Tag Archives: causes of insanity

Medical and Mental

Leave a reply
Dr. Howard W. Haggard

Dr. Howard W. Haggard

Writing in 1929, Dr. Howard W. Haggard, an associate professor at Yale University, said: “. . . the treatment of mental disease is not so well developed as the treatment of other diseases because insanity has only recently been recognized as a medical problem.” Until shortly before that time, insanity was considered (among other theories) the result of moral failures, harmful actions on the body from outside factors like sunstroke, overwork, a terrifying experience, etc., or heredity weakness.

Dr. Haggard also noted that insanity was the only disease that went through a court of law. Though this precaution was presumably taken because the diagnosis could deprive victims of their liberty, Haggard pointed out that a diagnosis of a communicable disease like smallpox could also deprive victims of their freedom through an enforced quarantine. No one required a legal ruling on a smallpox diagnosis, so why the distinction? Haggard believed that insanity had to pass through a court of law primarily because its diagnosis was “not as positive as is the diagnosis for other diseases.”

An Example of Diagnosing Insanity Via the Legal System

An Example of Diagnosing Insanity Via the Legal System

Early Psychiatrists Had Little Idea What Caused Insanity

Early Psychiatrists Had Little Idea What Caused Insanity

In this telling statement, Haggard pinpoints the reason we are still arguing today about the validity of diagnosing mental illness. What test is available for a particular mental illness? Whose standards need to be met for a person to be considered free of mental illness? If mental illness is a real condition, why does its definition change over time? A strong sex drive in women used to be considered a form of mental illness, for example, as was epilepsy and syphilis. What currently acceptable behavior will be considered an illness down the road, or what “mental illness” today will science discover is actually a physical illness?

Because these questions cannot be easily answered and have an enormous impact on an individual’s freedom, we as a society will doubtlessly continue the debate for many years.

Thoughts on Religion

Leave a reply
Causes of Insanity Included Religious Excitement

Causes of Insanity Included Religious Excitement

Discovering the reasons for insanity proved difficult for early alienists. For many years, these mental health experts attributed the origins of insanity to what modern medicine would call laughable causes: excessive novel-reading, masturbation, smoking, religion and so on. Eventually, a few medical men began to question these sorts of factors as true causes of mental issues.

Dr. John Gray, superintendent of the State Lunatic Asylum in Utica, New York, wrote in 1885 that, “Religion, strange to say, is sometimes set down as a cause of insanity . . . . To some it means that a person is insane on the subject of religion; to others that the insanity was caused by religion.”

Dr. John Gray

Dr. John Gray

Gray recognized that the idea of “Religious Insanity” actually meant that religion caused insanity to many people. His belief, though, was that: “What people talk about when they become insane, has rarely anything to do with the real cause of the disease.” Gray gave a couple of examples concerning his theory, one being the case of a severely overworked minister who finally broke down and began raving that he was Zerubbabel and had been appointed by God to preach “to the spirits in prison” and that he had descended into hell to preach the gospel of salvation and redemption.

“This was not Religious Insanity,” said Gray, “but insanity from exhaustion, religion having nothing to do with it except to give tone and character to his delusions.” Gray found that many people who appeared insane due to exhaustion or broken health could often recover when given rest and proper medical treatment.

State Lunatic Asylum, Utica, New York, courtesy National Library of Medicine

State Lunatic Asylum, Utica, New York, courtesy National Library of Medicine

His point of view was a refreshing counterpoint to others in his field who would have labeled a patient like this insane and perhaps never expected a recovery.

The Insane in Territories

Leave a reply
Main Street in Norman, OK, 1889, courtesy Emma Coleman Photography Collection, University of Oklahoma

Main Street in Norman, OK, 1889, courtesy Emma Coleman Photography Collection, University of Oklahoma

Several states had created insane asylums while they were still part of a Territory; Oklahoma was one of these. The Cherokee Nation actually established the first asylum in the area when they erected the Cherokee Home for the Insane, Deaf, Dumb, and Blind outside the city of Tahlequah in 1873.

The Territory’s non-native insane were sent to Jacksonville, Illinois for treatment until two physicians created a private company called the Oklahoma Sanitarium Company. The Territorial Legislation awarded them a three-year contract to care for the insane, hoping to cut down on transportation costs for patients going to Illinois. The company constructed a hospital (the Oklahoma State Hospital) at Norman, OK in 1895. The Territory also approved a second asylum (Oklahoma Hospital for the Insane) in Supply, OK in 1905.

Dr. Griffin Was Hired from North Carolina in 1899

Dr. Griffin Was Hired from North Carolina in 1899 and Became Superintendent in 1902

Because Oklahoma’s institutions were created later on in the asylum era (a third one opened in 1913), care was relatively modern: the State Hospital’s staff consisted of both attendants and nurses, as well as a physician-superintendent and assistant physicians. By 1910, it had even adopted the practice of employing women nurses in male wards. Within twenty years of its creation, the hospital had a training school for nurses and a laboratory.

Oklahoma Sanitarium Building, 1897, courtesy Emma Coleman Photography Collection, Oklahoma University

Oklahoma Sanitarium Building, 1897, courtesy Emma Coleman Photography Collection, Oklahoma University

A 1909 report from the institution shows that 94 patients were either released or “restored” and 48 released as “improved.” A number of other patients (71) were paroled, that is, given the opportunity to go home to see how they would do, while 15 managed to escape.

For those in the asylum at the time, a majority diagnosis was hereditary insanity. Other causes for insanity included: ill health; syphilis; inebriates; old age; drugs; child birth; mental worry; privation; injury to brain; epilepsy; sunstroke; pellagra; and self abuse.

Schools for Insanity

Leave a reply
Alienist Dr. Isaac Ray

Alienist Dr. Isaac Ray

People today wonder how physicians and other educated people could have believed excessive smoking, masturbation, or reading novels might lead to insanity. Though anything in excess is probably not as healthy for a person as that same thing in moderation, how could something like “excessive study” cause insanity? An extremely prominent alienist, Dr. Isaac Ray, explained:

“Though hard study at school is rarely the immediate cause of insanity, it is the most frequent of its ulterior causes, except hereditary tendencies.” Ray further declared that the chances of recovery [from insanity] were far fewer in the “studious, intellectual child” than in the opposite type. The reason for this, Ray explained, was that “though the immediate mischief may have seemed slight, but the brain is left in a condition of peculiar impressibility, which renders it morbidly sensitive to every adverse influence.”

irls From Glen Eden Boarding School for Girls, circa 1911

Students From Glen Eden Boarding School for Girls, circa 1911

Ray’s remarks appeared in a September, 1859 issue of the The Atlantic Monthly, within an article strongly admonishing the then-present system of excessive schoolwork for children. A typical schedule in a well-run girls’ boarding school could be something like this: Rise at 5:00 a.m., study for two hours, eat breakfast, spend six more hours in the schoolroom, eat lunch, then spend two hours sewing, writing letters, completing other small tasks, and perhaps walking if weather permitted. Afterward there would be another hour of study, supper, and then two more hours of study–eleven in all. The author later mentioned popular Sunday School contests throughout the country, in which winners memorized up to 5,000 Bible verses.

An 1854 Math Book by Joseph Ray

An 1854 Math Book by Joseph Ray

It’s no wonder that many children fell into ill health, whether or not the excessive study actually led to insanity. However, with this kind of tasking in mind, it’s a bit easier to believe the (unnamed) author’s statement that he had recently heard of “a child’s dying insane, from sheer overwork, and raving of algebra.”