"Why don't you talk?" he again asked.

Though rather slow in replying, I will take pleasure in doing so by
sending that doctor a copy of this book--my answer--if he will but send
me his address.

It is not a pleasant duty to brand any physician for cruelty and
incompetence, for the worst that ever lived has undoubtedly done many
good deeds. But here is the type of man that has wrought havoc among
the helpless insane. And the owner represented a type that has too long
profited through the misfortunes of others. "Pay the price or put your
relative in a public institution!" is the burden of his discordant song
before commitment. "Pay or get out!" is his jarring refrain when
satisfied that the family's resources are exhausted. I later learned
that this grasping owner had bragged of making a profit of $98,000 in a
single year. About twenty years later he left an estate of
approximately $1,500,000. Some of the money, however, wrung from
patients and their relatives in the past may yet benefit similar
sufferers in the future, for, under the will of the owner, several
hundred thousand dollars will eventually be available as an endowment
for the institution.




IX


It was at the sanatorium that my ankles were finally restored to a