To begin with there
was a minimal use of
restraints.
Doors were locked and
the window frames
were actually iron bars,
with
straightjackets
employed only when
absolutely necessary.
Although the gardens
were beautiful, at the
outskirts there was a
sunken wall, almost
invisible at a distance,
to stop patients from
escaping. Medical treatments used in other
asylums were tried and
discarded quite quickly, with an apothecary
serving as The Retreat’s
physician.
The success of The
Retreat owed much to
its staff. George Jepson
was the first superintendent and, alongside
the apothecary Thomas
Fowler, concluded that
the use of fear tactics
and threats employed
so profusely in other
asylums actually made
patients worse, whereas allaying the fears of
patients helped them.
Jepson and Tuke built a
strong relationship built
around their principles
and together started to
bring the treatment of
the insane out of the
dark ages. Originally
there was no intention
to form a new model
of treatment for the
mentally ill, only to
give them a supportive
environment in which
they could regain their
senses. Although originally only accepting
Quakers, The Retreat
gradually began to
take in patients from
all walks of life, and
interest in the treatments
used
there
became of interest to
those involved in mental health care both at
home and abroad.
23
William Tuke’s grandson Samuel put great
emphasis in his 1813
book ‘Description of
The Retreat’ on the
importance of improving morale for people
in distress and how
this should be achieved
through a combination of environmental
and practical considerations. Samuel encapsulated The Retreat’s
methods and philosophy as ‘moral treatment’. Others became
inspired to try this new
form of therapy and
the treatment of the
insane became revolutionized.
For all the good The
Retreat had done however, things took a
turn for the worse in
its later years. By the
mid-1850s, and after
Tuke’s death, changes were afoot. 1847
marked the first for-