Sometimes my jaw drops in sheer horror...that happened today while I was reading about a particularly unpleasant mental asylum...opened in the middle of the 1800's, with beds for two hundred and fifty people, it was full almost immediately...it's use discontinued in the 1970's with the remaining patients being transferred to small group homes.
They accepted children from as young as four years old...there was an incomplete list of the reasons for children's admission...epilepsy came first, it wasn't understood at all in the 19th century and that had only vaguely improved by the 1900's...cold baths were the treatment...if you protested too often about being dunked into icy cold water, you'd be asked to leave the hospital...
Having been 'thrown from a cart' was the admission reason for one child...I wonder if it left the sufferer with brain damage...
Two were reportedly ' frightened by cows'...and one child had been 'frightened into hysterics by a dog'
Then there were the usual feeble-minded and idiots and girls with 'lax moral fibre'.
But the one which had me astounded was ' by being put inside a recently killed pig'
Who in heavens name would ever want to stuff a small child inside a dead pig...obviously they were so traumatised by this that they were sent to the asylum to recover. There were no follow-ups for any of the children so there's no way of knowing whether or not they recovered.
And this was surely abuse...an eleven year old boy was found in bed with another patient...he was removed to sleep in a different dormitory, but not before having diluted sulphuric acid applied to the end of his penis and around his anus. In case you're wondering, it was known as 'blistering' though usually the blisters were put between the shoulder blades to 'draw out impurities' .
This wasn't the Dark Ages...only in the middle to late 1800's. For most of us here on the Lung Forum, that is when our Grandparents and certainly our Great-Grand parents were alive.
Blistering was a popular remedy for impurities both real and imagined...other remedies were Chloroform...Bromide...Brandy...Digitalis...and Ammonia. One oddity on the list was the administration of two fresh eggs...not to all the child patients...just the one.
The adults were treated, as was popular at the time, with leeches attached to the forehead for sick headaches...and on the stomach for 'hysterical bowels' cold baths weren't just for the epileptics, but for women suffering from hypochondria and fainting fits brought on by hysteria...bleeding was still much in vogue, often carried out as a matter of routine if all other remedies had appeared to fail...opium pills were doled out to quieten the more excitable patients...
I think the image of a small person stuffed inside a newly dead pig and that poor boy with his sulphuric acid blisters will stay with me for a long time...
It makes me wonder if one day in the not so distant future if people will come across information about how patients are treated today and feel the same horror as you did !!! makes you think doesn't it!!
For a time I worked on mental health patient resettlement; during the hospital closures & I became very interested in the history of mental health social approaches & treatments.
Some of the mental health cures included removing all the teeth (the source of Schizophrenia was thought to be in the gums) near drowning, swinging chairs that induced evacuation of stomach, bladder & bowels. Some chairs tipped the person into icy cold water.
Chaining & beatings were applied to drive out what ever as possessing the person, much of the treatment was both ignorant & cruel. No wonder the 'cure' success rate was so low. But then not all countries allow ECT & now it required patient consent in England, unless it's a life-threatening situation .
Our past is indeed curious & cruel; I read once that 'Crusaders' , after abusing the local women, then rubbed them in goose fat, tied them together & set fire to the line. I have never forgotten it.
Lets think of something more gentle or humorous, at least before bedtime.
Many of my patients were toothless...apparently it was said to save on dentistry and prevent nursing staff from being bitten...those ladies had been transferred from the hospital I wrote about...
Yes Vashti and Margaret I wont be able to get a wink of sleep....torturous thoughts will be coming into my head!!! Actually it all makes me marvel at how far us humans have come in the last 100 years or so, the progress of civilization...but we still have a way to go...altruism is the way forward and respect for Mother Earth....quantum physics ....world peace amongst all nations......instead of travelling back in time I'd love a glimpse of what's to come ...in say...another century! huff xxxx
Somebody will be writing about oxygen and will have to explain what oxygen was...lol
The punishment which always makes me wince the most is the one where they stripped all the skin off people then put then in a vat of brine. You can't imagine the pain can you? x
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Wherever did they do that...haven't heard of it...sounds appalling!
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They seemed to do it mainly to witches. 'orrible! x
I heard of a child being put inside a donkey. I heard for myself carlos castaneda relate this story at a seminar i went to. You will have to scroll down to the 33rd paragraph ( "How about your ghosts?" he went on. "Those you can no longer touch?") of the chapter on the link:
Wow this brings back some memories. Was really into Castaneda in my uni days in the early 70's. I think Journey to Ixtlan was my favourite but all were gripping reads.
Good evening vashti, how the human race can do that to each other....and to think that place was closed as recently as the 70's! Give me the animal kingdom any day, I know that sounds trite to many doesn't happen in their world. 🐴 🐔 🐹. Blessings. Leeee.
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Chimps murder each other...lol
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Oh I didn't know that, but they don't torture surely. 😔
A child in a pig made me think of Jonathon Swift, the author, who once in the 1800s wrote a menu for Roast Suckling Child as a satirical attempt to offset the famine in Ireland, which was also undergoing a population explosion, at the same time as the potato blight.
Have a good weekend, everyone !
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huff xxxx
