Clark Bell Champion of abandoned infants and the insane

by Patricia R. James
published August 2005
                                     

     Clark Bell was born in Rodman, Jefferson County on March 12, 1832, the son of Philander F. and Sylvia (JONES) BELL.  As a lawyer turned medical-legal jurist, he is attributed with a myriad of ethical questions and subsequently published articles that have greatly influence the shaping of our society today.  Unfortunately, not much could be found via the internet on the private life of this man, early or later in life.               

     Admitted to the bar in 1853 at Rochester, NY, he served as lawyer and postmaster in the Town of Hammandsport during the Civil War.  At the end of that conflict, he relocated to New York City where he became an attorney for the Union Pacific Railroad as well as for several other organizations.                                                   

     In 1856, he married Helen S. TAYLOR, who, by his side, became an activist in her own right especially for women's health issues.  (She is found in Who's Who in NY State, 1904.)

     Among his civic service was a period of 'fourteen terms, since 1872" as president of the Medico-Legal Society of New York; president of the New York Infant Asylum for 8 years; and founder of the American Congress on Tuberculosis.  He received many accolades from and honorary membership in organizations around the world: for instance, the Belgian Society of Mental Medicine; the Netherland Society of Psychiatry; the Italian Society of Freniatry and the Order if Bolivar from the government of Venezuela.   

     As an editor, he founded the Medico-Legal Journal in 1863.  As a writer, he published in pamphlet form such works as "The Rights of the Insane" (1883); "Madness and Crime" (1884) and "Classification of Mental Diseases as a Basis of Insanity" (1886).  His writing interests also involved such subjects as forensic medicine, alcoholism, hypnotism, and telepathy.  His books include "Bell's Medico-Legal Studies" (8 volumes); "The Judicial History of New York" (2 volumes);" and "Supreme Court of the States and Provinces of North America" (1863, 2 volumes.)                                                                     
     Among Bell's other accomplishments in Who's Who (1904) are:
He was a U.S. delegate to the International Medical Congress, Paris, 1900.     
He wrote articles on Suicide and Legislation; Alcoholism; and Penology.
He was part of a large committee charged with making the Statue of Liberty possible.    
      
     What prompted Clark Bell's interest with the New York Infant Asylum?  Was it simply due to his wife's involvement?  (Did they have children?)  She served that institution for seventeen years.  It was founded in New York City in 1865 and became one of a number of organizations that cared for abandoned infants and children.  (New York Foundling Society (1869) and St. Mary's Infant Asylum being two others.)  According to one author, Julie Miller, who wrote an article for "Seaport: New York's History Magazine," New York City had a serious problem with the abandonment, neglect and even infanticide in New York City for many years prior to the Civil War   

     The reasons why would be in part, unwed motherhood.  It was apparently regarded as a particularly reprehensible social crime.  In addition, there would be increases in cases of children abandoned by widowed mothers, etc. after financial panics, such as in 1819 and 1837.  One mother, when leaving her infant son on the doorstep of a wealthy man in 1838, penned a note.  Pinning it to the child's clothing, it read, "I am a poor friendless Widow in a strange city - had I kept it (the baby) - it would have lingered and died with starvation:  oh, it will drive me frantic - to think I must part with my first and only pledge of my departed Husband but God will forgive me- oh!  I do it for the best."    

     Before foundling homes, etc. were established after the Civil War, these children (and in general, the poor) were taken care of in almshouses.  A report in the 1850's says that upwards of 500 abandoned infants yearly were put in the care of wet nurses.  Of these, it is sad to report that about 200 died annually, perhaps in part because of the 'squalor and disease' existent in the almshouses.

     Under the biographical sketch written for Mrs. Clark Bell, it is stated that as head of the management of the Maternity Branch of the New York Infant Asylum (located at 61st Street and Amsterdam), that institution had "the smallest death rate of any institution of the kind in the whole world."                                                                         

Sources:
     Who's Who in New York, 1904 (First Edition) p. 48   
     www.FamousAmericans.com  - Virtual American Biographies    
     "Abandoned" by Julie Miller, Seaport: New York's History Magazine.