Asylums

Paper Summary:

The paper states that asylums came into existence in response to a growing social problem--what to do with people who were mentally ill. The paper recalls that they were not called mentally ill in those days but were referred to as victims of lunacy or madness. The paper states that the perception of madness as an illness came with the rise of psychiatry, and the development of psychiatry as a profession occurred concurrently with the development of asylums. The paper considers conditions that led to the building of asylums, how asylums were meant to function, and the shift of function that occurred late in the 19th century.

From the Paper:

"The Whitmore House, for instance, was owned and operated by Thomas Warburton who began at Whimore as an attendant. When the owner died, he married the owner's widow and thus acquired ownership. He habitually hired brutal, thuggish keepers and failed to supervise them. A pamphlet written by a former "whistle-blowing" employee in 1816, "A Statement of the Curelties, Abuses, and Frauds which are Practised in Mad-Houses" resulted in a hearing. The pamphlet reported Warbuton took in as many people as he could get whether he had beds enough or not. Two or three people were often in the same bed. Crowding was only the beginning. "Brutal forced feeding, using objects such as a long spouted 'tea-pot' and a large key to crank open the mouth, resulted in smashed front teeth or even suffocation if the spout was pushed in too far and food passed down the windpipe. Mrs. Hodges, the wife of the vestry clerk for St. Andrew Holborn, had died of incompetent forced feeding... Pauper patients were left naked on wet straw beds in unheated rooms; soiled straw, filthy and infested with vermin, was unchanged for days. The limbs of the frail were 'mortified' by cold and neglect; one woman's foot had to be half amputated. Almost everyone was chained to the bedstead at night" (Murphy, 2001, p. 31). Inspectors, when they went to see for themselves, repeatedly gagged from the stench."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Curran, J. (2006). Psychiatric wards as permeable institutions. Mental Health Practice, 10 (2), 29-30.
• Dowbiggin, I. (1997). The most solitary of afflictions: Madness and society in Britain, 1700-1900. Victorian Studies, 40 (2), 360-363.
• Haller, B. and Larsen, R. (2005). Persuading sanity: Magic lantern images and the nineteenth-century moral treatment in America. Journal of American Culture, 28 (3), 259-272.
• Hughes, W. (2002). "Cure, Comfort and Safe Custody:" Public lunatic asylums in early nineteenth-century England. Victorian Studies, 44 (2), 328-332.
• Kirkbride Buildings - History web site: http://www.kirkbridebuildings.com/about/history.html.

More papers on Asylums:

• Book Review # 140192 : " Asylums" - A Book Review"
• Research Paper # 52967 : "The Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002"
• Comparison Essay # 114687 : "The Relationship Between Asylum and Extradition"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: