American Mental Health Care in the early 20th century
Asylums
For more information and more photographs, refer to the article "Strangers to Reason" and the original LIFE article it references:
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Insane asylums were pervasive in America until the mid 20th century, when more humane forms of mental healthcare became popularized. Asylums housed hundreds of patients, and were typically very overcrowded, as most patients were institutionalized for life, in fact, by 1930 only 14% of patients would every be released due to recovery or improvement. By 1890, every state in America had an "insane asylum." Asylums were not exclusive to voluntary admittance, in fact most people in asylums were sent there against their will. Courts could mandate stays in asylums, and until the late 1800s, husbands could send their wives to asylums without further testing.
Conditions in asylums were decidedly inhumane. Conversation and noise were discouraged, so most patients were forced to sit in silence. The asylums were also very overcrowded, and rarely had enough beds for the patients. Any patients who would act up were also often put in straight jackets so they "could not harm" anyone. |
Lobotomy
Lobotomy refers to a medical procedure wherein nerves in the frontal lobe are severed, usually by going through the eye socket with surgical tools. It was pioneered by a doctor from Portugal named Egas Monitz in the 1930s. The procedure began to fade out of practice in the 1950s. Before the negatives of this procedure were fully understood, Moniz won the 1949 Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine.
Lobotomy was a devastating reality for many folks with mental illnesses in the 20th century. It was not phased out because people realized the negative effects it had, but instead because antidepressants and anti psychotics became widespread enough that it was no longer considered necessary. Lobotomies only seem to have helped a fraction of people, but more often they just made institutionalized people easier to control by taking away their capability to care for themselves, and most of their personality. |
Fair warning: This video is quite depressing, and takes place in Bojack Horseman, but it is a relatively accurate satirical representations of lobotomies in the 20th century
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