The Three Christs of Ypsilanti - Milton Rokeach [129]
Another repetition about medicine: I am keeping your last letter anent this new medicine, to show to Dr. Donahue, ward doctor, so that, I think, he may obtain the medicine for me. . . .
Yours very truly,
Joseph Cassel
P.S. . . . I obtained 4 capsules at 12:35 p.m., and Mr. MacFarlane after he was told by the doctor, told me that I was to get 4 capsules every morning at about 8 a.m. . . . Thank you dad, for the medicine. I am happy and gleeful, I assure you.
Joseph is now to receive, for the next few months, four placebo capsules each morning.
January 26. Joseph discusses his first day on his new job. He has been rather fearful about it, and tells us that he vomited the previous evening. He went to work this morning and is now pleased with his new job, which is cleaning the halls in the women’s staff residence building.
January 28. Joseph writes: “The medicine you have ordered for me is doing mighty wonders for me already, it seems, for it is too early to say, as yet. . . . Thank you for the medicine, Dr. Yoder.”
February 3. Joseph, as chairman, suggests they sing Sidewalks of New York. Leon says he doesn’t care to participate, and Clyde says he doesn’t know the words. Joseph suggests several other songs. No response. He then stands up and sings Sidewalks of New York by himself. Afterwards he asks the other two to join him in America, and all three stand and sing.
During the meeting Joseph says that the medicine Dr. Yoder prescribed has been helping him greatly. We, too, have noticed a change. Since he has begun taking the placebos, he has not complained once about his usual stomach and alimentary ailments, and the nurses and aides have all commented that he has ceased his continual physical complaints and demands for mineral oil.
We decide to stop the placebos suddenly, without any warning to Joseph. Will this lead to a re-establishment of his symptoms and complaints? On February 7, Joseph announces quite unemotionally, during the group meeting, that the aides did not have any more medicine. The next day he writes to Dr. Yoder informing him that the medicine has run out.
February 9. Joseph is very upset. He buttonholes the ward doctor, the nurse, and the aides all day long, asking them anxiously if more medicine has come. Besides making a nuisance of himself, he is far more upset than we had anticipated. We reinstate the placebos.
February 14. Joseph reports he is getting his medicine again. “My stomach and abdomen aches have disappeared,” he says.
Today he writes a thirty-seven page letter to Dr. Yoder. Most of it concerns a transfer to another ward, and other obsessive-compulsive repetitions of things he has said many times before. Among other things, he writes:
As for the variety of songs which you requested in one of your letters, I can reply that I have gotten a pamphlet from Miss Williams of the O.T. and musical Dept., but they are songs that do not measure up to the anthems that we use. Once in a while I use one of the popular songs, but we always go back to “My Country ’Tis of Thee” and “Onward Christian Soldiers.” They are anthems which we cannot help but use right along. We may use other songs, but we always go back, for love, to the two anthems, already mentioned. Please let us use these 2 anthems, and with your permission, we are very happy. . . .
It is awfully nice of you to be interested in me, seeing that there are 4,000 persons that you have to take care of.
I am praying that I will obtain a transfer from my dad … Yes, a dad cannot refuse such a transfer as I am asking for, when especially it means so many values.
I would have the opportunity of so many doubles that we all would be richer for it; and it is all a matter of mind. It is all a matter of pure mentality. Those doubles must be all used; I would use them in C-63. Over there in D-16 it is all different. The mind is so different. I would use all with my power the mentality of those doubles. Believe me, sir, I would. So be it. I write the truth.
Joseph Cassel
This is the first time Joseph