Danvers State Hospital During The 1800s And Early 1900s

Although life during the 1800s and early 1900s weren’t all that great, to begin with, compare that to how asylums treated patients during this time, the normal population life should have seen life as a simple breeze in the wind. There is a reason that our first thoughts when thinking of asylums is horror and it’s because of all of the horror shows that actually happen at these areas. Then comes in a place that has a new idea of treating patients, a new of thinking that never had been seen before. A new revolution when it comes to the psychological medical field. Step in Danvers State Hospital. Before Danvers was even thought of on the smallest breath the way patients were treated in asylums. In the 1870s and below, treatment of patients

Overpopulation was the start of a large downfall for Danvers, with Danvers now holding over the amount two thousand, more than quadruple the amount the estate could hold. This problem then began to slowly branch out into more problems, they did not hire any more staff during this time because of funding problems that began to happen at the same time of the mass expansion of new patients, so this being said means that Danvers patients usually outweighed the staff fifty to one, if not that then more. With limited staff came another problem, how to tend to all of the newly acquired patients that needed the same care as ones that had been there for years. A solution was not found, which brought, even more, deterioration to Danvers. “As a result, the quality of care began to deteriorate as the overwhelmed staff struggled to control the massive number of patients.”(History of Massachusetts) The struggle started by the history of Massachusetts isn’t one that simply effected one type of resident or another, patient nor staff, this is something that ruined both lives for the people working there and the patients. For the staff every day became a struggle of making sure that they could keep all of these people in line and to make sure they got the treatment they needed. This is where things go from slightly lifting off the rails to full blown off the rails, over their heads insanity. To keep control of the masses that were so large at Danvers at this time certain ways of treatment started to unfold at Danvers. Restraining soon became something widely used, it is thought that the most likely way they restrained was with straitjackets, on top of this new method of making sure that the staff could handle everyone electroconvulsive therapy became widely used at the estate or shock therapy. Shock therapy is when doctors use electricity to bring out a seizure in someone, this is supposed to