Insane Asylum at Raleigh, North Carolina

The more settled eastern states generated most of the research and theory concerning insanity in the 1800s. Most asylum superintendents were both born and educated in the east, and the region produced and trained most asylum superintendents for many years. North Carolina, for example, did not even see a published paper on the topic of insanity from its state medical society until 1871. That paper, “Report of a Case of Violent Cerebral Excitement Relieved by Bromide of Potassium” involved a five-year-old boy. Only the standards of the time could have considered the child insane.

Death by Childbirth Insanity

The next paper was entitled, “Mania Transitoria” and described momentary insanity that befell people who were otherwise aware of their surroundings and actions. The doctor believed that this transitory state of insanity was related to heredity and certain physical diseases. That theory makes the condition sound like epilepsy, but the author seemed to think that it was something else.

Hysterical Epilepsy, circa 1876

Dr. Grissom attributed the condition to masturbation and petit mal epilepsy as well as the former factors, so it is difficult to know what he is describing. Since many people suffering epilepsy were considered insane during this era, it is quite possible that these episodes of transitory mania sent many otherwise capable men and women to an insane asylum.