I’ve covered abusive nurses in the old insane asylums, but I also wanted to cover the dangers nurses faced in unregulated insane asylums during the early 20th century. Many of these women were selfless. They worked a thankless job that left them open to abuse and violence.
Some early nurses were not nurses at all. They were poor people forced to work so that the privately owned institution could save a buck or two.
1. She Caught the Crazy
Ada Barker had been an insane asylum nurse in El Paso, Texas, but in 1902 she became a victim of robbery and, it was claimed, she lost her senses after the ordeal. Having no immediate family in the area, the police placed the traumatized woman in the county jail until a judge could decide whether to wait until family arrived to claim her or simply send her to the insane asylum.
According to the physicians who treated the woman after the robbery, Ada caught the crazy after being a nurse in an insane asylum and not because of the robbery.
“Three nurses out of five become the victims of mental disorder. This results from contact with the insane people and its attendant sympathy and suggestion.”
Furthermore…
“The doctors reject with contempt the theory that the girl was drugged for the purpose of robbery or violence and that her mind was thus wrecked. They say she is afflicted with a genuine case of insanity.” [1]
2. She Sounds Crafty But Not Insane
Doctors would send people to the insane asylums for the dumbest reasons, although, ultimately, the more patients under a doctor’s care, the more money he would earn. In 1912, former insane asylum nurse Amelie Leonard escaped from the Worcester State Hospital for the Insane.
Previous to her incarceration in the mental hospital, she had been a nurse there. However, she was also a thief and was caught stealing valuables from the inmates. She was arrested and immediately the doctors said that she had to be insane. Remember, nurses were prone to catching the crazy from their patients.
Amelie was placed in the asylum, but she was obviously having none of it. One night, she put her nightdress over her street clothes and tucked a rolled up blanket into her bed to look like she was asleep. She escaped through the asylum (where she had previously worked) and into the night.
A reward was offered for her arrest, but no word was published about whether or not she was ever found. [2]
3. Contracted Insanity From Patient Bite
According to one popular theory in the early 1900s, insanity was contagious, like the flu or zombies. For example, in 1907 an insane asylum nurse at the Kings Park Insane Hospital in New York, Nellie Halpin, was bitten by a crazy patient. Shortly afterwards, the young woman showed signs of “mental derangement.” She was pronounced insane and sent to the psychopathic ward in the Bellevue hospital. [3]
4. Pauper Nurses
It was one heck of a Massachusetts scandal back in 1883. An almshouse owned by the Marsh family had been taking in paupers and making them care for the insane patients sent to them. It was a deadly disaster.
“As to the inefficiency of the management, it has been proved that insane paupers were made to act as nurses in the hospital, the result being in one case the murder by smothering of a patient by her insane nurse.”
Insane women who were cared for by the pauper nurses endured the worst treatment imaginable.
“Several insane women were confined in solitary rooms, were provided with no clothing whatever and given but little food, several narrowly missing death by starvation.”
When it came to bathing, it was said that the “nurses” made half a dozen people bathe in the same water.
To be fair, things were not all that great for the pauper nurses, either.
“It has been proved by a large number of witnesses that the Marshes sold the dead bodies of paupers to medical schools, burying coffins either empty or filled with sand.” [4]
5. A Tragic Accident
Oftentimes, nurses lived in rooms provided by the insane asylum. That was the case for Farie Murphy in 1912. She had been a well-liked nurse at the asylum in North Dakota for three years and wanted to brighten the floors in her room.
Farie lit her alcohol stove and began melting paraffin wax, but by some freak accident her hair caught on fire. She screamed and thrashed, causing her clothing to also light up.
Nurses and doctors ran to her aid, but it was too late. After they put out the fire with her bed covers, they saw that her burns were deep and severe. She was not going to live.
Being conscious and in extreme pain, Farie was able to tell her co-workers what had happened and was able to leave a final written message to her mother and sister.
Heavy opiates were administered to help her through the pain, and she passed away a few hours later. [5]
6. Stabbed With Scissors
In 1906, Nurse Wicke was doing her job at the Matteawan Hospital for Insane Criminals when one of her patients grabbed a pair of scissors and began stabbing her.
How this patient got hold of the scissors is unknown. In all probability, patients were, at that time, allowed to use sharp objects while doing busy work prescribed by the doctors.
Sadly, the nurse did not survive the attack and no one really seemed surprised by the inmate’s behavior. After all, the inmate had previously murdered her mother, husband, and daughter. [6]
