Medical doctors of the early 1900s had some rather weird ideas on how to cure insanity. Never mind that anyone exhibiting any number of mental illnesses was placed under the generic label of insane, and more than likely incurable.
Some of these early doctors truly wanted to find a non-invasive cure to mental illness. However, there were plenty of other doctors who simply wanted to carve apart the human brain.
Hairdresser Cure
In 1947, an amazing cure for insane women was published in a newspaper. According to the article, the staff of the Lancashire County Mental Hospital in England were giving women patients hairdos and it seemed to be making the women “normal.”
In fact, fixing up their patients’ hair worked so well that the mental hospital hired two professional hairdressers. As soon as a patient began to complain about the hairstyle she received from the staff, she was considered well enough to get a professional hairdo, and was well on her way to becoming sane once again. [1]
Insulin Shock
It was long thought that shocking the system would somehow jolt a person out of insanity in much the same way some hospitals continue to use electric shock torture to scramble a troubled patient’s brain.
In 1938 it was announced that some Viennese medical doctors were using insulin to shock the nervous system of the insane. They claimed that the jolt snapped patients back into the realm of the sane. [2]
The Thyroid Gland of a Sheep
Animals were often sacrificed to find a cure to insanity and, in 1911, one of those cures involved giving patients a pill made from the thyroid gland of sheep. This experiment was performed in the Royal Edinburgh Asylum for the Insane and, according to the doctor who came up with the idea, the treatment showed signs of reversing some forms of insanity. [3]
Violet Colored Living
Dr. N. W. Taylor was convinced, back in 1906, that violet rays cured the insane. In fact, he went on to build a sun room made of violet glass and tested it on his patients. He said:
“I have constructed a house roofed with violet colored glass, in which insane patients are placed to get the sun baths that filter through the tinted panes. I have followed the experiments made by French and Danish scientists. The patients are placed in the enclosure, without clothing, and direct application made to the bare skin from sunrise to sunset. The rays are especially good in those cases of insanity due to nervous disorders. They have a soothing and sedative effect, and a number of my patients have passed from the violent to the passive stage. They are improving all the time.” [4]
Cure by Music
At the state asylum in Massillon, Ohio, 1910, Dr. Eyman began experimenting with the effects of music on his patients. He found that some of his patients responded favorably to live piano music. He then experimented with other instruments being played for his patients until one of his attendants brought in a gramophone (record player). The gramophone brought about a complete change in many of his insane patients. He would play military band music to patients who acted immaturely and it seemed to change their moods completely. The good doctor felt that music would cure all his patients. All he had to do was discover the right instruments and the right musical genres for each mental illness. [5]
Cutting Out Parts of the Skull
It was 1908 and a doctor determined to cure insanity decided to study brain injuries. In the course of his research, he concluded that “blows on the side of the head are productive of melancholy; on the vortex of the head, religious insanity; and a blow over the left eye has caused an inability to judge distances, size, and weight.” These injuries could have happened ten or twenty years previous to the insanity, but the doctor felt that it was a relevant cause to the insanity.
After this discovery the doctor had no choice but to “cure” crazy patients by cutting and removing parts of their skull. For one of his bone removal surgeries, “an incision was made from the top of the head vertically down to each ear… After several trephining had been made, the bone was cut away on the right side,” exposing the brain. After the chunk of skull was permanently removed, the patient was sewn back together and seemed to be cured of his insanity. [6]
