workers. Unsanitary conditions in the bathrooms of the wards Questionable psychiatric decisions - patients often sent off to state institutions or returned to society after only a few minutes of psychiatric examination. Inadequate physical examination - patients not checked for venereal or other communicable diseases upon entering the hospital.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1961-03-15