Tag Archives: American Medico-Psychological Association

Matters of Size

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Bryan Hall, a Patient at St. Elizabeths Admitted in 1874 and Spent at Least 47 Years There

Bryan Hall, a Patient at the Government Hospital for the Insane, Admitted in 1874 and Spent at Least 47 Years There

In 1903, the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians‘ first year of operation, the American Medico-Psychological Association (the main U.S. organization for psychologists) met in Washington, DC.

During opening remarks, visitors were reminded of the city’s many interesting sights and activities available to them, including a association-sponsored general smoker in the Willard Hotel (a smoker was an informal meeting or a recruiting meeting used by men’s organizations) and a luncheon at the Government Hospital for the Insane (later known as St. Elizabeths). Continue reading →

Dr. Hummer’s Credentials

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Dr. Harry Hummer

Dr. William A. White was an undisputed leader in the field of psychiatry (see last post). He was St. Elizabeths’ superintendent for over twenty years, and implemented many innovations. St. Elizabeths endured its own cycles of overcrowding, scandals, and investigations, but it was generally considered  one of the leading institutions of its kind. It attracted some of the country’s best psychiatrists and researchers, who wanted to be affiliated with the asylum and its good reputation. Continue reading →

Putting a Name on It

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The Hudson River State Hospital Was a Kirkbride Building

Interest in mental health and how to care for the mentally ill heightened as time went on and professionals became more immersed in studying the intricacies of the mind and human behavior. In the United States, by the turn of the twentieth century large asylums were still the tool of choice for helping the insane become well, or for dealing efficiently with the chronic insane. As mental health specialists made advances in treatment, they continued to look at ways to present themselves and their work to the public in a positive way.

In 1854, the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Asylums for the Insane (AMSAAI) debated on what terms they should use to even describe the buildings where their patients lived. Dr. Thomas Kirkbride, a pioneer in asylum architecture, presented a paper at the AMSAAI’s ninth meeting: “On the Importance of Precision and Accuracy in the Use of Terms for Insanity and Instructions for its Treatment.” In it, he objected to worlds like lunatic, asylum, retreat, keeper, and cell to describe anything within the walls of what were commonly known as insane asylums. In many people’s minds, the word “hospital” was only a place for paupers and outcasts, so it was not suitable, either. “Insanery” seemed suitable to one doctor discussing the paper, since it resembled the British word “infirmary.” This particular alienist (mental health specialist) did not especially object to the terms asylum or lunatic, since the former signified a sacred place or sanctuary, and the latter had been in common usage for a long period.

By 1920, at the seventy-sixth annual meeting of the American Medico-Psychological Association, which had incorporated the old AMSAAI, words like cell and keeper had indeed been discontinued because of their negative connotations. Now the concern at hand was whether or not to change the name of their organization and the way they referred to insanity. In the end, the organization was re-named the American Association of Psychiatrists, and the word psychiatry was substituted for the words “the treatment of insanity.”

Dr. Thomas Kirkbride and His Book on Building Asylums

Philadelphia Hospital for the Insane, circa 1900, courtesy University of Pennsylvania

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Useful Platform

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Missouri State Hospital Nurses, circa 1914, courtesy Missouri State Archives

Many superintendents took the opportunity to observe their patients and write about them, both to enhance their own reputations and to share information with colleagues. The American Journal of Insanity was the most important publication superintendents wrote for, since it had a wide readership among fellow alienists. The titles of their works show far-ranging subject matter:

“The Care of the Insane” by Charles Wagner, Superintendent of Binghamton State Hospital in New York.

“The History and the Use of the Term Dementia” by G. Alder Blumer, Medical Superintendent, Butler Hospital in Rhode Island.

“Night Nurses for the Insane” by C. R. Woodson, Medical Superintendent, Missouri State Hospital.

“The Favorable Modification of Undesirable Symptoms in the Incurable Insane” by A. B. Richardson, Superintendent, State Hospital, Columbus, Ohio.

In his quarter-century tenure as superintendent at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, Dr. Harry Hummer wrote one article about insanity: “Insanity Among the Indians.” He read this piece during the 1912 session of the American Medico-Psychological Association, and it was included in the four-volume work, The Institutional Care of the Insane in the U.S.A. and Canada, published in 1916.

Binghamton State Hospital

Butler Hospital for the Insane

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New Ideas About the Insane, 1903

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Dr. G. Alder Blumer, courtesy Stanford Medical History Center

The last post discussed the confidence which characterized the field of psychiatry in its early years, specifically 1903. During the American Medico-Psychological Association meeting for that year, members could congratulate each other on the 750 pages of journal material which had been submitted and printed in the American Journal of Insanity. Though some topics or hypotheses might seem off-target to modern readers, they represented an attempt to understand and help patients in asylums recover their reason and return to society.

On a darker, note, however, was the Association’s discussion of insanity in general. The group’s president, Dr. G. Alder Blumer, had addressed the problem of “curtailing the evil of insanity” in one of the sessions. Curtailing insanity did not lie in bettering the treatment of the insane, according to Blumer. That merely perpetuated the problem. Dr. A. B. Richardson followed up these sentiments with this: “The general result [of charity toward the insane] is that the survival of the unfit is extended . . . they are nursed, protected, and housed, brought to a procreative age, and then turned loose on the community.” These prominent psychiatrists feared that the population of the insane would swell, since “they show a greater tendency to rear a proportionally larger family than the normal classes.”

This meeting was held the same year that the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians began its first full year of operation.

Crowded New York Lunatic Asylum

Waupaca County Asylum for the Chronic Insane, circa 1902

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Interest in the Insane

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American Psychiatric Association Emblem

American Psychiatric Association Emblem

Insanity was not new to the 19th and 20th centuries, of course, but some of its management was. The insane had often been cared for by monks and nuns under the supervision of various religious orders. Eventually, medical men ran the facilities where the insane were housed, and were often called mad-doctors or lunatic-doctors. By the late 1800s, these physicians began to be known as alienists, which referenced the insane person’s loss of a sense of self.

In the U.S., thirteen superintendents and organizers of insane asylums banded together to form the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane in 1844. The name was changed in 1892 to the American Medico-Psychological Association, and embraced more members of the medical field. Finally, the name was changed for the last time in 1921 to the American Psychiatric Association. Its emblem has a picture of Dr. Benjamin Rush (often called “The Father of American Psychiatry”) on it. The thirteen stars represent the thirteen superintendents who founded the original organization.

Association of Medical Superintendents, courtesy National Library of Medicine

Association of Medical Superintendents, courtesy National Library of Medicine

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