The doctor came to the bed, I was-he came to the head of the bed, I would see his uniform, and never even looked up, his clothes, I could tell that he was a doctor, and the patient, the attendant says, "He still is not sleeping." He says, "He has already had enough to knock out any three average men.' He says, "He is the worst that I ever saw." So I discovered then that that is what they wanted to do, get me to sleep, so I pretended to get asleep while they poured some more of the formanilide into a glass. When they got back to me I pretended, I "played possum." my mouth. So he started pouring a little into I laid there. I didn't have any intentions of going back to sleep. I didn't want to stay in these cuffs any longer. Some of them came back and stuck their head in the door a few minutes later. I closed my eyes, looked out of the corner of my eyes, and seen him tiptoe off and heard him whisper in the hall, "Well, it's got him now." So I figured they won't be back any more, and I started to gnawing on my sheet across me. I soon got that in two and gnawed the cuff off, broke the other one off, and was almost through breaking the one off my left ankle, when they, someone, one of the patients, hollered, says, "The man's breaking out," and I heard them running down the hallway and one of the attendants stuck his head in the door, he didn't come in. I was standing beside the bed. I didn't know the cuff wasn't completely broken. He rushed back up the hall and said, hollered, "It's a maniac broken out, summon help to put him back." While he was going back I finished breaking the leather and got out and got to the door just as a group of them come running down the hallway. I held the door and opened the door and about three of them went first and when they had I rushed through and met about eight more. I vaulted over some of them, run underneath some of them, and hit several on the chins and rushed outside and rushed right into the reception rooms where the visitors were out there to see their friends who were in the hospital. They began to scatter, and I jumped up in the ward and I began to tell them, "For the Lord's sake, get some help outside, and come in there and get me out of that place, to get word to my people. I gave the address up in the window as they come up grabbing at my feet I kicked them and knocked them back until I got through talking and told everything I wanted to tell and told a few of the things that I had seen going on in the place while I was in there, telling that to the visitors who were in the reception room and kept kicking them back until I got through talking and when I had I looked over and I recognized that man attendant standing in the window, so I just gave a plunge right through there and landed on top of him and caught him in the throat and began to choke him and we went down on the floor. They soon pulled me off of him. I went back into the cuffs again, and this time my hand didn't go down beside of me to the leg; the arm was brought back, the ankles fastened to the bed rail and arm back in this position and drawn tight down to the bed rail. I begged an attendant to put a pillow under my back to take some of the twist off my arm. He wouldn't do it. I laid there all night long, just lips parched. I began to beg for water. He says: "I would like to give you hot lead, you son of a bitch, you. I won't do a thing for you.' He says, "That is what I would like to give to you, and if I thought I could get by with it, I would give you a drink of hot lead," he says. "Don't ask me for anything," he says. I says, "Please, if you won't give me a drink of water, take a wet towel and drag it across my lips." That never was done. I laid there. I begged him later on to release me and let me go to the toilet. "Oh, no," he says, "you don't want to go to the toilet." He says, "You just want to get up, I know you." He says, "You are a sharp pigeon." He says, "You don't want to get to any toilet." Well, I didn't. I wanted to get out of there, but next night I wanted to get to the toilet. They released that arm that morning, put a little more slack in it, and let it come back down by my side. The next night came, the attendant came on, and that arm went back there again. I says, "Fellow, I am quiet and peaceful. Why are you coming in there putting that arm up there for? "Why are you doing that?" I thought he was fixing to turn me loose and had opened up his heart a little bit but he only twisted it back in that position again but that night I wanted to go to the toilet. I begged him again. Pains started to hit me in the stomach, and they would have drawn me double if it hadn't been I was stretched hand and foot. I begged him to even rub my stomach. He said, "You don't want to go to the toilet." I asked for a bedpan and he finally brought that and pushed it underneath of me, tied me down tight on it, tied the straps across and that stayed there practically all night, underneath there. He wouldn't move it. I told him it is not much good to me in this position unless you release one foot and let me get in position. He wouldn't. He left it there. It stayed there practically all night, and one night there, I am pretty sure it was a night or two after that he wouldn't bring in the bedpan at all. I was forced to use the bed, and I laid in that until just before the day came, the next day, all night, I will say from around 12 to 12:30 until before the day force came on, 30 or 40 minutes before they came on before they ever changed that. Senator BUSHFIELD. You mean you laid in it 30 or 40 minutes or you laid in it all night? Mr. DICKERSON. I laid in it all night, until 30 or 40 minutes or perhaps a little longer before the time for the day force to come on. Senator BUSHFIELD. All right. Mr. DICKERSON. And I was let out when my sister came one Sunday to go in to talk with her and I told her, "Please do something and get me out of here." I don't know what moves my sister, being a Government nurse, she begged me not to come down here to testify. She says, "Your word will be no good," she says. "I am a nurse myself," she says. "I know your word will mean nothing." Other people have told me; they says, "It won't mean anything. It is no good you testifying." I wanted to report this a long time ago. I wanted to push it, but I listened to the advice of others. Oh, I would have a long time ago, but everyone talked to me and said it would do any good. My sisters who are nurses said, "The doctors are too organized"; and they says, "It is no good you getting up there saying anything. It is not going to do you any good." No later than last night, when I called up she still told me, "Don't do any such thing. It won't do you no good. There is enough down there to testify. You don't need to do it. Your words will not mean. anything." I was back on my vacation when I saw this trial in the papers. I cut my vacation short for 2 days, in order to get up here. Senator BUSHFIELD. Well, I appreciate your coming. Mr. DICKERSON. And it was the only-I would have 2 weeks for my vacation and I got 1 week last year, and this 2 weeks I had gotten off was the first day I had off in 42 months, and I went down to enjoy myself but I cut my vacation short to get up here because I would do anything, I would be willing to just give my time even a year here testifying, if it will close the doors or do something to any place that is tolerated. I feel it is my duty as a citizen to stop such goings on as is going on in Gallinger. Senator BUSHFIELD. Thank you, Mr. Dickerson. Just one further question. Senator Holman wants to know how you got released? Mr. DICKERSON. I don't know what move; I don't know whether my sister she won't talk to me about it. She just tells me, "You are out of the place. Don't mention a word or say anything." I don't know whether the move is from the outside or what, but I figure I kept gnawing out of them cuffs and they were thinking about the expense. I heard a doctor threatening the attendant beside my bed, "If you let him gnaw out of another pair I will have to fire you. Those cuffs cost five or six dollars a pair." And that reminds me; when Dr. Gilbert got up it tickled me the other day when he said he fired some attendants that were cruel to the patients. I think that the only thing a fellow is fired there for is letting stuff be broken up. I don't think that that place has consideration on a patient who is in there. It is one of the most brutal places I have ever seen. Senator BUSHFIELD. Thank you. TESTIMONY OF DR. A. BARKLEY COULTER, DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF TUBERCULOSIS, HEALTH DEPARTMENT, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Senator BUSHFIELD. Give your name and official position, please. Dr. COULTER. Dr. A. Barkley Coulter, director of the Bureau of Tuberculosis, Health Department. Senator BUSHFIELD. That is for the District, Doctor? Dr. COULTER. Yes, sir. Senator BUSHFIELD. And so you have general supervision of all the tuberculosis set-ups in the District? Dr. COULTER. No, sir. I only have the supervision of the bureau. for tuberculosis. I do not have anything to do with the hospitals. Senator BUSHFIELD. What are your duties, then? Dr. COULTER. My duties are to find the cases of tuberculosis and to see that they are hospitalized, to receive them after they are returned from the sanitarium if they leave against advice, to see that they are back in the sanitarium, and to take care of all cases that are referred in by the outside physicians, not from the clinic, for hospitalization; to care for all cases that are reported by other States of a TB patient coming to Washington to see that they are under medical supervision. Senator BUSHFIELD. When a case comes to your attention in the first steps, where it is merely a question of investigating, do you go to this individual home and see under what conditions he is living? Dr. COULTER. If the patient has tuberculosis, their home conditions are investigated, and no patient is allowed to come away from the sanitarium and be discharged until their home conditions are investigated and we see that they have a proper place to live when they come back. Senator BUSHFIELD. Is there any examination made of any of the other members of that individual's family to see whether they have TB? Dr. COULTER. Yes, sir; by law all contacts with TB cases have to be examined. That is done by first trying to get the patients themselves to have the contacts examined, and next to send a nurse out to see that the contacts are examined. In fact, we are very strict on the contact examination and in the medical society display which is now going on at the Mayflower, there is a case there of a child dying of tuberculosis meningitis at Children's Hospital. The family was examined. The father had advanced tuberculosis. The mother had far advanced tuberculosis, and the uncle and aunt had far advanced tuberculosis. All cases are examined either by death certificate or by report. Senator HOLMAN. What follows an investigation of the premises where tuberculosis is common in the family? Is there some clean up of the premises which takes place? Dr. COULTER. A definite clean up of the premises. Senator BUSHFIELD. Doctor, have you ever been asked to assist, or have you yourself made any investigation of the tubercular ward in Callinger? Dr. COULTER. Back in 1933, I think, and 1934, I testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee, and it seems that my testimony did not stick directly then to the appropriations, but to other conditions, and at that time Senator Copeland asked me to make an investigation of the tuberculosis situation in Washington. I had only come to Washington in 1928, and being rather new here, and having had one experience, when I was head of the Department of Medicine at Gallinger in 1930 and 1932, I was relieved of that principally I think on account of medical-school politics and not on account of anything else but that investigation was made by the subcommittee of which I was chairman of the Medical Society, and was later passed on to another subcommittee, the report of which was given to the Commissioners, and I think the Times-Herald at that time had a number of articles on it. Senator BUSHFIELD. That was in what year? Dr. COULIER. I think that was in 1936 that those articles came out. Senator BUSHFIELD. Have you ever been in the TB ward of Gallinger since then? Dr. COULTER. I very seldom visit the hospitals. I was down at Gallinger about 4 or 5 months ago, and at that time I went I just happened to go through there-Dr. Cake was happening to be making some rounds and I happened to go through the hospital just to see some of the patients that I had put in there under duress. I take about 20 a year and bring them into court. Senator BUSHFIELD. You were not there for the purpose of making an investigation. Dr. COULTER. No, sir; I keep strictly out of there. Senator BUSHFIELD. When you gave your testimony back in 1934, there was no physician directly in charge of the tubercular ward, as I understand it. Dr. COULTER. Dr. Bocock testified that that unit, I think, was started in 1935. It happens that it was started while I was at Gallinger Hospital in 1931, in which we had all colored patients in the Old Mag House, I think they call it, or something like that, quarantine station, and the bureau was not started until 1938. There was nobody in charge of tuberculosis at all. Senator BUSHFIELD. I see. Dr. COULTER. I made some notes during this--I have been at a number of these hearings. One of the questions was brought up relative to Dr. Bo ock of not reporting infantile diarrhea. I am not in charge of material and child welfare, but I am in charge of tuberculosis, and in 1938, which was about 2 years or 22 months after the bureau was started, I went back over to the deaths in 1936-37 to find out whether cases were reported previous to death. Taking their death notices and checking against the files, I found out in 1986, 48 percent of the cases of Gallinger Hospital were not reported previous to death. That was in the beginning of 1938, so I wrote Dr. Bocock a letter, which I do every month, in which I state whether or not a case that has died at Gallinger Hospital has been reported previous to death. It is interesting to note that instead of 48 percent, not being reported previous to death, that in 1938 there was 1.2 not reported previous to death; 1939, 1.1 not reported previous to death. |