 |
| Title |
|
| Title |
|
 |
We hear horror stories of what went
on in psychiatric hospitals and we shudder. But, before there were
asylums, those with mental illness were often treated just as badly,
if not worse.
Found chained in barns out houses, without clothing, covered in
their own feces, these pourest of souls spent their tragic days
on earth.
Patients were placed in "camisoles," (better known as
straightjackets) if they were found to be erascible by staff members.
Injuries and deaths occured from misuse of these restraint devices. |
Some patients were dunked in cold water, or soaked in baths
for hours or days, unable even to exit the tub to use the restroom.
This was a treatment known as hydrotherapy. it was widely used,
and believed to soothe and calm patients. Most patients screamed
and cried when they were told they were scheduled for "hydro,"so
it is easy to conclude that they did not, in fact, find this form
of therapy soothing.
|
 |
|
And there was a time when mad doctors gave thousands of patients
lobotomies with crude ice picks, straight through the eye socket.
And let's not forget the treatments made famous by the movie "One
Flew Over A Cuckoos Nest." To many people's shock and dismay,
ECT, otherwis known as electroshock or electronconvulsive threapy,
still happens today.
|
As the author of
the book
A History of Psychiatry: From the Era of the Asylum to the Age
of Prozac stated, "the subject of community psychiatry
in the United States was, and remains, a kind of grotesque joke."
|
|
|
| Title |
|
