A Ruined Life

Anna Faced an Unsympathetic Judge

After being ill-used by her partner for years, Anna Valentina went temporarily insane and killed her lover’s new mistress (see last post) on March 10, 1904. The judge did not even consider an insanity plea, and Anna was duly sentenced to be hanged on May 12, 1905. However, a newspaper article and an outpouring of public sympathy spurred many efforts to either win a pardon for her or secure imprisonment instead of hanging. Even the prosecutor in the case said on appeal that though evidence demanded a guilty verdict, many people on the jury may have felt Anna would be pardoned and did not fight it.

Despite her supporter’s best efforts, an article in the May 5, 1905 Camden Courier-Post stated: “[The] Court of Pardons refused this afternoon to interfere in the case of Anna Valentine, sentenced to be hanged May 12 in Bergen.”

Gruesome Rendition of Preparations for Anna’s Execution

The case went to New Jersey’s Supreme Court, but was met without sympathy. Justice Garretson re-sentenced Anna to death, and the newspaper reporting it noted this time that Anna had stabbed her victim 17 times while the woman was holding a baby. Though the frenzy of the stabbing might have made the case that Anna had completely lost control, the judicial system did not consider it.

Anna On Her Way to Prison In Her New Hat

Public sympathy would not be stilled, however, and both private citizens and organizations fought for clemency in the case. Anna received a stay of execution only a few days before she was supposed to hang, but eventually the judge set a new date for January, 1906. The hanging was further delayed until May 25, but finally, on May 17, 1906, Anna’s execution was commuted to life in prison. The sheriff’s wife bought Anna a new hat to wear on her trip to her new home.

The Madness of Love

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Sympathetic Writer Tells Anna’s Story

Newspaper articles often reflect society’s view of an issue, or they can offer a view that the writer wants the public to consider. A compassionate article in the June 9, 1905 issue of the Evening World (NY, NY) was the latter type.

A woman named Anna Valentina had killed her long-time partner’s mistress under sorrowful circumstances and awaited hanging in Hackensack, NJ. Anna had fallen in love with a fellow Italian named Mike Calluel many years earlier, and he seemed by all accounts to be hard, cruel, and selfish. He used Anna relentlessly.

For ten years–always with the promise of marriage before her–Anna worked physical jobs all day (including construction), and kept house, cooked, and cleaned for Mike as well. She eventually bought a piece of land with the money she she earned, believing the purchase was one step closer to marriage. Unfortunately, she gave the property to her lover. Mike Calluel took up with a young woman named Rosa Salza and threw Anna out of the house she had bought and physically helped build for him.

Anna Carried Hods of Brick in Her Daily Work

Anna Carried Hods of Brick Like These in Her Daily Work

Mike and his new lover were evidently soul mates–Rosa simply laughed at Anna’s plight. The spurned woman held out hopes that Mike would finally return to her, so she remained in the area and frequently saw Rosa in the house she had lost to her. Rosa insulted and provoked Anna every time she saw her, and one day either spitefully called Anna in to see her or goaded Anna into coming into the house. One of Anna’s greatest tragedies was the inability to have children, and Rosa now had twins. Rosa both taunted her with the twins and mocked Anna’s worn-out face and figure until Anna finally went mad.

Anna Valentina in a December 20, 1905 Issue of the Evening World

To underscore how deliberate Rosa’s behavior was, the paper reported that Rosa expected Anna to be upset and had kept a knife behind her back. Unfortunately for her, Anna was still strong from all those years of work, and wrenched the knife from Rosa and stabbed her to death.

My next post will discuss Anna’s fate.

Real Friends

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William Tuke

William Tuke and Philippe Pinel are generally credited with revolutionizing the care of the insane in England and France, respectively. These men substituted compassionate care for patients (at the York Retreat and the Bicêtre) for the typical imprisonment and harsh punishment the insane received before that time. But . . .

Before either of these men were even born, the Religious Society of Friends in Philadelphia were concerned about the sick and insane living in the new continent of America. Around 1709, they expressed this concern in one of their monthly meetings, and took steps to establish the Pennsylvania Hospital for both these groups in 1751, and later the Friends’ Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason solely for the insane in 1813. The asylum (which actually began to receive patients in 1817) had as one of its stated goals, to be a place where “the insane might see that they were regarded as men and brethren.” The York Retreat predated the Friends’ Asylum by a few years, but the idea for the American asylum had come much earlier and was probably delayed for many reasons, possibly including the political unrest going on in the colonies.

Friends’ Asylum for the Insane

When the asylum first opened, it was only for fellow Friends, but in 1834 the religious affiliation was dropped and the institution opened its doors to all patients. From its beginning, all efforts were directed toward helping patients without resorting to restraints or cruelty. The annual report from 1853 states that “a chain was never used for the confinement of a patient.” The founders also wrote into the rules the injunction: “Come what may, the law of kindness must at all times prevail.”

Friends’ Asylum History

The Asylum was a far cry from the conditions Dorothea Dix met in Little Compton, Rhode Island (see last post), which were barbaric to the point of torture.

Why Asylums?

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New Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane Under Construction, circa 1859, courtesy Library of Congress

Just the word “asylum” conjures up negative associations for most people–we have learned so much about the conditions and abuses in these institutions that it is hard to believe anyone thought they could be a good idea. We may understand that this deterioration was never anticipated by the original asylum advocates, but we still ask the question: couldn’t they have guessed what would happen?

Perhaps not. Here is a description of a lunatic’s dwelling in Little Compton, Rhode Island circa 1845: “The place, when closed, had no source of light or of ventilation. It was about seven feet by seven, and six and a half high. All, even the roof, was of stone. An iron frame interlaced with rope, was the sole furniture. The place was filthy, damp, and noisome.

“. . . –there he stood [the insane man] near the door . . . his tangled hair fell about his shoulders; his bare feet pressed the filthy, wet stone floor; he was emaciated to a shadow. . . . In moving a little forward I struck against something which returned a sharp metallic sound; it was a length of ox-chain, connected to an iron ring which encircled a leg of the insane man.”

Seated Portrait of Dorothea Dix, circa 1849

The writer, Dorothea Dix, discovered that the man had been in this little cell for three years, with no heat in the winter. Before that, he was kept in a cage. Dix’s outrage and compassion for the unfortunate men and women held in these conditions spurred her life’s work of urging states to build asylums with decent conditions and amenities.

One Result of Dix’s Concern Was the Butler Hospital

When Dix saw the day-and-night difference in new asylums and the type of private care she described above, she undoubtedly believed that conditions could never be so bad in an institution as they had been under the haphazard system that spurred her reforms. And though asylum conditions did go downhill, they were never tolerated by society at large the way earlier abuses had been.

Another Kind of Asylum

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Certainly Not a Madhouse!

Words carry power, and the terminology used in psychiatric care is no exception. When asylums were first gaining popularity, the word meant a place of peace, recuperation, and sanctuary to most laypeople. The word “lunatic” or “insane” in front of it simply denoted the type of resident.

In the early years of American asylums, patients were often referred to as “unfortunates” or in other similarly sympathetic terms, but doctors soon realized that a stigma was growing around these institutions. They urged the use of words like “hospital” as more appropriate: asylums were simply places for sick minds to get well.

Going even further, sanitariums became popular as genteel places where people with nerve issues could get relief. These were many times small hospitals run by physicians . . . for the wealthy. They were private, luxurious, and generally voluntary, and patients were not burdened by the hopelessness sometimes associated with insanity. Nervousness, weak nerves, and neurasthenia were comfortable names that did not embarrass the rich.

Caregivers Outside the Adams-Nervine Asylum in Massachusetts, courtesy Historic New England

One institution that bucked this trend of catering only to the wealthy was the Adams-Nervine Asylum in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. The founder, Seth Adams, provided in his will that the institution should be “for the benefit of the indigent, debilitated nervous people who are not insane, inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as may be in need of the benefits of a curative institution.” (Its charter did allow it to accept paying patients as well.)

Even a Modern Stove Required Almost 300 Pounds of Coal a Week and Produced 27 Pounds of Ash to be Sifted, courtesy Conner Prairie.org

The asylum must have been a boon to the admittedly small number of women able to go there. A Boston Globe article offered the information that “the statistics of the asylum show that of those admitted, unmarried women are in a great majority. Chiefest among the causes mentioned by the doctor as giving rise to this state of things is the fact that many of these women have worn themselves out working for and waiting upon others – daughters upon whom have devolved the weight of household cares and the nursing of invalid parents or relatives, and who have no one to fall back upon when their own strength fails.”

A Crazy Cure

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Medicine for Asthma Went Straight to the Lungs Via Cigarettes

Many nineteenth-century theories about disease and mental illness were based on assumptions that made sense within the limited knowledge of the time. Unfortunately, quacks could pick up on ill-founded theories and make a fortune if they were good salespeople–and of course, most were excellent. Dr. Edwin Hartley Pratt’s theory about chronic disease resulting from irritation of bodily orifices (see last post) is a case in point.

Dr. Frank E. Young took on the orifice problem and created rectal dilators with exaggerated claims: they were good for anemia, constipation, sallow skin, acne, insomnia, anorexia, headaches, and on and on. These rubber plugs–shaped somewhat like a torpedo–also cured insanity. In promoting his cure, Young asserted, “three-fourths of all the howling maniacs of the world” were curable “in a few weeks’ time by the application of orificial methods.”*

Dr. Young’s Rectal Dilators

Though the medical world scoffed, Young’s devices were popular (primarily for constipation) until the FDA began to regulate and oversee medical devices in 1938. In 1940 the agency seized a shipment of Young’s dilators as misbranded (because of their claims to cure so many conditions) and Young’s company fell out of favor.

Arsenic for Beauty Typified the Errors in 1800s Medical Knowledge

*Reported in The Medical News, April 29, 1893, p. 471.

Nerve-Waste and Insanity

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Dr. Edwin Pratt

Medicine in the 1800s was not always founded on firm data; it often based cures solely on (what someone thought) were reasonable assumptions. Dr. Edwin Hartley Pratt was a homeopathic physician who eventually wrote in his 1891 book, The Philosophy of Orificial Surgery, that there was one predisposing cause for all forms of chronic diseases: “and that is a nerve-waste occasioned by orificial irritation at the lower openings of the body.”

In the September, 1893 issue of a journal called The New Way, an unattributed article presented an example of “orificial philosophy.” The author referred to an article in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease which discussed the abatement of insanity in cholera patients. Sixty patients were sickened by the disease at the Bonneval Asylum in France. During its peak manifestation in their bodies, “maniacs” were relieved of all symptoms of insanity, though they gradually returned as the victims got well. Melancholics were also helped, and patients who were melancholic or only slightly insane seemed to recover their sanity permanently.

Pratt’s Book on the Treatment of Chronic Diseases

Though the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease didn’t speculate about why cholera helped relieve insanity, The New Way did. “Cholera is a disease of the bowels, and results in their violent and complete evacuation and dilatation of the anal sphincter. Following this comes a compete relaxation of the whole muscular system.”

This gave the brain relief “and reason was restored while the condition lasted,” the author continued. “But as soon as the patient recovered from the cholera the relaxed condition of the muscular system disappeared and the sphincter became tight again.”

One of Pratt’s Sanatoriums

The result? The inhibition of the sympathetic nervous system, “deranged circulation and a return of insanity.” The anonymous author then wrapped up his case with the declaration that “seven-tenths of the cases of insanity, irritation and derangement will be found at the outlets of the body.”*

September 1893, Vol 1, No. 5, p. 125

Preparing for Idiots, Lunatics, and Insane Persons

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Commericial Hospital Began Ambulance Service in 1865, courtesy National Library of Medicine

Commercial Hospital Began Ambulance Service in 1865, courtesy National Library of Medicine

Ohio became a state in 1803 and quickly realized the need for an insane asylum; its initial institution was established as The Commercial Hospital and Lunatic Asylum of Ohio in Cincinnati. Built without delay, in January, 1824, the hospital’s trustees were able to put a notice in the Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Gazette: “. . . the undersigned trustees hereby give notice . . . that they are prepared to receive idiots, lunatics and insane persons.”

Though it was a gentle enough invitation, these unprotected guests of the state may not have enjoyed their stay. Built before reformer Dorothea Dix’s campaign to treat the mentally ill with kindness and understanding, the asylum was as much a prison as a place of healing. In 1831, the state legislature even asked the question as to “whether the cells and apartments of the lunatic asylum are sufficiently separated from each other by thick walls to prevent the inmates from communicating with each other.” Was solitary confinement their goal?

Longview Asylum, 1860

Though stumbling a bit at inception, the hospital was the starting point for an orphan asylum, the city infirmary, the Cincinnati Hospital, and Longview Asylum. A description (from 1916) of patients’ rooms at Longview shows a dramatic upswing in comfort from what must have been dismal quarters at the original Commercial Hospital:

1910 Article Shows That Asylum Was Fallible

“The walls are covered with photographs of the best pictures of the world . . . . Everywhere throughout the house are inlaid tables and unusual pieces of fancy furniture, fancy needlework, flowers, singing birds, bric-a-brac, etc. which is seldom roughly handled or destroyed by patients. In each ward is a tastily furnished cozy corner, fitted up with book shelves, easy chairs, etc., where patients who will not abuse the privilege are allowed.”

Brain Troubles

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School Children in the Late 1800s, courtesy Aventa Learning

Alienists in the late 1800s believed that too much mental exertion could cause insanity, whether from over-studying at school, constantly dwelling on one topic, focusing too intently on business issues, or from other situations requiring unremitting thought (without adequate rest). This was one reason for the prevailing idea that children could become insane from intense schoolwork.

Dr. Ray V. Pierce, author of The People’s Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English: or Medicine Simplified (1886), explained: “No mental effort can be made without waste of nervous matter. The gardener’s hoe wears by use, and so does every part of the animal organism. Otherwise, nutrition would be unnecessary for the adult.

“The production of thought wears away the gray matter of the cerebrum as surely as the digging of a canal wears away the iron particles of the spade. . . . The intellect, whether engaged in observation, generalizations, or profound study consumes the brain and blood, hence intellectual activity implies VITAL EXPENDITURES.”

Dr. Ray V. Pierce

Pierce continued his explanation by saying that all the functions of the body were essential to the production of nerve-energy (including thought). Unlike exercise, which had value because it helped circulate blood, nutrition, and so on, mental labor did not have advantages of this kind. A child who studied too hard “consumes the blood, exhausts the vital forces, weakens, the organic functions . . . .”

The first result of all this expenditure would be anemia, said Pierce, because the brain “appropriated its red corpuscles” and eventually used them up. Because of this weakened state, other dire things could follow.

Image From Pierce’s Book

Though an obviously incorrect explanation concerning the issue of too much schoolwork, Pierce and many others correctly noted long ago the emotional problems in over-pressured children: An uptick in anxiety, depression, and lack of joy.*

*A 2016 survey showed that nearly one in three teenagers told the American Psychological Association that stress drove them to sadness or depression — and their single biggest source of stress was school.

Strong Ties

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New Jersey State Hospital for the Insane

Sudden tragedies sometimes created mental problems that eventually sent victims to an insane asylum; today we would probably consider these cases examples of severe depression or PTSD. Researchers occasionally come across accounts that describe a woman driven mad by the loss of a child or husband, but not so frequently about men driven mad for the same reasons. However, a double tragedy sent one prosperous businessman to an asylum . . . to join his son.

Sometime in the mid to late 1880s, Daniel Henry’s young son got lost in the woods south of Trenton, New Jersey. Thanks to a prolonged search, the boy was eventually found a week later. Unfortunately, though, his suffering and fear had driven him insane and “he never regained his reason,” according to an article in the New York Times. The child was taken to the New Jersey State Hospital for the Insane for an indefinite stay.

1849 Asylum Report

Three years after that, Daniel’s wife was killed on the railroad (details unspecified). His wife’s death, combined with his son’s tragic circumstances, drove the widower insane. He, too, was committed to the New Jersey State Hospital for the Insane. Father and son remained there for more than twenty years. Daniel Henry died at the asylum in September, 1907 at the age of 75. His son remained, with little chance of recovery.

State Asylum at Trenton Baseball Team, courtesy New Jersey State Library

No details were given about whether or not the two were capable of recognizing and interacting with each other, but if they could, perhaps they were each able to take comfort in the other’s presence.

Healing, Hell, and the History of American Insane Asylums

The History of Insane Asylums

A Ruined Life

The Madness of Love

Real Friends

Why Asylums?

Another Kind of Asylum

A Crazy Cure

Nerve-Waste and Insanity

Preparing for Idiots, Lunatics, and Insane Persons

Brain Troubles

Strong Ties