A patient sits inside Ohio's Cleveland State Mental Hospital in 1946.Mary Delaney Cooke/Corbis via Getty Images
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A patient sits in a chair with restraints at the West Riding Lunatic Asylum in Wakefield, England in 1869.Wellcome Library, London
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Child patients sit bound and tied to a radiator inside the psychiatric hospital in Deir el Qamar, Lebanon in 1982.José Nicolas/Corbis via Getty Images
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A patient sleeps on a thin mattress on the floor of an otherwise bare room in Ohio's Cleveland State Mental Hospital in 1946.Jerry Cooke/Pix Inc./The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images
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A patient sits alone in a dark room inside Ohio's Cleveland State Mental Hospital on February 3, 1955.
Jerry Cooke/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
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A hungry boy stands alone and eats with his hands as other boys sit together under a blanket on a bed beside a small wood-burning stove at a hospital for mentally-handicapped children in Kavaja, Albania in March 1992.Peter Turnley/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images
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A psychiatric patient poses for a photo at Paris' Salpêtrière Hospital. Circa 1876-1877.Wellcome Library, London
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A child patient sits inside Normansfield Hospital in Teddington, England on February 12, 1979.John Minihan/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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A patient at a mental hospital undergoes electroshock treatment in 1956.Thurston Hopkins/Picture Post/Getty Images
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Patients sit inside Ohio's Cleveland State Mental Hospital in 1946.Mary Delaney Cooke/Corbis via Getty Images
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Workers restrain a patient at a hospital in Moscow, Russia on February 19, 1992.Peter Turnley/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images
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A patient suffering from "general paralysis" poses for a photo at the West Riding Lunatic Asylum in Wakefield, England. Circa 1869.Wellcome Library, London
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On March 29, 1950, at Philadelphia's Bella Vista Sanitorium, a fire killed nine patients, five of whom had been chained to concrete slabs like the one pictured.Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images
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A nurse tests out electronic equipment designed to monitor patient data at a psychiatric hospital in Toronto on March 12, 1964.Mario Geo/Toronto Star via Getty Images
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Pioneering lobotomist Dr. Walter Freeman performs a lobotomy with an instrument similar to an ice pick at Western State Hospital in Lakewood, Washington on July 11, 1949.Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images
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One of Walter Freeman’s lobotomy patients, pictured 10 days after the procedure. 1942.Historical Medical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia
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A young patient's rotted teeth, due to poor dentistry, are revealed at London's Friern Hospital (previously known as the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum). Circa 1890-1910.Wellcome Library, London
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A patient lies on the floor of Ohio's Cleveland State Mental Hospital in 1946.Mary Delaney Cooke/Corbis via Getty Images
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Patients go about their day inside Ohio's Cleveland State Mental Hospital in 1946.Mary Delaney Cooke/Corbis via Getty Images
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A patient stands in a straitjacket inside Ohio's Cleveland State Mental Hospital in 1946.Mary Delaney Cooke/Corbis via Getty Images
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A psychiatric patient poses for a photo at Paris' Salpêtrière Hospital. Circa 1876-1877.Wellcome Library, London
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Nurses hold down a patient receiving electroshock treatment at a facility in England on November 23, 1946.Kurt Hutton/Picture Post/Getty Images
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A surgeon uses a brace and bit to drill into a patient's skull before performing a lobotomy at a mental hospital in England. November 1946.Kurt Hutton/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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Doctors test a new method of using radio waves to treat psychiatric patients at a hospital in Paris on May 13, 1938.Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images
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Two patients rest in the sleeping area of Ohio's Cleveland State Mental Hospital in 1946.Mary Delaney Cooke/Corbis via Getty Images
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Patients at the Riul Vadului Mental Asylum in Romania huddle together in an unheated room in the middle of winter. Date unspecified.ANDREW HOLBROOKE/Corbis via Getty Images
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Dr. James G. Shanklin administers electric shocks and anesthesia in preparation for Dr. Walter Freeman to demonstrate his new transorbital lobotomy procedure at Western State hospital in Lakewood, Washington on July 11, 1949.Bettmann/Contributor/Western State Hospital
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A prisoner sits inside the West Riding Lunatic Asylum in Wakefield, England in 1869.Wellcome Library, London
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Patients lie on a bed inside a psychiatric hospital in Bucharest, Romania. Date unspecified.Bernard Bisson/Sygma via Getty Images
Child patients sit in their room at a mental hospital in Ursberg, Germany. Circa 1934-1936.Wolfgang Weber/ullstein bild via Getty Images
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A patient lies back in a Bergonic chair, an early electroshock treatment apparatus. Circa World War I.Otis Historical Archives/National Museum of Health and Medicine
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Dr. James Watts (left) and Dr. Walter Freeman examine a patient after a lobotomy. Date unspecified.George Washington University
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A young patient's rotted teeth, due to poor dentistry, are revealed at London's Friern Hospital (previously known as the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum). Circa 1890-1910.Wellcome Library, London
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An amputee psychiatric patient of London's Friern Hospital (previously known as the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum) poses for a photo. Circa 1890-1910.Wellcome Library, London
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A British patient identified only as "Mary C" poses for a photo following her lobotomy. October 28, 1960.M. Winn/Daily Express/Getty Images
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Ties bind a patient's feet to a bed at a mental hospital in Bucharest, Romania. Date unspecified.Bernard Bisson/Sygma via Getty Images
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Patients sit inside Ohio's Cleveland State Mental Hospital in 1946.Mary Delaney Cooke/Corbis via Getty Images
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Orderlies wash patients at the Long Grove Asylum in Epsom, England. Circa 1930.Wellcome Library, London
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Orphans share a feces-stained crib at the Riul Vadului Mental Asylum in Romania. Date unspecified.ANDREW HOLBROOKE/Corbis via Getty Images
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A patient diagnosed with "hysteria-induced narcolepsy" lies strapped down to a bed in Paris' Salpêtrière Hospital in 1889.Wellcome Library, London
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A policeman stands guard at the bars of the ward for psychiatric patients (possibly the "criminal insane," per original annotation) at New York's Bellevue Hospital. Circa 1885-1898.Wellcome Library, London
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Debris litters the floor at Maryland's Crownsville State Hospital (formerly Hospital for the Negro Insane of Maryland) during the aftermath of a riot in 1949.Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images
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A patient lies in bed at Ohio's Cleveland State Mental Hospital in 1946.Mary Delaney Cooke/Corbis via Getty Images
44 Disturbing Photos Of Mental Asylums From Decades Past That Are Like Something Out Of A Horror Movie
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"The degree of civilization in a society," goes Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky's immortal phrase, "can be judged by entering its prisons." But perhaps that phrase also applies to another class of institutions meant to house those deemed unfit for society: mental asylums.
Starting in the 18th and 19th centuries, mental asylums emerged in Europe and the United States as places where the mentally ill could receive care. But "care" is perhaps not the right word, as early insane asylums often used chains, straitjackets, and isolation to keep their patients in check.
During the reform-minded 19th century, these practices eventually began to change as attitudes about mental health shifted. Well-to-do reformers gave money to build palatial asylums and patients were treated more humanely there. But this period was brief. As mental asylums became overcrowded, patients were increasingly mistreated by staff members.
By the 20th century, the mentally ill were often sent to insane asylums simply to keep them away from the general population. There, new techniques like electroshock therapy and lobotomies became the norm.
All in all, the history of mental asylums is a harrowing one. Above, look through some of the most shocking photos of asylums and their patients through the ages, and, below, see how these institutions changed over time.
The Rise Of Mental Asylums
Public DomainAn etching of a ward at Bethlem Royal Hospital by William Hogarth. 1735.
The first British mental asylum — Bethlem Royal Hospital — opened in 1247. Though palatial and grand, Bethlem was a grim place for patients. People entered the asylum for different reasons, from "acute melancholy" to homicide. There, they were often subjected to isolation or "rotating therapy," in which they were spun in a chair that was hanging from the ceiling.
Bethlem was an outlier, however. Most people who were mentally ill at the time were cared for by their families. If they didn't have a family, the Science Museum in the U.K. reports that they would often be forced into destitution.
By the start of the 18th century, more mental asylums had emerged. The rich could send their mentally ill relatives to private institutions, but the poor had to rely on publicly-funded asylums. These asylums often relied on restraints to "treat" their patients, which fostered a violent atmosphere.
"In pauper asylums we see chains and strait-waistcoats, three or four half-naked creatures thrust into a chamber filled with straw, to exasperate each other with their clamour and attempts at violence; or else gibbering in idleness or moping in solitude," social reformer Harriet Martineau said after visiting mental asylums, according to the Science Museum in the U.K.
At the time, Atlas Obscura notes that there was little difference between "squalid" public insane asylums, poorhouses, and jails.
Public DomainAn illustration of Hanwell Mental Asylum in London in 1843. This institution used a kinder "moral treatment" on its patients, but overcrowding and understaffing soon created dire conditions.
As New Scientist reports, the 19th century saw a concerted effort to improve the conditions in mental asylums. Palatial hospitals were built across the United States and Europe, where patients were given "moral treatment." This meant a calm environment, fresh air, good food, and jobs.
"In the bakehouse... are a company of patients, kneading their dough; and in the wash-house and laundry, many more, equally busy, who would be tearing their clothes to pieces if there was not the mangle to be turned," Martineau wrote approvingly after visiting the Hanwell Mental Asylum in 1834.
That said, asylums in the 19th century were hardly paradise. And they eventually served an insidious purpose. As the Washington Post notes, horrific theories about eugenics gave asylums leeway to keep the "feebleminded," "mental defectives," and "lunatics" away from the general population. And most patients never left their institutions.
Though patients started spending their lives at mental asylums, more kept arriving. Overpopulated, understaffed, and underfunded, these insane asylums soon became "bywords for squalor and negligence, and often run by inept, corrupt or sadistic bureaucrats," per neurologist Oliver Sacks.
An inspector who visited Hanwell Mental Asylum in 1893, almost 60 years after Martineau penned her glowing review, found the institution sorely lacking. He described "gloomy corridors and wards" and remarked, "It would be astonishing to find that any cures are ever made there."
The Decline Of Mental Asylums
Science Museum Group CollectionA 20th-century straitjacket used to restrain patients at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol.
By the 20th century, mental asylums had turned away from "moral treatment" and started to treat their patients with sedatives, electroshock therapy, and lobotomies, among other new methods.
New drugs aided mental asylums — which were teetering under ballooning costs — as the medication helped patients live more normal and peaceful lives. But people who were subjected to terrifying treatments like rudimentary electroshock therapy and lobotomies were severely traumatized, as depicted in several 20th-century books like One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey (1962) and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (1963).
In the 1970s and 1980s, most mental asylums began to shut down. There was no longer any widespread financial support for them, and outpatient solutions like medications and modernizing mental health care had removed some need for longstanding asylums. Many patients, however, were simply released into their communities without much of a safety net.
This has left a swath of abandoned insane asylums across the U.S. They stand as eerie reminders of a time when people were thrown in padded rooms, restrained to their beds, or subjected to electroshock therapy.
Let the harrowing photos above return you to a comparatively benighted era in psychiatric care — one that wasn't actually all that long ago.
A staff writer for All That's Interesting, Kaleena Fraga has also had her work featured in The Washington Post and Gastro Obscura, and she published a book on the Seattle food scene for the Eat Like A Local series. She graduated from Oberlin College, where she earned a dual degree in American History and French.
Jaclyn is the senior managing editor at All That's Interesting. She holds a Master's degree in journalism from the City University of New York and a Bachelor's degree in English writing and history (double major) from DePauw University. She is interested in American history, true crime, modern history, pop culture, and science.
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Fraga, Kaleena. "44 Disturbing Photos Of Mental Asylums From Decades Past That Are Like Something Out Of A Horror Movie." AllThatsInteresting.com, August 2, 2023, https://allthatsinteresting.com/mental-asylums. Accessed December 10, 2024.
