Althoug's Reforms In The Mid-To-Late 1800s

Wright, D. (1997). Getting out of the asylum: understanding the confinement of the insane in the nineteenth century. Social History of Medicine, 10, 13

The evolution of mental health care put forth in the book has been one plagued with torture and inhuman practices. During the eighteenth century, mentally ill patients were confined to what can only be described as dungeons. “The lunatics” were housed in “unheated, dingy cells in the basement, where they had often slept on straw,” and placed in chains (3). Under such condition patients mad little to no progress, and were simply tucked away from the rest of society. However, in the early nineteenth century, physician Benjamin Rush of the Pennsylvania Hospital, created a “mad ward,” where patients were moved to humane living condition and received medical treatment (3). Rush recognized the early work of the Quakers, who rationalized the mental

The conditions of the prisons and asylums of the 1800’s were archaic even for that era but by today's standards are criminal in themselves. The march 26th, 1880 edition of The New York Times ran a story titled Out of an Insane Asylum, which described one patient's first hand treatment. According to the story that The New York Times ran this particular patient was beaten on several occasions seemingly at the whim of the people in charge (The New York

These techniques of dealing with the problem of increase of mental illness were like torture to their victims and to torture them would make them any better. () If that wasn’t enough for you, you can look to the inhumane procedure of Lobotomies. This procedure would include the doctor inducing sedation, which was done by inflicting two quick shocks to the head. After that the doctors would insert a device, 2/3 the size of a pencil, through the upper eyelid into the patients’ head. For more came after that.

For centuries societies have been superstitious and afraid towards mental illness; mainly due to a lack of knowledge. While there were “cures and treatments” for individuals that were deemed insane many were sent to either prisons or asylums. The conditions of these facilities were unsanitary, the physical and sexual abuse was frequent, and the staff was not properly trained to care for patients. Patients were also chained, caged, or restrained to beds in rooms that were often unheated.

Asylums The mental disabled were brought here to be treated. Treatment supposedly helped the patients but it seemed to do the opposite. Life in the Asylums The staff in the asylums was very limited during the 1930s.

brain, or sending patients to institutions, doctor prescribed pills to try and treat mental conditions. In addition mental health patients were no longer being institutionalized due to the poor conditions in mental institutions (History of Mental Illness”)

During the 1800s, treating individuals with psychological issues was a problematic and disturbing issue. Society didn’t understand mental illness very well, so the mentally ill individuals were sent to asylums primarily to get them off the streets. Patients in asylums were usually subjected to conditions that today we would consider horrific and inhumane due to the lack of knowledge on mental illnesses.

The theory of ‘deinstitutionalization’ began arising with the theory of providing more freedom to the mentally ill and less spending on full time care facilities. The widespread use of drugs to control the mentally ill in the 1900s led to a mass release of patients and an emptying of asylums. Outpatient Psychiatric Clinics were established. Case Law in the United States began to be generated to provide the mentally ill with greater rights. Shelton v. Tucker 1960 provided that the mentally ill should receive care in the “least restrictive alternative”, which is a practice still utilized. O’Connor v. Donaldson 1975 ruled that non-dangerous mental patients have the right to be treated or discharged if they have been institutionalized against their will. This new approached permitted the mass exodus

Unfortunately, asylum founders could only guess at the causes of insanity. Patient after patient was admitted into the state hospitals, but the cause of their disturbance was often a mystery. Many were inflicted with various organic diseases, like dementia, Huntington’s disease, brain tumors, and many were in the third stage of syphilis. With no treatments available, providing humane care was all that could be done. In the years following the civil war American cities boomed and the asylum began struggling to keep up. Soldiers, freed slaves, and immigrants were stranded in a strange land. The asylum became organized more like a factory or small town. There were upper and lower classman, bosses and workers, patients with nothing, and patients with privileges. Sarah Burrows, a schizophrenic and daughter of a wealthy doctor had a ten bedroom house that was built for her on the hospital grounds. Burrows home was just a stone’s throw away from the hospital’s west wing, where over sixty black women slept side by side. (Asylum: A History of the Mental Institution in America). The hospital began to rely on the free labor the patients provided. However, isolating the hospital from the community meant there was no way of knowing what was happening inside the asylum. The asylum became a world apart. In the 1870’s, Elizabeth Packard, a former patient of St. Elizabeth’s, wrote about her mistreatment and abuse

The United States has never had an official federal-centered approach for mental health care facilities, entrusting its responsibility to the states throughout the history. The earliest initiatives in this field took place in the 18th century, when Virginia built its first asylum and Pennsylvania Hospital reserved its basement to house individuals with mental disorders (Sundararaman, 2009). During the 19th century, other services were built, but their overall lack of quality was alarming. Even then, researchers and professionals in the mental health field attempted to implement the principles of the so-called public health, focusing on prevention and early intervention, but the funds were in the hands of the local governments, which prevented significant advances in this direction.

Christian associations would house the “crazy” away from the public, to attempt curing ones issue. However they could only hold a limited amount of people. They started to grow and develop until they reached a point when it was not helpful anymore, and their procedures were borderline torture. In 1790, a man named William Turke took notice and started the York Retreat in York, England. He designed it to be a non-profit moral hospital, in hopes it would eliminate the need for harm to come to patients. The world then started to believe that it was possible to treat disabilities, not through elaborate procedures, but maybe through a positive

In early American history, individuals with mental illnesses have been neglected and suffered inhuman treatments. Some were beaten, lobotomized, sterilized, restrained, in addition to other kinds of abuse. Mental illness was thought to be the cause of supernatural dreadful curse from the Gods or a demonic possession. Trepanning (the opening of the skull) is the earliest known treatment for individuals with mental illness. This practice was believed to release evil spirits (Kemp, 2007). Laws were passed giving power to take custody over the mentally ill including selling their possessions and properties and be imprisoned (Kofman, 2012). The first psychiatric hospital in the U.S. was the Pennsylvania Hospital where mentally ill patients were left in cold basements because they were considered not affected by cold or hot environments and restraint with iron shackles. They were put on display like zoo animals to the public for sell by the doctors (Kofmen, 2012). These individuals were punished and isolated and kept far out of the eyes of society, hidden as if they did not exist. They were either maintained by living with their families and considered a source of embarrassment or institutionalized

During the mid-1800’s the mentally ill were either homeless or locked in a cell under deplorable conditions. Introduction of asylums was a way to get the mentally ill better care and better- living conditions. Over a period of years, the admissions grew, but staff to take care of their needs did not. Asylums became overcrowded and treatments that were thought to cure, were basically medieval and unethical

The mentally ill were cared for at home by their families until the state recognized that it was a problem that was not going to go away. In response, the state built asylums. These asylums were horrendous; people were chained in basements and treated with cruelty. Though it was the asylums that were to blame for the inhumane treatment of the patients, it was perceived that the mentally ill were untamed crazy beasts that needed to be isolated and dealt with accordingly. In the opinion of the average citizen, the mentally ill only had themselves to blame (Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health, 1999). Unfortunately, that view has haunted society and left a lasting impression on the minds of Americans. In the era of "moral treatment", that view was repetitively attempted to be altered. Asylums became "mental hospitals" in hope of driving away the stigma yet nothing really changed. They still were built for the untreatable chronic patients and due to the extensive stay and seemingly failed treatments of many of the patients, the rest of the society believed that once you went away, you were gone for good. Then the era of "mental hygiene" began late in the nineteenth century. This combined new concepts of public health, scientific medicine, and social awareness. Yet despite these advancements, another change had to be made. The era was called "community mental health" and