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Treatment Of The Insane During The 19th Century

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Many people believed that the treatment of the insane, before the 19th century, was considered inhumane. Physicians were lacking the education to treat patients, and it was as if they were just caring for them as a business (trade in lunacy). The ability to state whether the treatment of patients in asylums and madhouses differs, is extremely dependent on the person answering the question. There has been many arguments for both sides but one must strongly take into consideration the quality of life madhouse patients were receiving —before the mid 19th century. Asylums were an improvement of treatment to patients compared to that of the madhouses because it gave civility to the patients: whom were highly deserving of it. Throughout history, we can see how people have tried to belittle others who are different by dehumanizing them— causing society to treat them as such. In regards to the insane, madhouses were contributing to the stigma that they were animal like. In Abuse in …show more content…

Once the insane were no longer being dehumanized, they got more liberties around the asylum, they were given the ability to have free- will, and the government was creating laws acknowledging them as human beings. One must take into consideration the amount of knowledge physicians received in the 19th century as oppose to now, the 21st century was exceedingly different. They will obviously not treat patients like we do so now, but the advancements of no longer chaining them marked a great revolution for change. How could someone be held responsible to treat the sick correctly if they don't know what “correctly” is? In a few years, a new discovery might say that the way we treat the insane now is incorrect and inhumane, but to us it’s the most advanced sense of training we have received—just as they did in the mid 19th

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Before Dix, the mentally ill were treated like animals. Insane people have been poorly treated all throughout history. The insane were physically and sexually abused in dirty cells with many other people (Reddi; Asylum 19th). If one was a lunatic or mentally impaired, then one was viewed as a criminal and housed accordingly (Asylum 19th). Many religions saw that insanity was a result of great sin or demonic possession (Asylum 19th).

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