WEBVTT 00:02.733 --> 00:06.833 [Music] 00:06.833 --> 00:12.799 [Heartbeat thumping] [Smith, Kline & French Laboratories] 00:12.800 --> 00:16.800 [and The American Medical Association] 00:16.800 --> 00:20.633 [Present] 00:22.800 --> 00:30.466 [Music] [The March of Medicine] 00:30.466 --> 00:33.832 [Heartbeat continues] 00:33.833 --> 00:39.399 ["We, The Mentally Ill..."] 00:39.400 --> 00:44.433 [Tonight, in an unprecedented telecast, mental patients will present the March of Medicine.] 00:44.433 --> 00:48.666 [This tangible evidence of progress against mental disease is offered at the close of] 00:48.666 --> 00:52.299 [the annual meeting of the psychiatrists of the American Psychiatric Association] 00:52.300 --> 00:55.333 [as a tribute to their priceless contribution.] 00:57.333 --> 01:02.733 [Narrator:] I am a mental patient at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C. 01:02.733 --> 01:06.866 For ages, people like us have been hidden in darkness. 01:06.866 --> 01:11.066 Families don't like to talk about their members in mental hospitals. 01:11.066 --> 01:14.866 People seem to think there is something worse about being mentally ill 01:14.866 --> 01:17.532 than being ill with pneumonia. 01:17.533 --> 01:19.199 Well, it isn't true. 01:19.200 --> 01:21.200 And because it isn't true, 01:21.200 --> 01:29.933 tonight, mental patients all over the country are gathering together to strip away that darkness. 01:29.933 --> 01:32.133 Now you can see me. 01:32.133 --> 01:35.399 And in a moment you will see others like me. 01:35.400 --> 01:39.600 You'll learn from us how mental patients used to be treated, 01:39.600 --> 01:46.700 the conditions of our hospitals today, and the new hope that we have now to get well again. 01:46.700 --> 01:48.766 Let's take the first part: 01:48.766 --> 01:51.332 how we used to be treated. 01:51.333 --> 01:53.833 I'm standing on a stage. 01:53.833 --> 01:57.233 Behind me, my fellow patients at St. Elizabeths 01:57.233 --> 02:00.199 are celebrating our centennial. 02:00.200 --> 02:03.433 They're performing a play written by ourselves. 02:03.433 --> 02:07.799 It's about our founder, Dorothea Lynde Dix, 02:07.800 --> 02:14.566 who lived back when Lincoln did and fought for better treatment for people like us. 02:14.566 --> 02:17.832 Each person in the play is a mental patient. 02:17.833 --> 02:24.166 Each one, and his doctor, and his guardian gave his permission that you might see us do it, 02:24.166 --> 02:29.766 that you can better understand the present by understanding the past. 02:29.766 --> 02:35.032 Mental patients like us doing a play for the public. 02:35.033 --> 02:38.466 A thing like that is astonishing enough today, 02:38.466 --> 02:41.832 but it could never have happened a hundred years ago, 02:41.833 --> 02:50.133 when Dorothea Lynde Dix, on a Sunday school mission, went to visit a jail outside of Boston. 02:50.133 --> 02:53.433 [Singing:] ...to thee. 02:53.433 --> 02:55.533 [Miss Dix:] Shall we try the second verse? 02:55.533 --> 02:59.799 And this time, everyone sing. 02:59.800 --> 03:05.800 [Singing:] Though like the wanderer/ 03:05.800 --> 03:10.733 The sun gone down/ [Guard humming along] 03:10.733 --> 03:12.633 Darkness... 03:12.633 --> 03:15.799 [Piercing scream] 03:15.800 --> 03:18.666 [Woman 1:] That lunatic girl is spoiling our fun. 03:18.666 --> 03:22.566 [Miss Dix:] Are there people back there? Are they able to join us? 03:22.566 --> 03:25.532 [Guard:] Don't go back there, miss! Come on out of here! 03:26.800 --> 03:28.066 [Sobbing] 03:28.066 --> 03:33.166 [Miss Dix:] Oh! Oh, what a horrible sight! [Sobbing continues] 03:33.166 --> 03:36.066 Why, these people are half-naked. 03:36.066 --> 03:40.832 They look starved and so utterly helpless. 03:40.833 --> 03:43.533 [Guard:] Don't let their looks fool you none, miss. [Screaming] 03:43.533 --> 03:46.066 Why, they don't feel a thing. 03:46.066 --> 03:51.799 Here it is just about their feeding time. Might as well do it and get it over with. 03:51.800 --> 03:54.566 [Sobbing] Oh. 03:54.566 --> 03:59.332 [Growling and panting] 03:59.333 --> 04:03.333 Three mouths to feed... [Miss Dix:] Why, you don't even treat them like human beings! 04:03.333 --> 04:05.199 [Guard:] Nice piece of moldy bread... 04:07.966 --> 04:09.999 [Miss Dix:] And why is it so cold in here? 04:10.000 --> 04:12.666 [Guard:] Oh, you don't understand miss. 04:12.666 --> 04:16.732 We keep it cold back here in order to preserve the bodies. 04:16.733 --> 04:19.933 Why, they are practically corpses anyhow. 04:19.933 --> 04:22.566 Aw, come on. Let's get out of here. 04:22.566 --> 04:25.632 It's this group of prisoners that needs your attention, 04:25.633 --> 04:29.099 not that bunch of lunatics. 04:29.100 --> 04:32.900 [Miss Dix:] It's inhuman, and I think something should be done about it. 04:35.366 --> 04:38.599 Thank you for your cooperation, ladies. 04:38.600 --> 04:42.000 I hope you enjoyed the singing as much as I did. 04:42.000 --> 04:43.700 [Woman 2:] Will you come again? 04:43.700 --> 04:46.900 [Miss Dix:] Yes, I plan to return in the near future. 04:46.900 --> 04:49.133 [Woman 3:] Don't forget the snuff. 04:49.133 --> 04:51.999 [Miss Dix:] I'll remember to bring enough for all of you. 04:54.800 --> 04:56.633 [Grunting] 04:56.633 --> 04:58.933 And as for these people back here, 04:58.933 --> 05:04.899 I intend to see that they get food and warmth and proper clothing. 05:04.900 --> 05:07.333 [Guard:] Don't tell me your troubles, miss. 05:07.333 --> 05:09.099 Take 'em to the Lord. 05:09.100 --> 05:11.066 [Miss Dix:] We'll see about that. 05:14.166 --> 05:20.699 [Narrator:] Dorothea Lynde Dix never forgot what she saw at that East Cambridge jail that day. 05:20.700 --> 05:23.600 She traveled about and learned some more. 05:23.600 --> 05:30.366 And when she had seen enough and heard enough, she set out on a personal crusade for reform. 05:30.366 --> 05:35.866 Here, in another scene enacted by my fellow mental patients at St. Elizabeths, 05:35.866 --> 05:40.166 we find her before the state legislature in Massachusetts. 05:43.666 --> 05:48.932 [Miss Dix:] Mr. President. Gentlemen of the legislature of Massachusetts. 05:48.933 --> 05:52.233 I have come here today to ask your help 05:52.233 --> 05:57.433 for those poor, unfortunate people who are called lunatics and diseased ones. 05:57.433 --> 06:01.199 I have visited the jails and the so-called lunatic asylums 06:01.200 --> 06:04.166 and have seen these poor miserable souls 06:04.166 --> 06:09.932 who, through no fault of their own, have been exposed to the most cruel and heartless treatment 06:09.933 --> 06:14.499 at the hands of those who are supposed to be caretakers. 06:14.500 --> 06:17.800 I will not be able to create for you here 06:17.800 --> 06:24.100 a true picture of the cruelty and horror which surrounds these poor unfortunates. 06:24.100 --> 06:31.000 I have seen these creatures beaten, stripped of their clothing, and chained. 06:31.000 --> 06:33.566 [Screaming] 06:33.566 --> 06:36.266 [Guard:] Shut up! [Screaming] 06:36.266 --> 06:40.866 [Miss Dix:] I've come to present the strong claim of suffering humanity. 06:40.866 --> 06:46.999 I come to place before the legislature of Massachusetts the condition of the miserable, 06:47.000 --> 06:50.266 the desolate, the outcast. 06:50.266 --> 06:56.766 With my own eyes I have seen human beings put into living quarters not fit for swine. 06:56.766 --> 07:01.699 I have smelled the stench of decaying flesh and all manner of filth. 07:01.700 --> 07:10.133 [Crying and screaming] 07:10.133 --> 07:16.166 I come as the advocate of the helpless, forgotten, insane, and idiotic men and women. 07:16.166 --> 07:22.866 Of beings sunk to a condition from which even the most unconcerned would start with real horror. 07:22.866 --> 07:28.199 Of beings wretched in prisons and more wretched in our almshouses. 07:28.200 --> 07:34.766 I have even witnessed these poor creatures being denied the common humanity of food and water. 07:34.766 --> 07:37.132 [Caretaker 1:] You want some water in your face? 07:37.133 --> 07:39.333 Here's your water in your face! 07:39.333 --> 07:41.866 [Sobbing] 07:41.866 --> 07:47.332 [Miss Dix:] And I cannot suppose it needful to employ earnest persuasion or stubborn argument 07:47.333 --> 07:50.266 in order to arrest or bring upon a subject 07:50.266 --> 07:56.666 all the more strongly pressing because it is revolting and disgusting in its details. 07:56.666 --> 08:04.332 I have uncovered cruelty and gross lack of understanding on the part of those who are supposed to be caretakers. 08:05.800 --> 08:11.433 [Moaning] [Caretaker 2:] Can't you never learn to talk, dummy? Ha ha. 08:11.433 --> 08:15.566 [Moaning] 08:15.566 --> 08:19.766 [Miss Dix:] If my pictures are displeasing, coarse, or severe, 08:19.766 --> 08:27.732 my subjects, it must be recollected, offer no tranquil, refined, or composing features. 08:27.733 --> 08:34.799 These unfortunate beings were put on exhibition and shown to the public as if they were freaks. 08:34.800 --> 08:37.766 [Interposing voices] 08:37.766 --> 08:41.166 [Caretaker 3:] Quiet down in there. Quiet down, I tell you. Quiet... Come on! 08:41.166 --> 08:44.732 [Crying and moaning] Aw, come on! 08:44.733 --> 08:51.333 [Miss Dix:] The condition of human beings reduced to extremist states of degradation and misery 08:51.333 --> 08:54.633 cannot be exhibited in softened language, 08:54.633 --> 08:58.299 or adorn a polished page. 08:58.300 --> 09:00.900 [Man 1:] False accusations! [Man 2:] Lies, lies! 09:00.900 --> 09:02.800 [Man 3:] She's a lunatic herself! 09:02.800 --> 09:06.166 [Man 4:] She should not be allowed to stand here and tell us these fantastic tales. 09:06.166 --> 09:09.132 [Gavel beating] [Judge:] Order! Order! 09:09.133 --> 09:11.066 Gentleman, please, order. 09:11.066 --> 09:15.799 [Narrator:] Dorothea's one-woman fight to help us, the mentally ill, 09:15.800 --> 09:18.200 never gave her a moment's rest. 09:18.200 --> 09:23.366 Even when she caught a few winks of sleep, worn and weary from her struggles, 09:23.366 --> 09:26.366 she saw our need in her dreams. 09:26.366 --> 10:04.466 [Scary music] 10:04.466 --> 10:06.099 [Ominous female vocals] 10:06.100 --> 10:38.366 [Music continues] 10:38.366 --> 11:10.299 [Ominous female vocals] 11:11.666 --> 11:17.832 Our play takes two hours to tell the full story of what Dorothea Lynde Dix did for us. 11:17.833 --> 11:20.599 We'll come back to it later. 11:20.600 --> 11:24.033 But now that you have seen conditions as they were in her day, 11:24.033 --> 11:28.533 let's go to another mental hospital and hear from patients themselves 11:28.533 --> 11:31.266 about the conditions common today, 11:31.266 --> 11:35.932 even at such a progressive place as the New Jersey State Hospital in Trenton, 11:35.933 --> 11:38.433 the first she ever founded. 11:38.433 --> 11:40.266 [Female patient 1:] This is my hospital. 11:40.266 --> 11:43.332 Looks very pretty from the outside, doesn't it? 11:43.333 --> 11:46.699 Plenty of room for the birds and the squirrels. 11:46.700 --> 11:49.400 But come on in and take a look inside. 11:49.400 --> 11:53.366 I have been a patient here in this building for two years. 11:53.366 --> 11:57.132 I want you to come inside and see what I see every day. 11:57.133 --> 12:00.199 This is East-12, in the main building. 12:00.200 --> 12:02.333 It was so pretty from the outside. 12:02.333 --> 12:04.633 Look at it for yourself. 12:04.633 --> 12:08.233 There are a hundred and eighteen patients in this one ward alone, 12:08.233 --> 12:10.599 a ward intended for only sixty. 12:10.600 --> 12:15.133 Some are more disturbed than others, and we're all in each other's ways. 12:15.133 --> 12:19.466 There are patients here that have been living in this ward for over twenty years. 12:19.466 --> 12:21.599 It's crowded and smelly. 12:21.600 --> 12:24.666 But some don't remember any other home. 12:26.600 --> 12:29.233 Now you see what I mean? 12:29.233 --> 12:34.299 You don't hear the noises that we hear all day; it rings in your ears all day. 12:34.300 --> 12:38.633 And we only have one nurse here, and we hardly ever see her. 12:38.633 --> 12:42.666 If you don't believe me, ask Miss Perry. 12:42.666 --> 12:44.999 [Miss Perry:] She is absolutely right. 12:45.000 --> 12:49.800 I am the only registered nurse on this floor with a hundred and eighteen patients. 12:49.800 --> 12:55.333 The A-wing and the B-wing: altogether it amounts to about a hundred and fifty patients. 12:55.333 --> 12:58.899 With two student nurses and maybe three attendants, 12:58.900 --> 13:05.233 we have all we can do to bathe the patients, get them to cafeteria, take them to the doctors, 13:05.233 --> 13:10.166 give them their medications, and try to keep the place clean. 13:10.166 --> 13:16.466 We have no time to read up on their charts and find out about their diagnosis to try to help them. 13:16.466 --> 13:23.566 We figured it out the other day that each single person is entitled to one and a half minutes of employees' time. 13:23.566 --> 13:27.432 Which means they have a total of four and a half minutes per day. 13:27.433 --> 13:30.933 This sounds bad, but you should see some of the other buildings here. 13:34.366 --> 13:37.966 [Male patient:] You come to where we live through barred doors. 13:37.966 --> 13:43.166 It's what we call the Broome building for the criminally insane. 13:43.166 --> 13:48.166 This here has been my home for fifteen months, dormitory one. 13:48.166 --> 13:50.666 Look how those beds are crowded together. 13:50.666 --> 13:56.066 No chairs to sit on, no place to put your clothes, hardly no ventilation. 13:56.066 --> 13:58.632 Not healthy at all. 13:58.633 --> 14:02.299 It's hard to get to sleep with the jibber-jabber from thirty-two guys, 14:02.300 --> 14:05.266 more than sixty, counting both rooms. 14:05.266 --> 14:07.166 Some's mighty disturbed. 14:07.166 --> 14:12.499 Once a man broke a window and tried to kill himself with a piece of glass. 14:12.500 --> 14:15.600 I'm scared sometimes I'm going to get hurt. 14:15.600 --> 14:18.700 We spend fourteen to fifteen hours a day in here. 14:18.700 --> 14:23.666 Mr. Emens, the building supervisor, can tell you how we feel about that. 14:23.666 --> 14:26.266 [Mr. Emens:] Some patients don't want any part of a ward. 14:26.266 --> 14:31.266 They'll purposely stir up trouble so we'll take them out of here and send them to a cell. 14:31.266 --> 14:33.799 [Male patient:] The day room downstairs is no better. 14:33.800 --> 14:37.466 Crowded, people spit on the floor, smells bad, 14:37.466 --> 14:40.199 we have to wait to go to the dining room in shifts. 14:42.733 --> 14:47.433 No wonder we had a big riot here the 29th of November. 14:49.066 --> 14:53.766 [Female patient 2:] Broome building may be bad. I don't know, I haven't been in there. 14:53.766 --> 14:56.599 But look where we chronic patients live, 14:56.600 --> 14:59.133 four miles out from the hospital. 14:59.133 --> 15:03.199 This was temporary housing for the Navy in 1942. 15:03.200 --> 15:05.733 They had an airport right near here. 15:05.733 --> 15:10.799 They moved us out here because we were so crowded down at the hospital. 15:10.800 --> 15:12.833 They call it the colony. 15:12.833 --> 15:18.066 They spent a fortune on this place to try to make it over. But look at it. 15:18.066 --> 15:21.799 For eight years, we have been living in this shambles. 15:21.800 --> 15:24.700 Go inside if you want to see what it's like. 15:24.700 --> 15:30.900 Rickety stairs, old navy double-decker beds, people crowded together, 15:30.900 --> 15:34.866 plumbing bad and always getting out of order. 15:34.866 --> 15:39.266 And some patients have no place at all to put their clothes. 15:39.266 --> 15:45.032 As for a doctor, we hardly get the time we'd like to talk to a doctor. 15:47.300 --> 15:49.100 [Dr. Bennett:] That's true. 15:49.100 --> 15:53.366 I'm Dr. Bennett, and I'm the psychiatrist out here. 15:53.366 --> 15:59.132 I'm one psychiatrist for over six hundred patients. What can you expect? 15:59.133 --> 16:03.466 We're presently in the process of moving these people out of here. 16:03.466 --> 16:07.266 Some of them are going down to the new hospital at Ancora, 16:07.266 --> 16:10.666 where we hope they'll get the type of help they need. 16:10.666 --> 16:15.099 But Dr. McGee, our superintendent, can tell you more about that. 16:16.100 --> 16:20.333 [Dr. McGee:] Yes, we're closing down at the colony as fast as we can. 16:20.333 --> 16:25.933 We've already built a new building here, and we are planning the reconstruction of another. 16:25.933 --> 16:29.966 But all these moves will far from solve our problems, 16:29.966 --> 16:34.099 problems common to state hospitals throughout the country. 16:34.100 --> 16:39.100 The basic problem, strange as it may seem, is public apathy, 16:39.100 --> 16:45.200 the very same that one hundred years ago confronted our founder Dorothea Dix. 16:48.533 --> 16:51.866 [Narrator:] And so you've heard from mental patients themselves 16:51.866 --> 16:54.066 and those who are trying to help them 16:54.066 --> 16:58.666 of the crowded conditions and the shortage of staff in mental hospitals. 16:58.666 --> 17:02.032 But suddenly now, there is new hope for all, 17:02.033 --> 17:06.966 for you the public, who pay the bills, and for us, the mentally sick. 17:06.966 --> 17:12.932 This real chance for many of us to get well again is due to research in mental illness. 17:12.933 --> 17:18.299 And one of the most hopeful contributions of that research is new drugs. 17:18.300 --> 17:21.666 Hear this story, too, from the lips of mental patients. 17:23.066 --> 17:25.366 [Doctor 1:] Do you speak English, Sally? [Sally:] Yes. [INAUDIBLE] No. 17:25.366 --> 17:27.832 [Doctor 1:] Sally, do you speak English? 17:27.833 --> 17:30.733 [Sally:] This is me when I came to the hospital. 17:30.733 --> 17:33.366 I was very upset from many worries. 17:33.366 --> 17:34.932 They make me sick. 17:34.933 --> 17:37.999 I could not even talk to the doctor. 17:38.000 --> 17:39.466 [Doctor 1:] It says over here you heard voices... 17:39.466 --> 17:40.866 [Sally:] That's a speech thing... [Doctor 1:] Is that true? 17:40.866 --> 17:42.566 [Sally:] Yes. [Doctor 1:] Hmm? 17:42.566 --> 17:44.532 What did the voices say to you? 17:46.500 --> 17:48.433 [Sally:] They tried to tell me. 17:48.433 --> 17:50.533 [Doctor 1:] What did the voices say to you? 17:58.466 --> 18:01.332 What did the voices say to you, Sally? 18:01.333 --> 18:03.399 [Sally:] Mm-mm. 18:03.400 --> 18:18.733 [Non-English speaking] 18:18.733 --> 18:20.699 Only you see, God... 18:20.700 --> 18:23.766 [Doctor 1:] Is God speaking to you now? [Sally:] [Non-English speaking] 18:23.766 --> 18:25.832 What is God saying to you now, Sally? 18:28.600 --> 18:30.900 What is God saying... [Sally:] Don't be stupid, girl. 18:30.900 --> 18:33.266 Be nice girl. Be nice lady. 18:33.266 --> 18:38.299 Don't play too much... stupid [INAUDIBLE]. That's for you, baby. That's you. That's too much for me. 18:38.300 --> 18:42.200 [No, no. I don't want it. You can have it. She's stupid for me. Hold [INAUDIBLE] 18:42.200 --> 19:05.033 [Non-English speaking] 19:05.033 --> 19:07.599 This is me four days later 19:07.600 --> 19:12.700 after the doctor gave me some medicine to help me. 19:12.700 --> 19:16.733 Now I'm not so mixed up. I talk to him okay. 19:16.733 --> 19:19.266 [Doctor 1:] And you were telling me there was something wrong with the neighborhood, 19:19.266 --> 19:20.399 is that right? [Sally:] Mm-hmm. 19:20.400 --> 19:22.333 What was wrong with the neighborhood? 19:22.333 --> 19:26.766 [Sally:] [Non-English speaking] [Doctor 1:] Well, you said you wanted to jump out the window. Is that true? 19:26.766 --> 19:29.699 [Sally:] Not me. 19:29.700 --> 19:32.233 [Doctor 1:] You tried to jump out the window, is that right? [Sally:] No. 19:32.233 --> 19:36.033 My children, they are with [INAUDIBLE] 19:36.033 --> 19:39.233 I live on the seventh floor. [Doctor:] Mm-hmm. 19:39.233 --> 19:43.699 [Sally:] And sometimes when... when I see a kid doing something to... a big chil... 19:43.700 --> 19:48.733 big kid try to hit my children, I wish I could jump out the window and kill them. 19:48.733 --> 19:50.266 [Doctor 1:] Hmm, I see. 19:50.266 --> 19:53.299 [Sally:] 'Cause nobody likes their children to be beaten up 19:53.300 --> 19:56.633 for bigger children, 'cause my children are small. 19:56.633 --> 19:59.333 I mean six years old. That's not too big. 19:59.333 --> 20:04.366 [Doctor 1:] And did you feel at home that people were doing something purposely to you or to your children? 20:04.366 --> 20:05.632 [Sally:] No, only to my children. 20:05.633 --> 20:06.833 [Doctor 1:] Only to your children. 20:06.833 --> 20:11.066 Do you think that they picked them out purposely to do these bad things? [Sally:] Mm-hmm. 20:12.900 --> 20:16.766 This is me when I'm ready to leave the hospital. 20:16.766 --> 20:18.232 I am better now. 20:18.233 --> 20:21.733 [Dr. Denber:] Well, how would you compare your condition, uh, today, let's say, 20:21.733 --> 20:23.933 uh, to the way it was when you first came here? 20:23.933 --> 20:26.466 Do you remember how you were when you first came here? [Sally:] Yeah, I remember. 20:26.466 --> 20:28.366 [Dr. Denber:] What's the difference? 20:28.366 --> 20:34.266 [Sally:] Well, I was... I... I know it was something in my nerves maybe, 'cause I tried to help it, but I can't help it. 20:34.266 --> 20:39.366 [Dr. Denber:] What did you feel then that you don't feel now? 20:39.366 --> 20:45.299 [Sally:] I feel like, uh, I talk just to myself. I don't feel like talking to nobody else, just to myself. 20:45.300 --> 20:48.866 [Dr. Denber:] And what are you going to do when you leave the hospital? 20:48.866 --> 20:53.432 [Sally:] Well, every time I came sick, I gave my nurse right down, I said, I'm not gonna work too hard when I get out, 20:53.433 --> 20:54.799 but then I got to work hard. 20:54.800 --> 20:56.833 [Dr. Denber:] You have to work hard when you go out. 20:56.833 --> 21:01.333 And, uh, what do you plan to do when you leave the hospital? What are you going to do when you go home? 21:01.333 --> 21:05.466 [Sally:] Well, uh, I think now when I go home maybe I don't have all the children with me for a while. 21:05.466 --> 21:07.466 [Dr. Denber:] I see. And? 21:07.466 --> 21:15.232 [Sally:] So I think then... I don't know. Take a good long rest when I get home, read a lot of books. Those what I like to read. 21:16.366 --> 21:19.499 I said goodbye to my doctor, 21:19.500 --> 21:24.100 and I go to see my children again and my husband. I am very happy to go home. 21:26.166 --> 21:28.532 [Dr. Denber:] Sally is going home today, 21:28.533 --> 21:31.766 the result of treatment with new drugs and psychiatry. 21:31.766 --> 21:35.899 Drugs that were not even available as much as two years ago. 21:35.900 --> 21:40.466 Their names are chlorpromazine and rauwolfia. 21:40.466 --> 21:45.932 These new medicines have effected a tremendous change in all of psychiatric treatment. 21:45.933 --> 21:51.999 As a result of their use, patients who were hitherto unmanageable, or untreatable, 21:52.000 --> 21:58.333 or who had resisted all other forms of treatment, now have been helped. 21:58.333 --> 22:01.899 With the use of these drugs, we have made tremendous inroads 22:01.900 --> 22:08.300 with patients who have inhabited our hospitals all over the country for many, many years. 22:08.300 --> 22:15.933 These drugs have given American medicine, with your help and support, the greatest opportunity of this age 22:15.933 --> 22:21.266 to reduce the huge burden of mental illness that falls upon us all. 22:23.233 --> 22:25.633 [Dr. Overholser:] Here at St. Elizabeths Hospital, 22:25.633 --> 22:29.899 there are patients that number literally in the thousands. 22:29.900 --> 22:37.933 We are witnessing dramatic progress in the search for a more effective treatment of mental illness. 22:37.933 --> 22:44.166 Over the years, thanks to persistent pioneering of many people, 22:44.166 --> 22:48.099 many new techniques have been added. 22:48.100 --> 22:52.900 Now, with the advent of these new tranquilizing drugs, 22:52.900 --> 23:01.600 it seems not too much to say that we are on the verge of an entirely new era in the treatment of mental illness. 23:01.600 --> 23:04.833 Since we've been using these drugs at St. Elizabeths Hospital, 23:04.833 --> 23:08.933 we have virtually discontinued electric shock treatment. 23:08.933 --> 23:14.333 That is perhaps one measure of the effectiveness of these drugs. 23:14.333 --> 23:19.433 Two out of three of the patients who come to St. Elizabeths Hospital, 23:19.433 --> 23:27.366 thanks to the numerous tools which we now have at our command, is able to return home. 23:27.366 --> 23:32.132 That in itself is the most convincing proof I can offer 23:32.133 --> 23:40.833 for the statement that the problem of mental disorder, vast though it is, is not an insurmountable one. 23:40.833 --> 23:49.333 I believe that the opportunity to close in on this huge problem is within sight. 23:49.333 --> 23:51.133 We have but to grasp it. 23:52.933 --> 23:56.799 [Narrator:] Yes, medicine is closing in on mental illness. 23:56.800 --> 24:02.633 And what better evidence of this than mental patients joining tonight with our hospital staffs 24:02.633 --> 24:07.366 to tell you the history of our past and the hope of our present. 24:07.366 --> 24:12.299 But what about the future, from your point of view as well as our own? 24:12.300 --> 24:17.566 Let's go back to New Jersey, to a man who counts among his responsibilities 24:17.566 --> 24:23.299 the hospital founded by Dorothea Lynde Dix that you visited at Trenton. 24:23.300 --> 24:28.833 We asked him to join with us tonight because he has thought long about our problem 24:28.833 --> 24:30.199 and yours. 24:30.766 --> 24:34.466 [Gov. Minor:] I am Robert B. Minor, governor of New Jersey. 24:34.466 --> 24:38.599 You have seen the problem state hospitals face. 24:38.600 --> 24:44.100 Well, behind me is a costly new mental hospital open here at Ancora 24:44.100 --> 24:46.300 to help relieve the burden. 24:46.300 --> 24:51.466 Yet, in a matter of months, this new hospital will be filled to capacity. 24:51.466 --> 24:54.966 Indeed, at the current rate of increase in mental illness, 24:54.966 --> 24:57.932 requiring five hundred new beds a year, 24:57.933 --> 25:03.566 New Jersey may soon need a fifth mental hospital, then a sixth, then a seventh, 25:03.566 --> 25:05.299 ad infinitum. 25:05.300 --> 25:10.133 The chances are the same situation prevails in your own state. 25:10.133 --> 25:14.933 The problem we all face together is, are we eternally going on to vote 25:14.933 --> 25:19.466 millions upon millions merely to house our poor unfortunates, 25:19.466 --> 25:24.432 or should we attack this Frankenstein monster before it devours us? 25:24.433 --> 25:26.766 I think that we should attack. 25:26.766 --> 25:32.566 Attack with a constructive human and spiritual approach to mental illness 25:32.566 --> 25:40.632 so that many people now in confinement may be restored to their homes and their families and their gainful occupations, and that... 25:40.633 --> 25:46.333 so that many people now threatened with mental illness may be given early treatment 25:46.333 --> 25:49.899 to forestall months and years of confinement. 25:49.900 --> 25:54.400 We can do it by voting more money for research in mental illness, 25:54.400 --> 25:57.233 research which has many rays of hope. 25:57.233 --> 26:02.966 We can do it by creating a proper atmosphere conducive to recovery in our hospitals, 26:02.966 --> 26:06.499 giving them more doctors, more nurses, more attendants, 26:06.500 --> 26:09.633 and the benefits of promising new therapies. 26:09.633 --> 26:19.133 And we can do it, each and every one of us, by giving our full cooperation to organizations like the National Association for Mental Health. 26:19.133 --> 26:24.366 A century and a half ago, the mentally ill were set free from their chains. 26:24.366 --> 26:28.999 In the last half-century there has been a steady improvement in care 26:29.000 --> 26:31.700 and a steady search for new answers. 26:31.700 --> 26:35.800 With your support, there is every evidence that the next decade 26:35.800 --> 26:42.600 will produce more victories in the war against mental disease than have ever been won before. 26:44.733 --> 26:49.733 [Singing:] Oh, working on the building/ 26:49.733 --> 26:53.833 Working on the building, Lord/ 26:53.833 --> 26:57.799 Working on the building/ 26:57.800 --> 27:02.033 Tryin' hard to make my home/ Oh... 27:02.033 --> 27:04.766 [Narrator:] And so we return to our play 27:04.766 --> 27:09.966 with workmen singing at the groundbreaking for what is to become our hospital, 27:09.966 --> 27:15.732 St. Elizabeths, the culmination of Dorothea Dix's struggle. 27:15.733 --> 27:23.199 As we the mentally ill bring you to this, our final scene, we are content to leave our last words 27:23.200 --> 27:25.766 to one of those who spoke the first. 27:25.766 --> 27:29.499 [Singing:] ...I would not have this race to run/ 27:29.500 --> 27:33.733 Trying hard to make my home/ Oh... 27:33.733 --> 27:38.166 [Miss Dix:] I came to present the strong claim of suffering humanity. 27:38.166 --> 27:43.632 I placed before you the condition of the miserable, the desolate, the outcast. 27:43.633 --> 27:49.499 I came as the advocate of the helpless, forgotten, insane, and idiotic men and women. 27:49.500 --> 27:54.966 The condition of human beings reduced to extremist states of degradation and misery 27:54.966 --> 28:00.566 could not have been exhibited in softened language or adorned a polished page. 28:00.566 --> 28:04.066 I commit to you the sacred cause. 28:04.066 --> 28:07.932 [Singing:] ...my home 28:08.966 --> 28:16.166 [Heartbeat thumping] [The March of Medicine] 28:16.166 --> 28:20.599 [Presented by Smith, Kline and French Laboratories] 28:20.600 --> 28:24.466 [In cooperation with The American Medical Association] 28:24.466 --> 28:29.866 [Produced by Medical Television Unit Smith, Kline and French Laboratories] 28:29.866 --> 28:33.132 [Script: Lou Hazam] 28:33.133 --> 28:36.599 [Film Editor: Gerald Polikoff] 28:36.600 --> 28:41.666 [Dorothea Dix Play created and acted by St. Elizabeths Patients] 28:41.666 --> 28:45.199 [NBC Producer: Doris Ann] 28:45.200 --> 28:52.300 [The March of Medicine]