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Wednesday, March 3, 2021

Superintendent of Hospital For Insane Suggests Killing Hopelessly Ill, March 3, 1921

Dr. Frank Wilcox, superintendent of the Norwich State Hospital for the Insane, was the originator of a recommendation to the State Legislature of Connecticut to pass legislation providing for the hopelessly insane to be killed. He said such a course would relieve maniacs from “the tortures of the damned.” the recommendation stirred the Connecticut Legislature and numerous of the medical professions, as well as different humane associations. Some feel that such treatment would be heathenish and would lead to abuses of the law which would be scandalous, furthermore who can say that a case is absolutely incurable? Medicine is not yet an exact science and wholesale disposal of the apparently incurable would be unjust.

To a few this course might seem the humane and economical way to dispose of extreme cases of incurables but the public mind is not ready to accept any such theory even if some noted doctor does suggest it.

From The Mount Airy News, Thursday, March 3, 1921

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