greystone park psychiatric hospital

Vagaries of the insane

May 17, 1885 - New York Times

A lunatic at the Morris Plains Asylum was mute for five years. Even the physicians thought he had lost the power of speech. One day he caught two of his fingers in a washing machine, and they were horribly mangled. To the astonishement of everybody who heard him, he explcaimined: “By the great and jumping Moses, a devil is better than an inventor.” That was three years ago, and he has not spoken since.

Another patient, a boy in the same institution, is a lightning calculator. The most intricate problems are solved by him in fractions of a minute. The boy believes that his head is filled with little blocks with figures upon them, and that they instantly fall into different positions and work out the problems.He thinks his brain, in fact, is a multiplication table. His insanity seems pardonable, for only a few sane men can compete with him as a mathmetician.

Every day he soaks his head in water to prevent the blocks from rattling, and occasionally be begs for oil to put in his ears so that the imaginary squares will slip upon each other more easily.

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