Krankzinnigheid in Atjeh — insanity in Atjeh — was the mental illness that had in recent years attracted the attention of the colonial government, and that was investigated in 1920 by an expert in mental diseases, who had been sent to the gewest to advise on the necessity of a lunatic asylum. The investigation is one of the principal medical events of the early civilian period, and is connected by Broersma with the Atjehsche moorden — the assaults by Atjehnese individuals on European or Christian targets.
The Investigation of 1920
When the expert came to the gewest, the government could give him a list of about 1.100 people who were considered insane. The investigator gained the impression that the actual number must be greater. His finding was that malaria, leprosy, syphilis and yaws afflicted the people, who were already weakened by child-marriage, internecine wars and war against the Dutch authority. The evil of opium was added; the evil of alcohol is added — the latter the Atjehnese can take over from the many Klings who are in the gewest. The degeneration among the people’s children shows itself in many symptoms: paralyses, idiocy, feeble-mindedness, insanity, falling-sickness, nervous debility. The investigator did not fail to point out that the mental decline comes partly at the cost of the Atjehnese physical decline. The Atjehnese people has lost much of its strength, it is decadent. Old women, who have known the men-folk otherwise, sometimes reproach the men: that they play football and visit the cinema but lack the pride of the fathers.
The Proposal for a Central Asylum
The governor of Atjeh proposed to build a central institution for the treatment of lunatics at Lam Teumet in Seulimeum. For the sake of economy the government did not consent; but recently it has approved that the former military hospital at Sabang be fitted up for the admission of lunatics who require institutional care.
See Also
Source
Verkenningen in Atjeh, by Dr. R. Broersma (De Locomotief, October 1923), chapter XV, ‘Groot-Atjeh’, pp. 104–105.
Source
Verkenningen in Atjeh, by Dr. R. Broersma (De Locomotief, October 1923); Atjeh Patchouli-Olie, by Ir. W. Spoon (1932), where applicable.