Tents Used for Insane Patients, courtesy National Institutes of Health

In January, 1931, the Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association appropriated $20,000 for the study of all institutions “caring for either the mentally ill or the mentally deficient of the United States.”

Dr. John Maurice Grimes headed that study and spent two years visiting hospitals with the assistance of a tiny staff.

Insane Patients at Byberry Farm in Philadelphia Cared for Chicken Yard

Grimes’ report was so unpopular that its 121 pages were stripped down to 10, and only 300 copies were disseminated. Grimes protested that there were over 600 superintendents at the mental institutions who needed a copy, plus 2,000 physicians on their medical staffs who might like to see it.

Furious, Grimes printed his full report in 1934 (Institutional Care of Mental Patients in the United States) at his own expense, making sure to write a preface that told the whole story. Whether it actually shamed the AMA is not known.

Patients Making Rugs, Hammocks, etc. at Hudson River State Hospital, 1909