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Victorian asylums of the 19th century
Victorian asylums of the 19th century
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Victorian asylums of the 19th century
Victorian asylums of the 19th century
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
“To be committed to a state hospital, one must go before a panel of a judge, lawyer and two doctors” (P. 5) the author of the memoir writes. Sounding similar to a court hearing before an individual is found guilty or not to be admitted to prison. This is one example of how the memoir reading is similar to Thomas S. Szasz statement of mental illness facilities being a prison for the patients. Another example is hospitalization patients were required to have paid jobs in the facilities, similar to jobs requiring inmates to have in prison. In prison, imates are the force to fulfill orders of the guards or punishment will occur.
This means that not only must the patients learn to be “normal” but the staff must learn to be “insane”. The hospital staff must know and realize and take into account the cultural reasons and other aspects of the patients to be able to care for them, which helps in the recovery and treatment process of one day conditionally releasing the
In 1843, Dorothea Dix submitted one of her first memorials to the Massachusetts Legislature. Following her visit to East Cambridge Jail in 1841, the inadequacies in the treatment of the mentally ill Dix had witnessed were highlighted in this memorial; whilst there she saw how prostitutes, drunks and criminals were housed together in unsanitary, unfurnished and unheated quarters. During this period, the mentally ill were treated inhumanely and many believed there was no cure and that the mentally ill did not feel deprivation as “ordinary” people did. Nevertheless, due to the conditions Dix exposed herself to she was often criticised.
From her experience with “madness,” she concluded that psychiatry was a naive field. Early in the book, she explains how society viewed mental illness in the past, saying it was demonic possession, where the treatment was to drill a hole in the patient’s skull. As the book advances, the author turns to David Rosenhan, a noted psychologist, and his study that included 8 normal people going undercover in different psychiatric facilities and claiming they heard empty, hollow voices in their heads, all of them were admitted, and most were diagnosed with schizophrenia. The study showed how psychiatry did not know how to differentiate between the sane from the insane, it also uncovered the mistreatment that patients received when they were admitted and the conditions that the patients lived in. Rosenhan’s study created mistrust in the field of psychiatry with some people saying that patients are more likely to recover if they are not admitted to a facility.
In the early 19th century, mental asylums were horrific; patients were tortured, chained to the walls, and abused. Reforms began with the revealing of these inhumane conditions in asylums, societal misconceptions about mental illness, and the lack of government control. The transformative reforms, such as the British Lunatics Act of 1845, led to changes in patients' experiences from horror houses and neglect to gradually improving care, empathy, and safety. Dorothea Dix played a pivotal role in advocating for reforms, emphasizing the efficiency of moral treatment and the supposed "curability" of mental diseases. There were many critical reforms in the treatment of mental illnesses in the United States and British asylums, driven by advocates
He went on to explain that the people in those institutions are very limited to the things they are able to do and the choices that they can make. Simple choices such as what to eat, what to wear, and what to do in your freetime are made for the mentally ill by the workers. The patients are forced to take medication against their will and are also limited to everyday things such as being outside. There is so much dehumanization that occurs that the mental hospital doesn't feel like a place where the patients are receiving help. Instead, the patients themselves refer to being at the mental hospital as “doing time” as they would in
Another key pamphlet of the period on mental illness in the late eighteenth century is Andrew Harper, who followed on from Arnold’s work, he produced a ‘Treatise on the Real Cause and Cure of Insanity; in Which the Nature and Distinctions of this Disease Are Fully Explained and the Treatment Established on New Principles’ which was published in London in 1789. This pamphlet expresses the need for pre-tests before patient’s admittance to madhouses and asylums, to gain the correct diagnosis, in the hope the patient’s condition does not worsen under the caregiving of these institutes and that they are given the right course of treatment if possible. Harper comments in the pamphlet, ‘the custom of immediately consigning the unfortunate… to the cells of bedlam… is certainly big when ignorance and absurdity. At the same time, it destroys all the obligation of humanity, robs the sufferer of every advantage’ . He explained that doing this, would help to recover and cure the mentally ill patient in the quickest and best possible way.
Asylums for the “Insane” In the 1830’s to 1840’s there was a pursuit by activists to reconstruct the penal system in the United States. These activists advocated for prison reform towards the treatment of incarcerated poor and mentally insane populations. During this time, prisons were used to contain criminals as well as certain Americans deemed undesirable members of society. The prison reform activist believe there should be some type of instructional rehabilitation offered to the prisoners instead of confinement.
Asylums, sometimes a form of natural treatment, can be visited by mentally ill patients and their families seeking housing and protection. Hysteria and madness, types of mental illnesses, were becoming more widely spoken about, resulting in the formation of asylums to house and medicate the mentally ill. The Elizabethan era was the first to put widespread public attention to the problems posed by the mentally disabled (Rushton 34). New books about mental disabilities and how the mind works, such as The Anatomy of the Mind and The Passions of the Mind, were published, promoting new ideas, which led to a period of fascination relating to the human mind, and what causes these types of mental illnesses (Hackett 62). Psychiatric patients, referred to as the pauper insane, were even harder to treat than someone with a physical illness because the insane person didn’t want the treatment (Szasz 103-104).
In 1920, Major General Jennings wrote to the Secretary of Bombay that the “daily average sick was 580 as compared with 614 in the previous years. ”8 In addition, he reported that “the chief causes of deaths at the several Mental Hospitals were Tuberculosis 17, Diarrhea 14, Anemia 9, Diseases of the Heart 13, Dysentery 10, and Pneumonia 11.”8 These records reveal important information about the conditions of mental asylums. First, Major General Jennings word choice implies that the term lunatic asylums has been changed to “Mental Hospitals. ”8
Once deemed mentally ill by society, one no longer has the right to physical freedom. As seen in both texts, the patients are often confined to the hospital and physically bounded until they no longer can be envision as free. In One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, some of the patients are admitted under the pretense that they cannot decide when they leave. In this case, these patients have absolutely no voice in the matter of their confinement; except, they can change their situations if they conform “to policy merely to aid his chances of an
They all would say that they were hearing a voice in their head that would say thud. On just that sentence alone they were sent to asylums and being diagnosed as schizophrenic or manic depressive. Rosenhan’s experience in the asylum, entailed that patients were not helped with their psychological disorders, let alone acknowledged at all. They were considered invisible. The nurses would turn their heads when patients would spit out their given medications.
Asylums weren’t always like the ones we imagine today, full of harm in and inhumane acts. However, with the increase of asylums in the 1900s, the average amount of patients house increased from 115 in 1806 to over 1000 in the 1900s. The optimism Once present among the people that those with mental abnormalities could be cured vanished, no longer did people believe in a cure for abnormal behavior. Instead of asylums aiming to rehabilitate, they became a place where the “crazy” or “insane” go to live out the rest of their lives
The treatment the patients received from the staff was sometimes inappropriate and rude. The nurses were disrespectful and impatient with them. Principally, the sleeping pills were forced to be drunk by everyone even though one might not need them. Additionally, their recreational activities were limited to the point that the patients felt it was like a prison. Susanna’s experience in this mental institution makes her realize that the staff was unable to look at each individual in its essence.
Even of the patients are mentally disable and some cant express clearly, they still manage to form a strong social bond with the regular people. During the 1970’s President Kennedy passed a health reform act in which psychiatry was reevaluated, and insane asylums were shutting down. The given number 160,000 was lowest at the time as more asylums designed to isolate patients were converting to a therapeutic haling centers