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EZRA POUND 15
graphed journal, called St. Elizabeths Sunshine, was circulated
among the patients. The doctors were peeved because Ezra would
not contribute to this journal, and the nurse informed me that they
had marked him down as "uncooperative". This is the most serious
charge that can be lodged against an inmate of a mental institution.
Despite the fact that it is a federal institution, and much more
amply budgeted than comparable state hospitals, St. Elizabeths is
a heart-breaking and appalling Bedlam. Visiting doctors from other
countries are seldom asked to tour it, for they would doubtless be
horrified. The dank, dark buildings reek of the foul stench of a
century's urine. I once dined in the employees' cafeteria, and was
ill for two days. It seemed impossible for me to get the smell of the
place out of my system.
The medical techniques used at St. Elizabeths are regarded as
incredibly backward and inhumane by more advanced European
physicians. Although the members of the staff no longer cure
"mental illness" by removing the entire large intestine, this was a
popular remedy there until the Second World War. The superstitious
doctors of several decades ago believed that mental disorder
was caused by bacteria in the gut, the bacteria that in reality
are responsible for the osmotive digestive process. The operation
had no visible effect on the patients' mental capacities, but more
than eighty per cent of them died from its aftereffects.
The staff at St. Elizabeths is also quite excited about a cure that
has been in vogue in the Congo for some twenty thousand years,
according to such anthropologists as Frobenius. This is a method
for relieving mental illness by splitting open the skull and removing
part of the brain. The operation is known as "lobotomy".
European physicians have denounced this process as excessively
barbaric, as well as demonstrably worthless in the treatment of
mental illness, but it is still employed by the federal psychiatrists
and surgeons.
A more recent treatment, electric shock, was blithely described
by Dr. Overholser in an interview published in U.S. News and
World Report, November 18, 1955:
"An electric current is passed between the temples and causes
a period of unconsciousness with very violent, convulsive movements."