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DR. BROWN HANGS HIMSELF. A NEWSPAPER HELD RESPONSIBLE. THE SENSATIONAL PUBLISHED REPORT OF HIS FORMER INSANITY UPSETS HIS MIND AGAIN. Aurora, Ill., Sept. 6 (Special).——Dr David Tilton Brown, formerly chief of the Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane, of New-York, committed suicide by hanging himself at his country place, near Batavia, Kane County, on Wednesday night. Dr. Brown came here ten years ago and purchased the finest stock farm in the county, where he has lived in comfort and security until a correspondent of "The New-York World" recently invaded his home and made public the place where he lived. Dr. Patterson, an eminent authority on insanity, who had Dr. Brown under his charge, says that the suicide was caused by the publication of these articles. Dr. Brown occupied a prominent position in this city for some years previous to his final departure from it about 1874. He was the principal consulting physician in the New-York Hospital, and superintendent of the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum. His performance of the duties of the latter office gained for him the reputation of being one of the most successful superintendents of such asylums in the country, and an acknowledged authority on the treatment of the insane. He was a man of fine address and his disposition was such as to make every man with whom he came in contact a friend; his modest and dignified ways, in the midst of professional success, won him the admiration and respect of every one. About 1874 his health, which had become impaired by a too close application to his duties, needed building up, and it was deemed best that he should have a change. Accordingly he soon went abroad and it was then that the first symptoms of approaching insanity became noticeable. He was confined in a private asylum for a time and then returned to this country cured, but under strict injunctions from his physicians to lead a quiet, healthful life, and under no circumstances to engage in any exciting occupation. Many people, moreover, believed a report which was circulated here describing his death, under distressing circumstances, in the Morningdale Asylum at Edinburgh. Upon his arrival here he went West, and acting under the doctors' orders, purchased a beautiful farm near Batavia, Ill., and no intimations were ever given either in his correspondence with his friends or in his daily intercourse with the members of his family, or the people among whom he lived, that he was not in his right mind. He enjoyed the quiet life of a farmer and never cared to return to the practice of his profession. On August 25 a sensational article, several columns long, appeared in "The New-York World," detailing the discovery of Dr. Brown by one of its correspondents, who had found him on his farm near Batavia, alive and well, when most people believed that he had died at Edinburgh. It described minutely the surroundings of Dr. Brown's home, his life and the meeting with him, and was prefaced with a column or more of such sensational reading as must have been highly disagreeable and mortifying to a man of as sensitive disposition as was Dr. Brown. It is evident from the narrative of "The World" correspondent that Mrs. Brown, whom he met first on his visit to the farm, desired that her husband should not be seen, fearing the consequences of his meeting a person with whom he was not acquainted, and of the pain which would naturally follow the asking of questions relative to his former life and to his insanity; and she endeavored to prevent the meeting. But the reporter, with culpable indifference to her wishes, and only mindful of the object of his visit, persisted and boasted of his later success, in which he actually did force upon Dr. Brown the recollection of his misfortune, and evidently made it so unpleasant for the Doctor that the latter had to terminate the interview himself. At the time of the publication of this article much criticism was aroused, and it was feared by several of his friends in this city that the effect would be exceedingly depressing on Dr. Brown. It appears now that the fears entertained were unfortunately well grounded.
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Reopened for Editing 2023-06-16 16:43:26
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Reopened for Editing 2023-06-16 19:42:34
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Reopened for Editing 2023-06-18 16:20:07 .