A. I didn't go downstairs, though some of them did. A. Oh, yes - quite a number of them. Q. Well, now, what have you got to say as to the food that you receive in the institution, in a general way take every day in the week. A. Well, the food is quite substantial, and, as a general thing, it is quite healthy. I think it is rather wet. I think there is a little mite too much soup about it. Q. A little too much soup? A. A little mite. They furnish enough food; but if it was cooked a little drier I think it would be better for the digestive organs. Q. That is, instead of having a stew, if they would have less of the broth with it, you think it would be better? A. Yes, I think it would be a little better, because I think it creates certain fevers, and causes ulceration of the stomach. I find that very general here. There is not so much constipation as there is diarrhoea caused by lymphatic troubles, and other diseases which come from too much wet food. Q. Well, haven't you ever seen any of the officers make an assault upon any of the prisoners? A. No, sir. Q. You have never seen it? A. No, sir. Ald. LEE. Well, I don't know that I have any other questions to ask. Q. (By the CHAIRMAN.) Have you ever been punished? A. No, sir. Q. So far as your observation has led you to observe, have you any complaints to make in regard to the institution? A. 4. I think there might be some improvements sanitarily. I think that in the bath-rooms there might be improvements. I should recommend shower-baths instead of tub baths, among the men who come here there are men with all kinds of diseases, and they go there and wash. One squad goes in and washes and gets right out, and another man is obliged to get in right after him, without the tub being washed; and of course any one does not need to be a physician to know that contagious diseases, and especially skin diseases, are liable to be contracted by coming in contact with it in the tub. 2. May I ask what was your business before you came here? A. Physician and surgeon. Q. (By Ald. LEE.) Well, there is a suggestion. a suggestion. You would say that if a man wanted to take a shower-bath rather than one in the tub, there ought to be such a thing here? A. Yes, sir. And it would be very much better for the health, you know, because what comes off of the body would go down to the floor and go off with the water, and a great deal of disease would be washed off. Q (By the CHAIRMAN.) That is, you would suggest that instead of the prisoners taking tub-baths that they take shower-baths? A. Yes, sir. I should think it would be much better. Q. And you would think it inadvisable to have any tub-baths? 4. I don't think it is necessary except in the hospital, where some of the men are unable to take a shower-bath, and where in some cases the falling of the water upon the head might be injurious. I think it would be much better for the men, because some of these men don't take baths, they simply stick their fingers in and rub themselves and jump right out. They don't wash as they ought to. It may be owing to their habits; but they don't wash. I think under the present management, too, that there should be more time allowed for the bath. That is, that the tub should be rinsed out after one man has used it before > the other man is obliged to get in. I know I stepped into the bath-room one day, and just as I was going in I saw a very dark-complexioned man coming out of it. Of course I couldn't see in so short a time whether he had any disease upon him; but it is bad enough to get in after a white man, without getting in after a nigger. I objected to getting in. At that time Mr. Butler was here, and I told him I would like to rinse that out. Oh, this is not the Parker House." he says. I oughtn't to say anything against Mr. Butler, I suppose, because he is dead now; but the same system still continues. The tubs are not rinsed until the last squad comes out. They are rinsed then: but if there are two squads in one line, the one must get in just right after the other. Q. How many are there in a squad? A. Generally about twenty-eight; and I think there are fourteen tubs. Then, there are twenty-eight that wash in one tub? A. No -- fourteen tubs. Q. Two in a tub? A. Well, I don't know how many more do that; but I presume they do wash them out sometimes. I know that in the morning the tub has a different appearance. There is no slime in it from the washing of the last man; and when we get out late at night I have seen them take the brooms to wash it out but this rushing one man in right after the other doesn't give them time to do it. Q. (By Ald. LEE.) Is there one particular day when the prisoners take a bath? 4. Our shop is Friday. Q. Each shop has a day? Col. WHITON. No; Friday is the day for the whole institution. Q. (By Ald. LOMASNEY.) Could you give us your judgment of the hospital, as regards the medical attendance? Mr. PROCTOR. Well, I don't suppose that there is any claim that that is a suitable hospital at all. The WITNESS. sick man. Ald. LEE. The hospital certainly is not a suitable place for a I guess that is admitted. The WITNESS. Where it is situated, there is a circulation of air; and as to the medical treatment, I haven't a great deal of faith in it. I certainly didn't get any such treatment as I would give to any one when I went very sick to the hospital once. Q. (By Ald. PRESHO.) Is it the same school of medicine as yours? A. No, sir. Q. (By Ald. LOMASNEY.) What do you want to criticise in regard to that, or what recommendations would you make? A. When I went to the hospital I had an attack of the bowel complaint, and had pains in my stomach, and a soreness across here (pointing), and all of the symptoms of gastritis - and I am not one that gives up easily; but I walked out and went to the hospital. I could scarcely stand on my feet, and the doctor simply looked at me and says, Well, what do you think the matter is?" I said, "I think I have gastritis." “Oh, you couldn't have that,” he says, "it isn't possible. It is a very bad disease. If you had that, you would be in bed." I said that I didn't consider what one man would give up for, another would. Well," he says, tell me what is the matter? Then I began to tell Hold on," he says, “you are making yourself a very sick man." He says, You are not very sick." him. Q. A. (By Ald. LEE.) What doctor was this? Dr. Bancroft. I told him then that I would like to have something. I said, I haven't ate anything for two days." เ Why haven't you?" he said. I says, "My bowels are so sore and my stomach is so sore that I cannot keep it down. I have to vomit it up." And he gave me a dose of capsicum. Q. (By Ald. LOMASNEY.) A dose of what? A. Capsicum. That is all I got. I got nothing to eat except the regular food. Q. If you were prescribing for a person outside with those symptoms, what would have been the proper treatment? A. Well, I should certainly give him some astringent. and something to relieve the pain and soreness of the bowels, and some dietary food. Q. (By Ald. LEE.) Did you ever report that to the colonel ? 4. How is that? Q. You never spoke to the colonel of that? A. No, sir. Q. You never went to the colonel about it? A. No, sir. I went up in the shop and told the instructor, and he hustled around among the boys and got some other medicine that some of them had, and I got over it. I went to him afterwards, and I didn't get any satisfaction, so I left off going. Q. (By Ald. LOMASNEY.) That is, you went to the doctor? A. Yes, sir. Q. What was the trouble the second time? A. I had a swelling in here (pointing) and a pain in my head a great deal. Yes, sir. A. I have always been troubled pains and cramps subject to cramps. I told him so. I said I should have some medicine, but he didn't send it to me. He asked me what I thought I ought to have, and gave him a prescription. He says, You can have all but the opium.” I says, "Well, leave out the opium, then." He said I could have it, but I never got it. Q. You were suffering a good deal of pain ? لها A. Yes, sir, Q. And he gave you nothing to relieve you, only talked with you? A. Yes, sir. Q. (By Ald. LEE.) Will you kindly tell me what is the reason you didn't report that to Colonel Whiton? A. Well, I didn't think that after I got well there was any need of it. I don't like the idea of reporting one officer to another for anything, anyway. I didn't think it was proper to make any disturbance about it. Q. Well, you had no idea but that if you reported it to Colonel Whiton he would have rectified it? A. I am positive that he would. Q. That is what bothers me. Why didn't you report it? A. Well, if it had continued, I should certainly have reported it to him. Q. (By Ald. LOMASNEY.) But you suffered that rather than to go to him? A Yes, sir. Q. How many times have you suffered during your incarceration without going to the doctor? A. Perhaps a dozen or fifteen times. Q. And do you know any other person to-day treated in a similar manner by the physician, I mean? 4. I have heard them complaining. Q. Well, is it a special case, or a general complaining among the prisoners about the medical treatment? 4. Rather general. I know of a man who was in the hospital with a little sore on his leg for sixteen months, until I told him what to do. about a month ago, and it is healing up. Q. A. A running sore? What was his name, sir? Frazier Alex. Frazier, I think. A. A running sore on his foot. He was in the hospital sixteen months. Last month I said to him, " If you have got through with the doctor and will do what I tell you, I will cure you.' Q. Was the doctor treating him during that sixteen months? A. Yes, sir; he was in the hospital all that time. Q. How large was the sore? A. One sore was about the size of a penny. The other one must have been an inch and a half across. Q. What did it come from? A. It was a syphilitic sore. Q. He was in the hospital for sixteen months? A. Yes, sir. Q. A. How soon did he respond to your treatment? Q. Is he better now than he was? A. Oh, yes; one sore is all healed up, and the other is closing in, he told me last Tuesday. I saw him then, and he said, "I can stand on both feet now." Q. What was the treatment that the doctor was giving him? A. Well, his first treatment was iodide of potassium, and some salve that he compounded himself - I hardly know its ingredients. He also had a stomach sore, so that he used to vomit sour and bitter slime from his stomach; and when he commenced this acid treatment that I told him to get, he says he has stopped vomiting altogether. His sore is responding very readily. Q. Do you find at night that any of the prisoners suffer from a lack of medical attendance? Q. And there is no physician to call. Would you believe in having a physician, a resident physician here? Would you recommend that? A. A resident physician would hardly be required here, I should think, if a man had proper treatment when he went down to the doctor in the first place. I never saw him examining a man. He don't examine the men. Q. He don't? A. No, sir. I have heard it repeatedly, and I know it through my own knowledge. I have seen man after man that have been sent there, and he never examined them any more than to sit up to a desk and write and look up at them; and sometimes, when they have a sore or the syphilis, he would take them in behind the screen. I know of other men who have been down to him and came up and emptied their medicine in the spittoon. 2. So that you believe the medical attendance here is faulty to a great degree? A. Yes, sir, I do. I think a man by the name of Casey sat right by the side of me in the shop; and I know that man's hands would tremble so that sometimes he did not dare put them to the machine. I have seen him take his hands away and jump like that (illustrating). went to the doctor. He told him he wasn't sick at all. He says, You aren't sick." Q. What was the cause of the man's hands trembling? He A. In the first place, I think that the man is rather weak, and I think he was rather inclined to consumption; but his trouble at this time seemed to come from the stomach to the head, because of constipation; and he complained some with cramps here, some troubles. Ile afterwards went down one morning and came back and broke one or two of the machines because he was mad, and then the colonel heard of it. I don't think he went to the colonel --- I am quite sure he didn't until afterwards. The colonel heard of it, and I heard that the colonel put him in the hospital. That is the way I heard it. Of course we hear so many things here that I don't know. Q. (By Ald. LOMASNEY.) Were you ever in the vicinity of the solitary cells when he was making his visit there? A. No, sir. Q. Then there is a general feeling among the prisoners that the medical attendance is not proper; and you, from your experience as a physician, say that it is not? A. I should say it is not; and it is generally conceded not to be. I know of one or two men who have been to him one man by the name of Gay, and he said that from the treatment that he had received outside for the same disease that this was the most inferior imaginable. His mode of operation was by passing, and it was almost inhuman. That is Gay, his name is. I don't know what his first name is. Then there are one or two other men here who seem to have gravel, and the doctor treated them by passing. Now, a doctor who would treat gravel in that way, is, in my opinion, incompetent to practise among men. Q. And you know he has treated them in that way? A. I know he has passed that is, from what they say. They say, "He passed something into me; " and from the man's symptoms any man who ever was inside of a clinical school would know that it was gravel that ailed the man, and not stricture. A man was telling me that the other day I don't know what his name is. Q. And I understood you to say that the food furnished here tends to affect the prisoners in a certain way the soup is that right? A. I think that it causes these abscesses in the stomach. Q. Ulceration of the stomach? A. Yes, sir; ulceration of the stomach. Q. You have never been in the vicinity of the solitary cells at all, have you? 4. Oh, yes; passed them. Q. Have you seen anything yourself of prisoners treated there? Have you seen the doctor in communication with them, or anything of that kind? 4. No, sir. I never saw any one put into them or taken out of them. I saw them after they came out, and I heard them say well, of course, I suppose it is nonsense. I don't like to repeat what I hear, because I hear so much that I know isn't so men who have different objects for making such reports. I give them allowance. Q. (By the CHAIRMAN.) What college are you a graduate of? 4. I never graduated from a college. I went two years to the Bellevue College in New York City. Q. What college? A. Q. A. The Bellevue; and then I went to Hamburg, in Germany. Q. (By the CHAIRMAN.) What school of medicine do you practice? A. The eclectic is what I have adopted. Of course, the Bellevue is allopathic. Q. (By Mr. PROCTOR.) Where did you get your degree? A. I only had it conferred from that college in Hamburg-none in this country. Q. Not in this country at all? A. No, sir. Q. And you got it after a four months' course of study there? A. Yes, sir. |