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Mental Health Facilities 1700s-1900s
10
Mental Health Facilities 1700s - 1900s
By: Christine Lusterio
Overview
Dive into the depths of the appearance of mental institutes, also known as mental asylums. We can see them pop into history in the 1700s and slightly reformed in the 1800s. It was the beginning of catering to people with mental illnesses. Despite the vicious actions taken upon these mentally unstable patients, it eventually evolves into somewhat ideal treatments assisted with science and reasoning like the Enlightenment has provided for us, and has carried some of its ideology in today's psychiatric hospitals.
Illustration #1
Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane (New York Public Library Digital Collections)
Illustration #2
Hanwell Mental Asylum.
London Illustrated News, 20 May 1842.
Image Source:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015006972882%3Bview%3D1up%3Bseq%3D333
Origins of Asylums/Mental Facilities
Majority of the mental asylums track way back to the 1700s. This was around the beginning of the Enlightenment era where science and the ideology of reasoning behind abnormal circumstances were interesting the minds of many citizens. Mental asylums are what we know now as psychiatric hospitals. It was known to be some type of refuge for the mentally unstable back in the more so religious institutes. The year, 1247, was where an institution called Bethlem was first made in the city of London as a contribution to the Priory of the New Order of our Lady of Bethlehem. As we go forward to the early 1700s, more and more private institutions are established due to wealthy families that were finally able to afford sending their relatives there. They no longer wanted to be in the care of those individuals. The poor, however, needed assistance from parishes or they would end up in prisons or workhouses.
Physical Restraints
The most common action to take place in earlier asylums was using physical restraints on their patients. They believed it was the best way to keep all the inmates in the institution. It became necessary for their mental healthcare to use in order for the patient's healing to be "successful". Since most individuals who were put into these mental facilities possessed abnormalities within them, physical restraints were the best way to control patients from tearing their clothes or even attempting sexual-type behaviors. A great purpose for this was to get patients to stop harming themselves and/or commit suicide. As time goes on, patients start to fear even themselves and wish to be restrained so they wouldn't be tempted to do anything. However, they were a con, for some patients created more violence.
Illustration
A scene from Hogarth's series 'The Rake's Progress' shows the Rake being shackled ina chaotic ward at Bethlem Hospital by two attendants, etching by William Hogarth, 1735.
Picture
Strait jacket or strait waistcoat, 1700s.
Moving into the 1750s, where the first asylum (psychiatric hospital) was first established by the Quakers in Philadelphia. They were one of the first people to really get a good grasp on taking care of the mentally ill. However, mentally ill people were treated just as brutally as criminals. They were physically restrained, isolated and beaten. With this unfortunate circumstance, the Quakers wanted to change the overall idea of taking care of the mentally ill. "'To provide for the suitable accommodation of persons who are or may be deprived of the use of their reason, and the maintenance of an asylum for their reception, which is intended to furnish, besides requisite medical aid, such tender, sympathetic attention as may soothe their agitated minds, and under the Divine Blessing, facilitate their recovery,'" (Mondics). This was a part of the Quaker's philosophy within the goal of the hospital.
1750s and its significance
Picture #1
Philadelphia Hospital for the Insane, Philadelphia, PA c. 1900, opened February 11, 1753
Picture #2
Occupational Therapy Group, Philadelphia Hospital for Mental Diseases, Thirty-fourth and Pine Streets
How It Started
Continuing from Philadelphia's great success in establishing one of the first asylums here in America, we can see it expanding with the help of the Virginia legislature. They provided them funds for another small hospital in a different area called Williamsburg. Within the late 1700s, New York had an established their hospital for "cured" insane patients. Around the early 1800s, The Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of their Reason was established in Philadelphia and still runs till this day but is now known as the friends Hospital, because it was established by the Quakers. However, there were still some loopholes considering there were still very violent actions being placed upon patients since they were imprisoned for some tme before truly having separate confinement.
Behind Closed Doors: A Look Inside Insane Asylums of the 19th Century
BBC Mental A History of the Madhouse FULL DOCUMENTARY
Reforming
The early to mid-nineteenth century has really showcased a drastic reformation regarding mental facilities and institutions not only in America but also across the world due to the asylum reformers making a huge appearance. As American had continued to prosper prior and after the westward expansion, creating mental hospitals not only helped their economy but they gained the interest of social working and good quality healthcare. Refinement made way for more opportunities for America because of how much improvement they were determined to accomplish. The County Asylums Act of 1808 gave the ability for nations to hold more patients and were funded. Asylum reform zoomed through the air with this Act. With the funding they were receiving, they were able to fully move mentally ill patients out of prisons and into more accustomed environment.
Despite the removal of ill patients from prisons, some asylums around the world still were equipped with restraints for their patients. However, much of the restraints were blankets, so they were temporary and less harmless. As the Moral Treatment made way because of asylum reformers (which will be in the last section), bird cages were added to keep the liveliness of the asylum for its patients. Punishments became less brutal for mentally ill people than criminals Both asylums and prisons tried to conform to separate confinement to reduce potential violence. Mental facilities became much more efficient which lead to "cured" patients which were then moved to hospitals in New York.
Safer Alternatives
Picture #1
A bird cage was used in the Lunatic Asylum in Sussex around the start of the mid-1800s. The birds, specifically parrots, were added to liven up the asylums.
Picture #2
Moving a little forward to the late 1800s to the early 1900s they used restraint blankets which were temporarily efficient but less harmful than iron chains. Used in Brighton Mental Hospital which many of the British were inspired by Philadelphia's systems.
The Moral Treatment that was created around late 1700s Europe and Benjamin Rush who was from the U.S., developed this ideology that has been built off of science and reasoning. This ideology was a way to prove that mental illness can be developed within the dark parts of the mind and how your environment can greatly affect your character. Taking the data of ill patients' behaviors, gave a solution of a mental disorder. Brain damage was the reason why it was so easy to differentiate a person who had mental disabilities and one who didn't. The County Asylums Act helped created more and more facilities for the ill to taken care of. Here are some examples.
New Hospitals In America
Illustration
The Indianapolis Hospital for the Insane, ca. 1854
Picture
As we see the growth of mental asylums in America, which are known today as psychiatric hospitals, we not only see the growth of other mental facilities in other parts of the world, but also those places getting inspiration from Philadelphia's hospital. The British Isles were very inspired by Philadelphia's prisons and systems of discipline. The separation between the mentally ill and criminals became much more prominent due to the ideology of caring for the ill rather than punishing them. Reverend William Whitworth Russell felt strongly about separate confinement as well. Paying occasional visits to the prisoners and improving their moral and religious beliefs was greatly beneficial because of the different way to accommodate to not only prisoners but also to the mentally ill. With this, they were able to establish separate confinement around 1835. We can also see in different areas well-known asylum reformers coming into the picture as well.
Facilities & Institutes In America and other Countries
Asylum Reformers #1
The moral treatment system gave way to a new pathway to achieve good mental health treatment. Reformers like Harriet Martineau, Philippe Pinel, Samuel Tuke, William Ellis, and John Conolly were just one of the few reformers who introduced better and more humane methods to accommodate to the mentally ill. As we can see in London where Hanwell Asylum was first established in the 1800s, it is now known as the St. Bernard Hospital today.
Harriet Martineau
Harriet Martineau (1802-1876). A writer and social campaigner. Very well-known for being one of the first female social scientists.
Philippe Pinel
Philippe Pinel (1745-1826). French psychiatrist who pioneered a more humane approach to the custody and care of mentally ill people.
Asylum Reformers #2
Samuel Tuke (1784-1857). Director of The Retreat following his father and grandfather. He popularized the Moral Treatment which influenced asylum reform in the U.K.
William Ellis
William Ellis (1780-1839). First Superintendent at Hanwell Asylum. He was influenced by the Moral Treatment system. He introduced the idea of meaningful work as form of therapy to Hanwell.
John Conolly
John Conolly (1794-1866). Third Superintendent at Hanwell Asylum. He introduced the principle of non-restraint to Hanwell, which led to non-restraint becoming an accepted practice throughout England.
Bibliography
Sources
“A Victorian Mental Asylum.” Science Museum, www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/medicine/victorian-mental-asylum.
Cox, Catherine. “'We Are Recreating Bedlam': A History of Mental Illness and Prison Systems in England and Ireland.” Mental Health in Prisons: Critical Perspectives on Treatment and Confinement [Internet]., U.S. National Library of Medicine, 20 Nov. 2018, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK539382/.
“Diseases of the Mind: Highlights of American Psychiatry through 1900 - Early Psychiatric Hospitals and Asylums.” U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, 18 Jan. 2017, www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/diseases/early.html.
Floyd, Barbara. “From Quackery to Bacteriology.” The University of Toledo, www.utoledo.edu/library/canaday/exhibits/quackery/quack5.html.
Bib. Con't.
“History of Psychiatric Hospitals.” • Nursing, History, and Health Care • Penn Nursing, www.nursing.upenn.edu/nhhc/nurses-institutions-caring/history-of-psychiatric-hospitals/.
Lasley, Cece. “County Asylums Act.” Bringing the Past to Virtual Life, 29 Jan. 2018, blogs.carleton.edu/hist235/2018/01/21/county-asylums-act/.
Martinez, Lesley, et al. “Antebellum Era: Prison and Asylum Reform.” StMU History Media, 14 Oct. 2016, stmuhistorymedia.org/antebellum-era-prison-and-asylum-reform/#:~:text=There%20was%20no%20distinction%20between,something%20needed%20to%20be%20done.&text=The%20creation%20of%20asylums%20was,were%20placed%20in%20these%20asylums.
Bib. Con't.
Mondics, Jamie. “The Day the First Private Mental Health Hospital Opened Its Doors.” Treatment Advocacy Center, www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/fixing-the-system/features-and-news/2553-the-day-the-first-private-mental-health-hospital-opened-its-doors.
Mooney, Graham, and Jonathan Reinarz. Permeable Walls: Historical Perspectives on Hospital and Asylum Visiting. Rodopi, 2009.
“Punishments, 1780-1925.” Punishments, 1780-1925 The Digital Panopticon, www.digitalpanopticon.org/Punishments,_1780-1925.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtgzpAbxcRI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oswUssXzFlY&t=6s