Straitjacket

Most accounts of assaults within insane asylum walls concern assaults on patients. However, asylum duty held dangers for staff, as well. On October 15, 1878, The New York Times published a vivid account of an assault on an attendant. Only three months on the job, Richard T. Harrison was beaten so badly by a patient at Ward’s Island Insane Asylum that he died within six hours of the attack. Continue reading →