Dr. William Whittington Herbert Force Feeding a Patient, 1894, courtesy Wellcome Images

Force was used far too often in U.S. insane asylums (see last post), but one of the worst acts of coercion had to be forced alimentation, or force-feeding. Some patients simply would not eat, either because they feared being poisoned, were too sick or stressed to have an appetite, or simply didn’t want to cooperate with attendants. Many superintendents did allow a certain amount of patient freedom in this area, but when they feared patients were going to actually hurt themselves by refusing to eat, they acted. Doctors had several ways to force food upon their patients.

— In cases of “great physical weakness,” they injected “nutritive substances” into the rectum

— One recommended practice was to force open the mouth, close the nostrils, and pour liquid food down the throat.

Tools That Could Be Used for Force Feeding

This practice was dangerous and resulted in more than one death by strangulation/drowning, and was terrifying for patients

— Another procedure involved securing the patient “so that resistance is impossible” and forcing his mouth open with screw wedge. The patient’s head would be thrown back and kept fixed in order to “introduce the gag, made of smooth wood”, which had a hole in the center. The doctor inserted a stomach-tube, and then liquid or semi-liquid food would be poured into the funnel shaped entrance of the tube to let it “readily pass into the stomach.”

— Finally, doctors could insert a tube through the nostril and down the throat into the stomach. In these cases, they could give the patient only very thin liquids.

Force Feeding a Suffragette in Prison, 1912

Doctors often did try to simply persuade patients to eat, allow a patient to have a favorite attendant assist at meals, or just give in to little quirks patients insisted upon before they would eat. However, when they made the decision to force-feed, it was traumatic for patients. Even worse, some attendants force-fed patients as a punishment, or threatened them with it to make them behave.