House of Horrors

To motorists on U. S. 1, Byberry is just a cluster of red and white colonial-style buildings, not at all bad-looking, in a peaceful rural setting on the outskirts of Philadelphia. Philadelphians know the place better; some of them refer to the State Hospital for mental diseases at Byberry as the "House of Horrors." In the last ten years Philadelphia newspapers have sporadically aired reports of noisome doings in this enormous institution, one of the largest in the U. S.

In 1938 a reporter from the Philadelphia Record snooped around the hospital, then wrote gory tales of deaths under treatment, of cots jammed so close that patients had to scramble over each other to get to bed, of a lunatic carrying a loaded revolver, of men sitting naked on tables because they had no clothes.

As a result, the State took control of Byberry away from the city, put it under the charge of Dr. Herbert Codey Woolley, a well-known psychiatrist. Everyone felt better about Byberry. But last week Philadelphia papers headlined Byberry again as a House of Horrors. Two attendants, one a middleweight boxer, the other an ex-sailor, were accused of beating patients to death. The boxer confessed to slugging two; the ex-sailor, one. Another attendant was held as an accessory. Neither Dr. Woolley nor any of the staff members were held, although they may be called up for questioning, for they had promptly reported the deaths.

Just the day before, an investigating committee of reputable physicians had issued a report, announcing that improvements in Byberry under Dr. Woolley's rule had been "little short of miraculous." But last week, no one was more outspoken in denouncing Byberry than Superintendent Woolley. Said he: "When I came here Byberry was a medieval pest house. It's now the equal of an 18th-Century insane asylum. It's a disgrace to any community or government which calls itself civilized." Without more ado, he told the world what was wrong with his Bedlam--the most famous of all 18th-Century asylums, which London regarded as a sort of zoo and visited for amusement.

When he took over the hospital (against his better judgment) it had a capacity of 2,500, housed 5,560. Today, with the same capacity, the number has increased to 5,820. For keeping up the hospital, Dr. Woolley gets only a little over $2,000,000 a year. It is almost impossible, said he, to hire capable attendants at wages of $55 a month. Even on his meagre budget, Dr. Woolley has been able to clear away rotting wooden floors, start occupational therapy for the patients, even operate a beauty parlor to keep the women quiet.

In one building sewage seeps from the pipes constantly. "We have to keep mopping, mopping to hold down the stench," said Dr. Woolley. A basement dormitory housing 89 semi-invalids has eight barred windows, one stairway, no fire escapes. "I wake up at night in horror over this place," confessed Dr. Woolley. "I can see myself . . . after a fire, charged with the responsibility of roasting these people to death."

What Dr. Woolley needs to rebuild Byberry is almost $28,000,000. It looked last week as though he would get nowhere near that amount. The State Welfare Commission has asked for $6,000,000 for new buildings.

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This week newspapers announced a "cure" for drunkenness by Drs. Walter Lyle Voegtlin and Frederick Lemere of Seattle. Four to seven times a week, a patient is given first a drink of good liquor, then an injection of a nauseating drug, until he develops a "conditioned" aversion to liquor. Number of total abstainers for four years: over 350.

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