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We hear horror
stories of what went on in psychiatric hospitals
and we shudder. But, before there were asylums, those
with mental illness were often treated just as badly,
if not worse. Found chained in barns out houses,
without clothing, covered in their own feces, these
pourest of souls spent their tragic days on earth.
Patients were placed in "camisoles," (better
known as straightjackets) if they were found to be
erascible by staff members. Injuries and deaths occured
from misuse of these restraint devices. Some patients
were dunked in cold water, or soaked in baths for hours
or days, unable even to exit the tub to use the restroom.
This was a treatment known as hydrotherapy. It was
widely used, and believed to soothe and calm patients.
Most patients screamed and cried when they were told
they were scheduled for "hydro,"so
it is easy to conclude that they did not, in fact,
find this form of therapy soothing at all. And there
was a time when "mad
doctors"
gave thousands of patients lobotomies with crude ice
picks, straight through the eye socket. And let's not
forget the treatments made famous by the movie "One
Flew Over A Cuckoos Nest." To many peoples shock and dismay,
ECT, otherwise known as electroshock or electronconvulsive
threapy, still happens today.
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