Mental Illness| Mental Asylums| History
What it Meant to be a Mental Patient in the 19th Century?
Hang on, this one is going to get crazy
In the 1900s, Psychiatric hospitals were known as lunatic asylums or insane asylums. And officials there would lock up patients against their will, despite having few ideas about how to properly treat their problems.
In the 1900s, patients at psychiatric hospitals in the United States faced inhumane treatment that today would be regarded as nothing short of torture.
So let’s understand what it was like to a mental patient in a US mental hospital in the 19th century.
1. Patients Were Sent to Hospitals Involuntarily
In the early days of psychiatric hospitals, not everyone chose to enter on their own free will. In fact, up until the 1960s, the majority of the patients in the US mental health facilities were admitted involuntarily.
By contrast, about 71% of the people in psychiatric institutions today are there voluntarily.
The problem wasn't just with the medicine. It also had to do with the laws that allowed families to commit their relatives with little to no supporting evidence.
