Asylums In 1800s

In today’s society, when someone mentions a mental institution most people picture a dark, dirty, and horrendous hospital like structure. While this image may at times be accurate, this was not always the case. Mental institutions, otherwise known as asylums, have a past full of ups and downs. During different time periods standards for care in these facilities fluctuated from proper care to improper care. With more of an understanding of these mental abnormalities we have a better chance of finding solutions and resolving them.

Long-ago those who required care received it from family, friends, and the community. Asylums were presented as a way to cure the mentally ill and teach the mentally challenged in a safe environment. The 19th century

It was common among mental institutions to contain a water tower at the center of the grounds and chapel. The housing of patients required different sexes to be separated, this rule was strictly followed and applied to both patients and attendants. Attendants would live out their lives on the institution grounds along with the patients, often times this went on for generations. The words were separated on either side of the establishment, one designated for males and the other for females. Each ward had the capacity to hold up to 100 people; In the dormitory, up to 50 patients slept with their beds aligned close together. 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

Patients would be chained to their beds at night, the ventilation systems were unexceptional, and the cleanliness of the establishment was inadequate. With the abundance of patients to care for, care became nonexistent, this is where the stereotype comes into play. Attendants would beat patients, sexually assault them, and would sometime perform unethical procedures upon them. One such treatment would be the ever so famous lobotomy. A lobotomy consists of either drilling into a patient's brain or using ice pick like instruments to stab at the brain through the patient's eye socket, these procedures had a variety of results ranging from successful to the death of the patient. Often times those who received these procedures never felt the same and would be classified as acting differently. While this procedure was meant for patient whom were classified as unruly, this was not always the case, in some instances, those who were classified as relatively normal or were at the very least not a problematic patient would still receive the procedure for one reason or another. for some institutions, the patients would be served plain bread, water or milk, and nothing else for breakfast. The average dinner would be a bowl of pea soup, often times the patients would be in restraints. However, there were institutions who had a different ideology on how to properly care for their patients to promote their recuperation.