In the late 1800s and early 1900s, doctors and surgeons performed numerous experiments on those who were labeled insane. Some of the experiments were benign, such as the experiments with music therapy, whereas other so called experiments were harmful or exploited the free labor.
The following list are some of the more common experiments performed on the insane.
Moving Pictures
One of the biggest complaints about old asylums was that the patients were extremely bored. Oftentimes, all they had to do was stare at a wall and after days, weeks, months, and years of just staring at a dirty wall, some of the patients really did go insane.
In 1904, however, a doctor decided to try something a little different with the 400 patients in the Dunning Asylum. He put on a movie for them.
Instantly, the patients began to pay attention. Nervous patients were soothed and melancholy patients were distracted from their personal troubles. Showing the movie worked so well, in fact, that the doctor decided to purchase a “movie picture machine” for the asylum and give his patients a movie night once a week. [1]
Embalming Experiment
Graham H. Hamrick, a German farmer who lived in West Virginia, began recovering the lost art of embalming. At first he practiced on animals and then, in 1891, he felt he was ready to test out his solution on the bodies of the insane.
He went to the state hospital for the insane and gained the permission he needed to experiment on two deceased bodies. After he was given custody of the bodies, he began his embalming process.
After an hour had passed, he invited the hospital authorities in to take a look at his work. The bodies were nearly lifelike and there were no signs of mutilation:
“Since that time the two bodies have been continually exposed to the air and all kinds of climatic changes, but they are still perfect and lifelike. They are in his room [in his cabin] lying on a table, looking as natural as when living.”
The home was open to the public in case anyone wished to see his success with embalming, however very few people bothered to visit his cabin out of fear and general disgust. [2]
Insane Labor
One popular experiment performed in the insane asylums was farm labor. The premise of the idea was that some of the insane patients could be taught how to farm. In turn, the asylum would be able to produce food to feed all the inmates and sell the produce for the supposed care of the inmates. It sounds innocent enough, but the truth behind the experiment was far darker.
You see, when people were sent to the asylum, whether they were truly mentally ill or not, their properties and all of their assets were handed over to the asylums. The asylums made a profit off the sales of the properties and the confiscation of bank accounts. Then they began working the presumed insane people, profiting further from the free labor.
Some asylums, such as the one in Norristown, Pennsylvania, forced the inmates to produce brushes, rugs, chairs, and other essential home items. These items were then sold to the public at a profit that benefited the higher ups of the asylum. [3]
A Painting of Christ
In 1907, the physicians at the State Hospital for the Insane in Ohio decided to test how a painting would affect their inmates. They hung Hofmann’s “Christ Knocking at the Door” on a wall, illuminated it with electric lights, and waited to see what happened. Their hope was that the painting would cure their insane patients, but all that happened was a few of the patients fell to their knees and cried. No one was cured by the experiment. [4]
Paralysis
In an attempt to cure paralysis among the insane, the London County Mental Hospital set up a room filled with malaria-infected mosquitoes in 1927. Inside this room, paralyzed patients were bitten by the mosquitoes in the hope that they would be cured of their paralysis.
Of the forty-five patients experimented upon, nine of the patients recovered from their paralysis and were let go from the mental hospital. Thirteen of the patients were said to have shown improvement after the bites. Ten of the patients showed no improvement and five died as a result of the treatment. The remaining patients were still undergoing the mosquito bite experiment. [5]
Free Range and Gruesome Deaths
It was a huge scandal back in Illinois, 1908. Dr. George A. Zeller, a superintendent for an insane asylum, had a “no restraint” rule at the hospital that allowed patients to roam the countryside unsupervised. His goal was to prove that allowing his patients some freedom would help cure them of insanity.
One of his patients, a murderer, left the asylum and murdered another man. One woman died from exposure and another, nearly blind, froze to death. One patient drank carbolic acid left out by a nurse and died. Two men died after being scalded to death in the baths due to an attendant who was not paying attention to what was going on.
To make matters even worse, word got out that this same asylum practiced the water drip punishment where a “prisoner is bound helpless, while on him beats a ceaseless succession of drops of water until the tiny splashes finally impose the agony of hammer blows and the sufferer loses his reason.”
Some patients were found to have been locked up alone inside dark cells for as long as two years at a time. [6]
Gland Transplant
In the early 1900s, there was a lot of experimentation with “glands.” Some doctors put the glands of animals in patients to improve their virility while other doctors used gland transplants as a way to undo aging.
In 1921, one surgeon claimed that he had cured insanity with a gland transplant. According to the article, the surgeon transplanted a gland from a sane women into a crazy woman. The end result was that the presumed crazy woman turned sane from the operation.
Of course, the surgeon refused to tell whether the gland came from a living or dead sane woman and he refused to say which gland it was. [7]
Shopping as Insanity Cure
Did you think that shopping therapy was something new? Well, guess what? It was an experimental treatment for the insane back in 1907.
The officials of the St. Louis Insane Asylum decided to give the women of the asylum a shopping treatment one Christmas. Sixty women patients were dressed in normal clothes and taken out to a local department store. There they were able to walk around and window shop.
The results were excellent and the women loved the change of pace. It was said that they hated having to return to the asylum after a full day at the store. [8]
