Tag Archives: excitement as a cause of insanity

Evolution of Treatment for the Insane

Dr. Benjamin Rush's Tranquilizing Chair, courtesy National Library of Medicine

Dr. Benjamin Rush’s Tranquilizing Chair, courtesy National Library of Medicine

Most modern readers would consider the mid-1800s a fairly rough and rugged period, inhabited by correspondingly rough and rugged individuals. However, changes in the treatment of insanity during this period point to the idea that people in the middle 1800s believed they had declined from the vigor of their ancestors. Continue reading