Chemical Restraint and Alcohol

Extract

From the earliest historic period insanity seems to have been regarded as a disease that required restraint. The teaching of Conolly showed the fallacy of this view as regards mechanical restraint, and now—at all events in this country—medical psychologists are unanimous in condemning the practice, and the tendency is to give an ever increasing freedom to the mentally afflicted. Notwithstanding this, however, it cannot be denied that although the inmates of our asylums are no longer chained to walls, tied up in strong garments, or otherwise made harmless by mechanical means, a vast deal of what has very appropriately been termed “chemical restraint” goes on, and goes on, I believe, to the great injury of those it is supposed to benefit.