Death of a Lunatic — Surrey Lunatic Asylum, Wandsworth
On 9 April 1856, Daniel Dolley, 65, a patient at the Surrey Lunatic Asylum in Wandsworth — not a violent man but described as "excitable and foolish" — struck Dr. Charles Snape, the resident Superintendent, a sharp blow to the head. Snape ordered the man placed in a narrow shower-bath: "Pull the string, keep him in a half-an-hour." For 28 minutes, drenched by unheated water in a cubicle less than two feet square, Dolley was held by an iron bar. He was removed by an orderly and dead within a quarter hour. At a perfunctory inquest, Dr. Snape pressured the autopsy surgeon to attribute death to a bad heart. The surgeon surreptitiously removed Dolley's heart and carried it to several London physicians, none of whom saw evidence of significant cardiac decay. The Commissioners in Lunacy charged Dr. Snape with unlawfully causing the death of an aged lunatic. Investigators calculated that Dolley had been drenched by some 618 gallons of cold water. A grand jury refused to indict.