What It Was Like to Be a Mental Patient In the 1900s

In the 1900s, psychiatric hospitals were known as lunatic asylums, or insane asylums. And officials there would lock patients up against their will, despite having few ideas about how to properly treat their problems. In 1900, patients at psychiatric hospitals in the United States faced inhumane treatment that today would be regarded as nothing short of torture.

So today we're going to take a look at what it was like to be a patient in a US mental hospital in the year 1900. But before we get started, be sure to subscribe to the Weird History channel. And let us know in the comments below what other medical related topics you would like to hear about.

OK. Hang on. This one is going to get crazy.

[MUSIC PLAYING] In the early days of psychiatric hospitals, not everyone chose to enter one of their own free will. In fact, up until the 1960s, the majority of patients in the US mental health facilities were admitted involuntarily. By contrast, about 71% of people in psychiatric institutions today are there voluntarily.

The problem wasn't just with medicine. It also had a lot to do with the laws that allowed families to commit their relatives with little to no supporting evidence. In 1860, for example, based on an Illinois law, Elizabeth Packard landed in an asylum for three years for no reason other than that she practiced a different religion from her husband.

Parents also routinely committed their children to mental institutions for questionable reasons. In 1883, Henry Frazier was sent to an asylum in New Orleans, because his mother called him uncontrollable, saying that he played with himself to complete exhaustion. Exacerbating the problem were perverse financial incentives for the hospitals themselves.

That is, families could literally just purchase confinement for relatives they didn't want to deal with. Hmm, I can see that temptation. And patients might stay in psychiatric institutions for extended periods.

By 1904, only 27. 8% of asylum patients in the US had been institutionalized for a year or less. The vast majority were long-term cases.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Given how awful the care was, some people with mental health issues tried to hide their condition to avoid being sent to an asylum. And it's hard to blame them. In 1887, journalist Nellie Bly agreed to go undercover in a mental asylum to record the conditions inside.

She reported horrific treatment from doctors, including hair pulling in solitary confinement. Bly also decried the way patients were treated like prisoners. She wrote of how when she couldn't sleep, she would lay in bed imagining how horrible it would be if a fire broke out in the institution.

Bly had noticed that every door in the building was locked separately. And the windows were all heavily barred, meaning that escape was close to impossible. A doctor had told her that in one building alone, there were some 300 women locked 10 to a room.

And it was impossible to get out, unless the doors were manually unlocked. [MUSIC PLAYING] By the early 20th century, many mental hospitals routinely tested patients for syphilis. We now know syphilis would remain incurable, until the advent of antibiotics.

But in 1900, at the Oregon State Hospital, doctors used what was called "malarial treatment" for people newly infected with the disease. Doctors who used the treatment, first advocated by Dr Julius Wagner-Jauregg, intentionally injected malaria germs into a patient's bloodstream, based on the theory that malarial fever could kill syphilis. Wagner-Jauregg's research showed that approximately half of these patients saw a reduction in syphilis symptoms after the malaria infection, which sounds pretty promising.

However, the same research showed that at least 15% died from the treatment, which is less promising. Although it didn't stop them from using it. [MUSIC PLAYING] The earliest treatments for mental illness were, to put it mildly, absolutely brutal.

In the early 19th century, asylums in England used a wheel to spin patients at high speed. Other treatments still used at the end of the 19th century included harnessing patients and swinging them, or branding a patient with hot irons in an attempt to bring them to their senses. You're probably thinking that eventual improvements in medical technology meant better treatment.

But that was far from the case. It usually just meant new forms of torture. By the 1930s, doctors began to experiment with new, troubling methods of treating mental illness, which included lobotomies and electroshock therapy.

Patients soon learn the only way to get out of the insane asylum was to fake it. "You do just what the doctor says, if you want to get out of here," one patient said. Of course, while faking it might have gotten you out, it didn't cure you.

The same patient we just quoted later died by their own hand. [MUSIC PLAYING] Mental hospitals around 1900 didn't just treat adults, they also admitted children. Between 1854 and 1900, the Worcester County Asylum screened hundreds of children who were 16 or younger to determine whether they needed treatment.

The asylum admitted nearly 200 children according to their violent tendencies and risk of suicide. One study found a high death rate among the children, who rarely saw their families after being admitted. This isn't too surprising, given that doctors treated the children in the same way as their adult patients, making no allowances for their young age.

Inside the mental hospital, patients slept in single rooms or dormitories. Nellie Bly described women sleeping 10 to a room with locked doors and bars on the windows. And at the Oregon State Hospital, we know that sleeping rooms were 7 by 14 feet.

The Morning Oregonian reported in 1883 that the hospital contained modern technology, including dumbwaiters that opened and closed as they traveled to prevent patients from escaping. Ironically, late 19th century reforms had proposed treating mental illness with rest, beautiful buildings, and manicured grounds, resulting in majestic architecture on the outside of mental hospitals. It was all so nice, the facilities sometimes even attracted asylum tourists.

However, despite the tranquil outsides, the conditions inside the hospital still reflected the idea that patients should be treated as prisoners. [MUSIC PLAYING] In 1900, the lousy treatment at psychiatric hospitals wasn't solely reserved for long-term residents. In fact, newly admitted patients were often immediately subjected to dehumanizing tests.

At the Oregon State Hospital, for example, patients had to empty their pockets and strip for a bath. After a medical examination, patients underwent blood and syphilis tests. Finally, they might be shown to a room with bars on the windows and left alone.

Women's institutions sometimes used different procedures. According to Nellie Bly, her examination to fully determine if she was mentally ill included a physical assessment, where a doctor accused her of taking drugs. You'd think a top priority for a psychiatric facility would be to make sure everyone could easily tell the difference between doctors and patients.

But that wasn't always the case. At the Oregon State Hospital, at least, the standard white outfits could actually be confusing. According to one patient, neither patients nor staff wore uniforms.

The first person this patient saw was a man in a white apron. He thought that person was an attendant. And he asked him a question.

But later, he learned that that man in the apron was also a patient, and the two were in the same ward. Awkward. During his involuntary commitment, the patient found himself perpetually confused, eventually concluding usually the attendants are a little better dressed than the patients.

[MUSIC PLAYING] At St. Elizabeth's, also known as the government hospital for the insane, Dr Harry Hummer promoted eggs as an important part of the diet for sick patients, recording that 125 patients went through 17 dozen eggs every day. Patients with epilepsy, meanwhile, received a special diet.

According to Hummer, these patients were not allowed to have anything that doctors thought would upset them, which included foods like corned beef with cabbage, and so-called heavy indigestible foods. Nellie Bly described a meal consisting of tea, a single piece of bread, rancid butter, and five prunes. After a 10-day undercover visit in Bellevue Hospital, Bly reported, "the eating was one of the most horrible things.

" However, conditions could vary. And patients at another asylum reported the dining room felt more like a restaurant or hotel dining room. Patients sat together, while other patients served them.

Some institutions also grew their own food on the grounds, with patients working in the field to theoretically improve their mental health, which also saved money for the institution. [MUSIC PLAYING] State mental hospitals often housed multiple patients in barracks-like conditions that were significantly less than pleasant. In the night before patient Taylor Benjamin, a.

k. a. John the Baptist, died at the New Orleans City Insane Asylum in 1893, he reportedly slept very little, if any at night and was constantly screaming.

One patient at the Oregon State Hospital also reported a complete lack of privacy. When he was resting in his room on his first day, another patient wandered in to tuck in the sheets. He was followed by two other patients who simply stared at the new arrival without talking.

Room service. Bellevue Hospital, in New York, featured similar conditions. Nellie Bly reported about a crying woman who begged for death nearly the entire night.

Another woman repeatedly yelled, murder. That's a tough environment to work on your mental health. [MUSIC PLAYING] Reformers in the 19th century encouraged states to build insane asylums.

The effort was successful. And by the 1870s, most states had built at least one asylum using tax dollars to treat those labeled insane. The Oregon State Hospital opened in 1883.

And by 1936, the state had expanded the facilities to two additional buildings. At the time, the institution treated 2,400 patients. Reformers also argued that mental illnesses could be treated by rest and recuperation, which drove the creation of peaceful, manicured estates to treat patients.

These often included gardens and lawns where patients could walk and architecturally beautiful structures. Asylum tourism became a popular pursuit by the late 19th century. Guidebooks even recommended visits to asylums, including the Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane, which, according to one guide, had one of the most extensive and beautiful views of any in the vicinity of the city.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Doctors believed many different conditions could cause insanity, and sometimes committing patients to insane asylums was their only option. Records from the New Orleans City Insane Asylum in the late 1800s, for example, included notes from doctors that listed some of the reasons they might commit a patient. A man named Frank Camba was committed because malarial fevers had left him deranged.

One, William Byrne, was institutionalized after he fell from a horse and landed on his head, which doctors said caused a softening of the brain. Henry Schreiber's diagnosis was congenital idiocy. And doctors wrote he had been an idiot from birth.

And in the case of Jane Depassay, who apparently drank too much whiskey, doctors concluded the cause of her insanity is chronic alcoholism. Good times. So what do you think?

How much has mental health changed over the years? Let us know in the comments below. And while you're at it, check out some of these other videos from our Weird History.