Category Archives: General History

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.

The American Disease

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Chart From American Nervousness, Its Causes and Consequences, 1881

“Nervous” diseases became prevalent toward the end of the 1800s; most manifestations were lumped under the term neurasthenia. Some public commentators believed the condition was entirely manufactured, since it seemed to affect only the wealthier people in the country. Others were convinced it was a real condition brought on by the stresses of modern life and the burdens of business. Almost all agreed that it was a peculiarly American disease.

Writers tended to mock “nervous” women who went to rest homes, sanitariums, or cruises to recover from neurasthenia, but seemed to find the condition more credible in men. “Americans who make money or achieve marked success generally have neurasthenia at some time in their lives,” said the Fort Wayne Sentinel in 1890. Nervous strain was a natural part of these successful lives, and eventually, the body succumbed to “nervous exhaustion.” Doctors often compared neurasthenia in men to the mental aberration called hysteria in women.

Nerve Medicine Aimed at Men

Symptoms of neurasthenia included fatigue, anxiety, headache, heart palpitations, and depression. Treatment in general terms emphasized rest, a change of scenery, and freedom from responsibility and care. Specifically, treatments could include massage, ocean bathing, electrical stimulation, and hypnosis. Of course, nerve tonics became popular as well. These “secret” formulas often included strychnine, morphine, cocaine, and opium among other questionable ingredients.

This Elixer Said It All

The term neurasthenia has faded, but its symptoms live on as chronic fatigue syndrome, “burn-out”, and similar terms that denote high stress and its effects.

For A Price

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Dr. Boris Sidis

“A good many people are beginning to realize that nervous diseases are alarmingly on the increase …. Nerves are the most ‘prominent’ complaint of the 19th century,” wrote one reporter in an 1887 issue of the Boston Globe.

As always, medical entrepreneurs found ways to accommodate the trend to everyone’s satisfaction. When a case of “nerves” became unbearable to a person or unmanageable for the family, alienists found a way to cater to wealthy patients’ need for privacy and luxury. The Sidis Psychotherapeutic Institute was an example: it was a private asylum containing “beautiful grounds, private parks, rare trees, greenhouses, sun parlors, palatial rooms, luxuriously furnished private baths, private farm products,” according to a brochure designed to appeal to Professor Boris Sidis’ expected clientele.

Images From the Sidis Psychotherapeutic Institute

Sidis also had a reassuring message for them. “It is well known and correspondingly deplored among physicians and psychologists,” Dr. Sidis explained, “that there are fully 50pc. of mentally disturbed cases that cannot be cared for in an insane asylum. These cases are of persons who are not actually insane, but who are on the verge of that condition. Also, they are not physically ill, or if they are ill it is not so serious that they should be sent to a hospital.”

McLean Asylum for the Insane Began as a Mansion Purchased from Joseph Barrell

McLean Asylum for the Insane in Charlestown, Massachusetts Began as a Mansion Purchased from Joseph Barrell

For families wishing to avoid the stigma of insanity, a private “institute” or sanitarium was far preferable to a crowded state-run asylum manned by poorly paid and trained staff. These private asylums probably gave patients–many of whom undoubtedly had genuine mental illness–the relief they needed and served the purpose for which they were created. However, they came with a price most of the country couldn’t afford. Sidis charged today’s equivalent of $1,000 a week–out of reach for all but the wealthy. No matter how desperate they might have been to put their loved one in the best place possible, most families had to settle for state asylums.

Unhappily Ever After

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Charles Dickens Tried to Have His Wife Committed to an Asylum During His Affair With a Young Actress, photo circca 1850 of the Charles, Catherine, and Two of Their Children

Charles Dickens Tried to Have His Wife Committed to an Asylum During His Affair With a Young Actress, photo circa 1850 of Charles, His Wife, and Two of Their Children, courtesy Smithsonian Magazine

Most families hesitated to commit their loved ones to insane asylums until they became violent, uncontrollable, physically ill, or burdened with conditions that required constant care (hallucinations, suicidal tendencies, etc.). Unfortunately, men sometimes sent the inconvenient women in their lives to asylums, and married women were especially vulnerable.

In 1882, Mrs. Martha J. Collins suspected her husband of infidelity, and when she actually gained proof of it, he retaliated by sending her to the Kings County Lunatic Asylum in NY, and later, to Bloomingdale Asylum. Doctors released her as sane almost immediately from each institution, but her husband pressed on and sent her to the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane. After five weeks, she managed to get a letter delivered to her legal counsel.

Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane

Mrs. Collins’ attorneys argued that she had been committed illegally, and the asylum’s authorities considered her sane enough to be released into the care of her husband. After discussion (probably rather heated on her part) Judge Smith of the Superior Court released her unconditionally. When her husband approached her, she said, “Mr. Collins, I will shake hands with you: but that is all,” and refused to return home with him unless he agreed not to imprison her again.

A Desperate Elizabeth Packard Tries to Change Her Husband’s Mind About Committing Her to Jacksonville State Hospital in Illinois

Refusing to return home was a courageous step for a woman of that time, who likely had little money of her own or any way of earning a living. She did keep a diary about her asylum experiences, and planned to have it printed. Hopefully, the publicity protected her from any further bullying by her husband.

Debating Restraints

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Illustration Showing a Black Man Sitting in a Chair Wearing a Straitjacket, courtesy National Library of Medicine

When British physician Dr. John Bucknill visited U.S. insane asylums and wrote an article about his observations for the October, 1876 edition of the American Journal of Insanity (see last post), he discussed the issue of restraining patients. British asylums had done away with restraints almost entirely, and Bucknill did not like to see them used as freely in the U.S. as he saw during his visits. In his discussion about their use in America, he made the following observations:

Dr. Green of the Georgia State Asylum said that he did not like to use restraints, but did with four classes of patients. These were: suicidal patients, persons who will not remain in bed, persons who persistently denude themselves of all clothing, and inveterate masturbators.

Bucknill also mentioned that Dr. Ranney, who prided McLean Asylum with bringing its use of restraints down to a very low level, still used mechanical restraints on the following types of patients: those exhibiting acute mania; patients who wound themselves, creating ulcers that would never heal themselves unless their hands were confined; epileptic patients who so often became violent; persons whose feelings are greatly perverted and prone to see insults or evidence of conspiracy, who were sometimes little less ferocious than wild beasts; and persons in the throes of acute delirious mania.

McLean Asylum, courtesy Boston Public Library, Digital Commonwealth

“It will be observed,” said Dr. Bucknill, “that . . . we already have nine classes of lunatics who need mechanical restraint, in America.” He added that Dr. Slusser of the Ohio Hospital for the Insane added another class: “. . . those who persistently walk or stand, until their extremities become swollen, and they give evident signs of physical prostration. I have no way of controlling such, but by tying them down on a seat.”

This addition made ten classes of patients needing restraint, but Dr. Bucknill continued with a list of other reasons doctors restrained their patients until he named “fourteen classes of the insane altogether who absolutely need mechanical restraint in the State Asylums of America.” Bucknill noted some ways that British asylums found to avoid restraints, but realized that the American mindset was simply different on this issue.

Mock-up of a Patient in a Restraining Device Called a Utica Crib

Bucknill did say, “Is it surprising that, at the present time, the management of asylums for the insane in America is the subject of mistrust with the people?”

Healing, Hell, and the History of American Insane Asylums

The History of Insane Asylums

Category Archives: General History

A Ruined Life

The Madness of Love

Real Friends

Why Asylums?

Another Kind of Asylum

A Crazy Cure

The American Disease

For A Price

Unhappily Ever After

Debating Restraints