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The History of Insane Assylums

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For many years the mentally ill community has been subjected to neglect, unjust treatment and physical torture. During the mid-1800’s, the condition and practices of insane asylums were very unstable and seemed challenging but not hopeless. It was for this cause that, improving conditions for the insane in Boston, Massachusetts; became Dorothea Dix’s purpose. Miss Dix devoted her time to and efforts to changing the viewpoint of asylum reform throughout history. With use of evidence based arguments, she desired to end this cruel cycle of mistreatment of any mentally ill individual. By the 19th Century, treatment of the quality of care for the mentally ill may have progressed in positive and negative ways throughout the United States. Between the 20th and 21st centuries; services for the mentally ill began to shift away from state mental hospital. The idea of creating comprehensive services through community based programs; that may or may not provide sufficient services became the new method of treatment. Unfortunately; it not a fantasy rather a reality today that, prison care has become one of the most prominent community based programs in the United States. In Boston, Massachusetts during the early 1800’s, the conditions of insane asylums were simply dehumanizing. Patients were chained up to 24 hours to the bedframes; held in such filth they would get sick; placed in strait – waist coats and collars held by chains or straps; and placed in feet restraints by iron leg locks and chains. Clothed or naked, patients were placed in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, and pens; beaten with rods and lashed. Jailhouses were filled with mistreated indigent mentally ill women and men, who were banished by family members. Huge groups of maltreated insane inmates; were then housed in unlivable conditions with poor patients from the asylums. For this reason Dorothea Dix, born in 1802 became a strong campaigner for reform and was major part of improving conditions and treatment for the mentally ill. In Dorothea Dix’s 1843 Memorial to the state legislature she pointed out that, the mentally ill were left to die. Persons that did not have the ability to differentiate fantasy or reality were left abandoned by loved one’s and friends. Some people were able to find refuge in hospitals that would provide daily medical treatment and care, while there are many others who do not have the mental capacity to find any helpful resources. According to the American Journal of Public Health, this practice gave the appearance of individual being merely homeless, wandering aimlessly throughout the city, but they are ill and going without proper treatment. Many of the mentally ill people that could not be kept by their families were the local government’s issue and they often faced jails or poorhouses, as these individuals were without family or a support structure. Jails were being set on fire by the menta

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