Separate institutions for the mentally ill were developed in the late colonial or early national period throughout the United States and treated their patients (often called inmates) with a combination of primitive medical care (such as purging or bleeding), forced work to give the mind discipline, and moral care based on the treatment plans developed by the French physician Philippe Pinel (1745–1826).
What was the practice of medicine like in colonial America?
Throughout this long era of intellectual change, the practice of medicine in colonial America was far from standardized or undisputed. Physicians sought to define themselves as a cohesive professional class in the mid-1700s.
How was insanity treated in colonial America?
Insanity in colonial America was not pretty: emotional torment, social isolation, physical pain—and these were just the treatments! In the late 1700s facilities and treatments were often crude and barbaric; however, this doesn’t mean that those who applied them were fueled by cruelty.
What is the history of mental health treatment?
Eventually, thought changed. In 1790s post-revolution France, the beginnings of the “moral management” movement took place. This was based on the idea that mental illness was rooted in emotions and that harsh treatment simply confirmed the patients’ fears, thus being ineffective and detrimental.
How did the colonists deal with health problems?
Most lived far from physicians and relied on home remedies for both acute and mundanemedical problems. [i]In February 1652, Daniell Clarke of Windsor, Connecticut wrote to John Winthrop, the colony’s governor as well as a physician, about his child’s rotting teeth.
How was mental health treated in the 1700s?
In the 18th century, some believed that mental illness was a moral issue that could be treated through humane care and instilling moral discipline. Strategies included hospitalization, isolation, and discussion about an individual's wrong beliefs.
What were treatments for mental illness in the 1800s?
In early 19th century America, care for the mentally ill was almost non-existent: the afflicted were usually relegated to prisons, almshouses, or inadequate supervision by families. Treatment, if provided, paralleled other medical treatments of the time, including bloodletting and purgatives.
How were mental health patients treated in the past?
Isolation and Asylums Overcrowding and poor sanitation were serious issues in asylums, which led to movements to improve care quality and awareness. At the time, medical practitioners often treated mental illness with physical methods. This approach led to the use of brutal tactics like ice water baths and restraint.
How did they treat mental illness in the 1600s?
Using religious, psychological, astrological and traditional healing remedies, Napier treated them all using a wide range of treatments.. Responses to mental illness at this time included everything from listening and humane intervention to incarceration in a building or ill treatment.
How were mentally ill treated in the 19th century?
The origins of the asylum Before asylums, people with mental illness or learning disabilities were cared for almost entirely by their families. Those who could not be kept at home often ended up destitute, begging for food and shelter.
What were mental asylums like in the 1800s?
In the 1800s, asylums were an institution where the mentally ill were held. These facilities witnessed much ineffective and cruel treatment of those who were hospitalized within them. In both Europe and America, these facilities were in need of reform.
Was there therapy in the 1800s?
Drugs had been used in treating the mentally ill as far back as the mid-1800s. Their purpose then was to sedate patients to keep overcrowded asylums more manageable, a kind of chemical restraint to replace the physical restraints of earlier years.
How did they treat depression in the past?
Exorcisms, drowning, and burning were popular treatments of the time. Many people were locked up in so-called "lunatic asylums." While some doctors continued to seek physical causes for depression and other mental illnesses, they were in the minority.
How was mental illness treated in the 1970s?
In the treatment of mental disorders, the 1970s was a decade of increasing refinement and specificity of existing treatments. There was increasing focus on the negative effects of various treatments, such as deinstitutionalization, and a stronger scientific basis for some treatments emerged.
How were people with mental physical disabilities treated in America in the 1930's?
3/4: Mental Disabilities in 1930s America (Context) The mentally disabled were usually placed by, or removed from, their families (usually in infancy) and housed in large professional institutions. However, many of these facilities were 'self-sufficient' through the labour of the residents themselves.
How was mental illness treated in Shakespeare's time?
Some of his patients suffer from a kind of mental illness which he calls “hypochondriac melancholy”, combined with physical symptoms such as fever. According to his Casebook, patients were offered his usual combinations of bloodletting and purgatives, as if curing the physical symptoms would also cure the mental ones.
What is mental illness?
Mental illness is a series of disorders and diseases that affect the intellectual, emotional, and psychological makeup of individuals. Causation is wide ranging (from organic and genetic maladies to environmental triggers; from poor nutrition and poverty to psychological trauma) but many times unknown. Because of the myriad of disorders under the label of mental illness, a generalized "cure" has not been developed. Measures to ameliorate the effects of the spectrum of disorders include therapy of various forms, counseling, and pharmacological interventions.
What were the effects of witchcraft in the 18th century?
Incidences of childhood mental disorders were not as visible, or seemingly as prevalent, during this period. Childhood was viewed as a time of unrequited joy, when children did not face the problems and toil of adult life. Adults exhibiting overt signs of mental disorder were treated in differing ways depending on their class and status in society. Upper-class individuals who showed signs of mental problems were usually cared for within the family and labeled as strange or eccentric. Members of the lower class who gave signs of mental disorder often were not able to take care of themselves or their families and were "warned out" of communities or placed in poorhouses, with other undifferentiated categories of dependent individuals. Separate institutions for the mentally ill were developed in the late colonial or early national period throughout the United States and treated their patients (often called inmates) with a combination of primitive medical care (such as purging or bleeding), forced work to give the mind discipline, and moral care based on the treatment plans developed by the French physician Philippe Pinel (1745–1826). Few children, however, were admitted to these new institutions (often called asylums, as their founders saw them as refuges from the problems of an increasingly complex society). Children appeared more often as the victims of familial mental disorder, as wards forced to depend on private and religious philanthropies or the state to raise them.
What is the history of mental illness?
Early History of Mental Illness (1) Many cultures have viewed mental illness as a form of religious punishment or demonic possession. In ancient Egyptian, Indian, Greek, and Roman writings, mental illness was categorized as a religious or personal problem. In the 5th century B.C., Hippocrates was a pioneer in treating mentally ill people ...
Who was the first person to treat the mentally ill?
In the 5th century B.C., Hippocrates was a pioneer in treating mentally ill people with techniques not rooted in religion or superstition; instead, he focused on changing a mentally ill patient’s environment or occupation, or administering certain substances as medications.
What is the MHA?
Mental Health America (MHA), originally founded by Clifford Beers in 1909 as the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, works to improve the lives of the mentally ill in the United States through research and lobbying efforts. A number of governmental initiatives have also helped improve the U.S. mental healthcare system .
What was the mental illness in the Middle Ages?
During the Middle Ages, the mentally ill were believed to be possessed or in need of religion. Negative attitudes towards mental illness persisted into the 18th century in the United States, leading to stigmatization of mental illness, and unhygienic (and often degrading) confinement of mentally ill individuals.
When was the Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Health Centers Construction Act passed?
In 1963, Congress passed the Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Health Centers Construction Act, which provided federal funding for the development of community-based mental health services.
When did the National Institute of Mental Health start?
In 1946 , Harry Truman passed the National Mental Health Act, which created the National Institute of Mental Health and allocated government funds towards research into the causes of and treatments for mental illness.
Who was the activist who lobbied for better living conditions for the mentally ill?
Mental Health Hospitals and Deinstitutionalization. In the 1840s, activist Dorothea Dix lobbied for better living conditions for the mentally ill after witnessing the dangerous and unhealthy conditions in which many patients lived . Over a 40-year period, Dix successfully persuaded the U.S. government to fund the building ...
What did colonial physicians do?
Colonial physicians served as important medical and intellectual authorities in frontier communities. Yet they were businessmen, too. In their correspondence and financial account books, physicians recorded the identities and complaints of their patients, the fees they charged for care, and the payments they made for medical and pharmaceutical supplies. These sources can teach the scholar about the nature of daily life in rural and urbanizing New England, the monetary value accorded to medical services, and the prevalence (or irrelevance) of currency.
Who was the colonial physician who attended the medical needs of John Hancock?
[ix] In the 1780s, physician David Townsend attended to the medical needs of Massachusetts governor John Hancock, his family, and his “servant,” Eunice.
What are the archival collections of Harvard?
Harvard’s libraries hold at least two other subsets of archival collections of great value to researchers: manuscripts that link the histories of medicine and women and medicine and war.
When did the medical profession start?
In 17th- and 18th-century North America, the medical profession developed in tandem with the founding of the American Republic. Through Harvard Library’s vast manuscript and archival collections that document histories of illness, health, and methods of healing, scholars can trace events no less consequential than the expansion ...
Who wrote the American herbal medicine?
In 1801 American-born physician Samuel Stearns published The American Herbal or Materia Medica, in which he expounded on the medical uses of indigenous American flora for readers on both sides of the Atlantic. [xx] But before this point, European medical thought dominated American medical practice.
Who accepted salt pork, rye, and labor in exchange for medical care?
Ebenezer Roby, a physician who worked west of Boston in the mid-1700s, accepted salt pork, rye, and labor in exchange for medical care. [vi] Similarly, a physician in Kittery, Maine, in the late 1700s logged payments of “a linnen handkerchief,” brown sugar, butter, and a bushel of “Ingeon meal,” as well as currency.
Did doctors accept in-kind payments from patients who trafficked in food and agricultural staples?
In contrast, other physicians, especially those who practiced in more rural areas of colonial New England, accepted in-kind payments from patients who trafficked in food and agricultural staples rather than currency.
Trephination
Trephination dates back to the earliest days in the history of mental illness treatments. It is the process of removing a small part of the skull using an auger, bore, or saw. This practice began around 7,000 years ago, likely to relieve headaches, mental illness, and even the belief of demonic possession.
Bloodletting and Purging
Though this treatment gained prominence in the Western world beginning in the 1600s, it has roots in ancient Greek medicine. Claudius Galen believed that disease and illness stemmed from imbalanced humors in the body. English physician Thomas Willis used Galen’s writings as a basis for this approach to treating mentally ill patients.
Isolation and Asylums
Isolation was the preferred treatment for mental illness beginning in medieval times, which may explain why mental asylums became widespread by the 17th century.
Insulin Coma Therapy
This treatment was introduced in 1927 and continued until the 1960s. In insulin coma therapy, physicians deliberately put the patient into a low blood sugar coma because they believed large fluctuations in insulin levels could alter how the brain functioned. Insulin comas could last one to four hours.
Metrazol Therapy
In metrazol therapy, physicians introduced seizures using a stimulant medication. Seizures began roughly a minute after the patient received the injection and could result in fractured bones, torn muscles, and other adverse effects. The therapy was usually administered several times a week. Metrazol was withdrawn from use by the FDA in 1982.
Lobotomy
This now-obsolete treatment won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1949. It was designed to disrupt the circuits of the brain but came with serious risks. Popular during the 1940s and 1950s, lobotomies were always controversial and prescribed in psychiatric cases deemed severe.
Where did the first mental health reform take place?
But it was in Paris, in 1792, where one of the most important reforms in the treatment of mental health took place. Science Museum calls Pinel “the founder of moral treatment,” which it describes as “the cornerstone of mental health care in the 1800s.” 9,10 Pinel developed a hypothesis that mentally unhealthy patients needed care and kindness in order for their conditions to improve; to that effect, he took ownership of the famous Hospice de Bicêtre, located in the southern suburbs of Paris. He ordered that the facility be cleaned, patients be unchained and put in rooms with sunlight, allowed to exercise freely within hospital grounds, and that their quality of care be improved.
Who had the most progressive ideas in how they treated the people among them who had mental health concerns?
Two papyri, dated as far back as the 6th century BCE, have been called “the oldest medical books in the world.”. It was the ancient Egyptians who had the most progressive ideas (of the time) in how they treated the people among them who had mental health concerns.
What did Freud do to help people with mental health problems?
Mainstream psychology may not have thought much of psychoanalysis, but the attention Freud’s work received opened other doors of mental health treatment, such as psychosurgery, electroconvulsive therapy, and psychopharmacology. These treatments originated from the biological model of mental illness, which put forward that mental health problems were caused by biochemical imbalances in the body (an evolution of the “four humors” theory) and needed to be treated like physical diseases; hence, for example, psychosurgery (surgery on the brain) to treat the symptoms of a mental health imbalance.
Why is having a mentally ill person in the family bad?
Having a mentally ill person in the family suggests an inherited, disqualifying defect in the bloodline and casts doubt on the social standing and viability of the entire family. For that reason, mentally unhealthy family members were (and still are) brutally and mercilessly ostracized.
How did Freud use dream analysis?
Part of Freud’s approach involved dream analysis, which encouraged patients to keep a journal of what their unconscious mind was trying to tell them through their dreams. The psychiatrist would study the contents of the journal, discerning messages and patterns that would unlock the mental illness. Remnants of his methodology are found in how the cognitive behavioral therapists of today engage in “talk therapy” with their clients, encouraging them to keep journals of their thoughts and feelings, and then devising a treatment plan based on the subtext of what is written.
What is the most common medication for depression?
As lithium became the standard for mental health treatment, other drugs like chlorpromazine (better known as Thorazine), Valium and Prozac became household names during the middle and latter decades of the 20th century, becoming some of the most prescribed drugs for depression across the world.
What is the oldest medical book?
Two papyri, dated as far back as the 6th century BCE, have been called “the oldest medical books in the world,” for being among the first such documents to have identified the brain as the source of mental functioning (as well as covering other topics like how to treat wounds and perform basic surgery). 4.
Who tried to convince people that witches were actually women with mental illnesses?
Johann Weyer and Reginald Scot tried to convince people in the mid- to late-16th century that accused witches were actually women with mental illnesses and that mental illness was not due to demonic possession but to faulty metabolism and disease, but the Church’s Inquisition banned both of their writings.
What are the three theories of mental illness?
Throughout history there have been three general theories of the etiology of mental illness: supernatural, somatogenic, and psychogenic. Supernatural theories attribute mental illness to possession by evil or demonic spirits, displeasure of gods, eclipses, planetary gravitation, curses, and sin.
What is the etiological theory of mental illness?
Etiological theories of mental illness determine the care and treatment mentally ill individuals receive. As we will see below, an individual believed to be possessed by the devil will be viewed and treated differently from an individual believed to be suffering from an excess of yellow bile.
Why was instilling fear important?
As such, instilling fear was believed to be the best way to restore a disordered mind to reason. By the 18th century, protests rose over the conditions under which the mentally ill lived, and the 18th and 19th centuries saw the growth of a more humanitarian view of mental illness.
Who was the scientist who discovered the hysterical symptoms of a wandering uterus?
Franz Anton Mesmer (1734–1815), influenced by contemporary discoveries in electricity, attributed hysterical symptoms to imbalances in a universal magnetic fluid found in individuals, rather than to a wandering uterus (Forrest, 1999).
Who was the first person to use hypnosis to explain mental illness?
Josef Breuer (1842–1925) and Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) would resolve this dispute in favor of a psychogenic explanation for mental illness by treating hysteria through hypnosis, which eventually led to the cathartic method that became the precursor for psychoanalysis during the first half of the 20th century.
Who advocated for the establishment of state hospitals?
When retired school teacher Dorothea Dix discovered the negligence that resulted from such conditions, she advocated for the establishment of state hospitals. Between 1840 and1880, she helped establish over 30 mental institutions in the United States and Canada (Viney & Zorich, 1982).
When did moral treatment begin?
Beginning in the late 1700s , European hospitals introduced what they called "moral treatment.". Doctors, particularly in France and England, discouraged physical restraints, such as shackles or straitjackets. They focused instead on emotional well-being, believing this approach would cure patients more effectively.
What were the influences of doctors in the late 1800s?
Doctors were also influenced by popular ideas of eugenics in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Eugenics is the misguided belief that controlling genetics could improve the human race. Some doctors practiced forced sterilization on persons they deemed unfit, removing their ability to have children.
What did the poor farms and almshouses do?
Towns provided poor farms and almshouses as places to house and support those in need. Individuals with disabilities, criminals, and paupers were often lumped under one roof. The superintendents of the Johnson County Poor Farm and Asylum, which opened in 1855, argued that it offered good living and work conditions.
What religious organizations supported moral treatment?
Religious organizations also supported the concept of moral treatment. The Friends Asylum for the Insane in Philadelphia, founded in 1813, is one such example. Doctors there used a combination of Quaker views and medical science of the era. This was the first private, nonprofit exclusively mental hospital in the US.
What hospitals were established in 1890?
Some of these include Weston Hospital of West Virginia, opened in 1864, and Fergus Falls Hospital of Minnesota, established in 1890. The Bethphage Mission, Nebraska. Photo by Grant Landreth, from the National Register of Historic Places nomination. Religious organizations also supported the concept of moral treatment.
What asylums did people with disabilities go to?
However, individuals with disabilities-- whether physical or cognitive-- were commonly sent to "lunatic" and "insane" asylums. [2] Third Minnesota State Hospital for the Insane. Beginning in the late 1700s, European hospitals introduced what they called "moral treatment.".
Why did inmates swell in the 1800s?
By the 1800s, inmate numbers swelled. Doctors blamed overcrowding on the rapid development of cities, machinery, and industry. Many physicians of that time believed that industrialization created pressure and stress on individuals.
Religious Causes in Colonial America
- Traditionally, emotional and psychological problems in children were viewed through the prism of religion. Children experiencing visions, hearing voices, or enduring seizures were seen as individuals touched by either God or Satan. Etiology was considered as otherworldly; therefore, alleviation of the disorder would come through supplication to the...
Shift to Social Causes in The Eighteenth Century
- By the eighteenth century, the hysterical outbursts associated with witchcraft and Satanic possession subsided, lending credence to the belief that social, rather than religious, causes led to the maladies. Incidences of childhood mental disorders were not as visible, or seemingly as prevalent, during this period. Childhood was viewed as a time of unrequited joy, when children di…
Gendered Differentiation in The Nineteenth Century
- The nineteenth century saw an increasingly gendered differentiation in the maladies that comprised the spectrum of mental disorder. The Industrial Revolution that swept over western Europe and the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century was both a cause and consequence of the emerging separation of the sexes by occupation and position. Dubbed the n…
Early History of Mental Illness
- Many cultures have viewed mental illness as a form of religious punishment or demonic possession. In ancient Egyptian, Indian, Greek, and Roman writings, mental illness was categorized as a religious or personal problem. In the 5th century B.C., Hippocrates was a pioneer in treating mentally ill people with techniques not rooted in religion or superstition; instead, he fo…
Mental Health Hospitals and Deinstitutionalization
- In the 1840s, activist Dorothea Dix lobbied for better living conditions for the mentally ill after witnessing the dangerous and unhealthy conditions in which many patients lived . Over a 40-year period, Dix successfully persuaded the U.S. government to fund the building of 32 state psychiatric hospitals.(2) This institutional inpatient care model,...
U.S. Mental Health Policy
- Mental Health America (MHA), originally founded by Clifford Beers in 1909 as the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, works to improve the lives of the mentally ill in the United States through research and lobbying efforts. A number of governmental initiatives have also helped improve the U.S. mental healthcare system . In 1946, Harry Truman passed the National Mental …