One of the boys who heard the Hallowe'en story twenty years ago is partly responsible for the writing of this book. He did not remain ignorant. For two years he worked in a mental hospital. He came to know intimately several hundred so-called "crazy" people, and he discovered that they are just like other people. He found that each patient in a mental hospital has emotions and ideas, likes and dislikes, hopes and fears. He found that each one is an individual personality, humorous or pathetic, mischievous or helpful, loving or hateful.

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He also discovered that many mental patients live in conditions and under circumstances unlike those endured by any other group of people in the country. He began to wonder if those conditions alone were not enough to drive almost any person "out of his mind." He wrote a report about some of the things he personally witnessed. That report is the basis of one of the sixty-three factual, eyewitness accounts of life in mental hospitals which compose the following chapters.


Over two thousand similar reports were used in the preparation of this book. Every person depicted is a real person; every place described is a real place; every event recorded actually occurred -- and they all took place in mental hospitals in the United States within the last five years, 1942-46.