Tag Archives: chronic insanity

Intervention in Insanity

Eliza Josolyne, Insanity Caused by Overwork, courtesy Bethlem Royal Hospital Archives

Eliza Josolyne, Insanity Caused by Overwork

Alienists (early psychiatrists) believed in actively treating insanity. Most believed that it was beneficial to a patient to completely remove him or her from familiar surroundings; the change would allow new thought patterns and behaviors to form more easily.

Many times, asylums were the change in environment alienists selected, but some recommended travel as a way to change a patient’s surroundings and get his mind focused on new things. Of course, early intervention was paramount, since all alienists believed “acute” insanity (active, new cases) were easier to cure than chronic ones of long duration.

 

Children's Dayroom at Byberry (Philadelphia State Hospital), circa 1938, courtesy Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Children’s Dayroom at Byberry (Philadelphia State Hospital), circa 1938

 

Dr. J. Parigot believed in the value of intervention to the extreme. Writing in 1864, he made the case that marriage should be avoided when undesirable traits were found in potential parents. This belief wasn’t strictly because he felt the traits would be inherited; it was additionally founded on a belief that parents with those traits couldn’t properly raise a child. He gave an example of intemperate parents who would have to be particularly careful to educate and develop their children so that they wouldn’t degenerate into intemperance themselves. Likewise, he said, “nervous and fidgety persons are incompetent to the direction and control of petulant and sometimes mischievous children.”

Children's Ward, 1927, Byberry (Philadelphis State Hospital), courtesy Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Children’s Ward, 1927, Byberry (Philadelphis State Hospital), courtesy Historical Society of Pennsylvania

To counteract the influence of tainted parents in cases of insanity, Parigot stated that: “Children who have inherited germs of mental disease should be separated from their parents, and educated under the eye of the psychiatrist. Sometimes their locality should be changed at the time of their birth. . . .”

Fortunately, such thinking was not generally accommodated by the public.

A Delicate Balance

Southwestern Lunatic Asylum, Marion, Virginia

Southwestern Lunatic Asylum, Marion, Virginia

Superintendents at insane asylums had every incentive to cure patients, since high cure rates brought both prestige and validation to their institutions. This is one reason that they urged families to get their loved ones into an asylum quickly, before the mental illness became established and more difficult to alleviate or cure. Continue reading

The Chronic Insane

Outagamie County Asylum for the Chronic Insane, Wisconsin, circa 1889

Outagamie County Asylum for the Chronic Insane, Wisconsin, circa 1889

Alienists stressed that the prompt treatment of insanity was imperative to a cure. They cautioned the public that it was far wiser to bring an afflicted person to an asylum for a cure as soon as possible, rather than let the patient languish at home for years until an asylum became a last resort. By that point, the disease might have too strong a hold and never be shaken. Continue reading

Recent Insanity

Patent Medicine Like Nervuna Cured Nervous Weakness and Physical Exhaustion

Alienists made a distinction between chronic insanity, which was difficult to cure, and insanity which had only recently manifested and might be cured through quick intervention. An article written in 1900 by Dr. C. B. Burr, medical director of the Oak Grove Hospital for Nervous and Mental Disorders, explained the steps alienists ought to generally take when confronted by a potentially curable case of insanity. The first step was to reduce excitement. That meant that patients should lie in bed in a quiet room, under the observation of a day nurse and night nurse. Family members should be excluded from the sickroom.

Burr then discussed the chronic constipation found among Americans at that time, saying that neglect of the bowels led to a large percentage of nervous diseases. The first order of the day, then, was to administer calomel (a toxic mercury compound) to purge the insane person’s body of impurities, and then to keep it purged with laxatives and/or enemas.

Cocaine Products Were Sold Over the Counter in the U.S.

“Tonics and remedies to promote tissue building are needed in all cases,” continued Burr. Among milder preparations like eggnog and milk punch, Burr also recommended “the bitter tonics and strychnine, capsicum, and nux vomica” (a strychnine preparation). Burr discussed depression separately, saying that general treatment remained the same as for other types of insanity, but “certain drugs like kola, coca, and caffein, are useful also in painful emotional states.”

Nurse at South Carolina State Hospital Nursing School

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