Social Outlook of the Mentally Ill during the 17th & 18th Century Europe

    

(Royal College of Physicians, n.d.)

     Society today has a different outlook on mental illness, as oppose to early European times.  Even though there may still be stigma’s present, overall the view has changed.  There have been significant improvements in the area of mental health.  Medications have improved, new therapies, and integrating individuals into communities instead of segregating them.  Looking back in history to the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe, it is apparent that people who had a mental illness were shunned from society, and families who had members that were mentally ill were filled with shame.  At times the mentally ill were looked at as having moral failings, criminal mindset, and some viewed them as sinners.  These individuals were treated more like animals, and subjected to inhumane acts.

     The language alone that is used to describe individuals who had a mental illness during the 17th and 18th centuries of Europe paints a grim picture of how these individuals may have been treated.  Individuals were referred to as lunatics, mad, and deranged.  Individuals who were deemed a lunatic or mad would have exhibited behaviour that violated societal norms.  Examples of such behaviour could have been episodes of psychosis, impulsive behaviour, and melancholia.  The language alone that was used in the past segregates individuals from the rest of society.  These individuals would have been feared, looked upon as dangerous, odd, and they may have been seen as sinners. During this time it was thought that they needed to be confined in areas away from the rest of society.  

     There were no resources available during this time and according to Rosen (1963) “there was evidence that up until the end of the 18th century there were no real hospitals for the care and treatment of the mentally ill, only places they were kept" (p.220).   It was viewed that most mentally ill had the right to poor relief.  Therefore, it was the families that had to deal with such individuals, and not the community (Shorter, n.d. p. 2).  There have been a number of recordings of heart-wrenching stories that have occurred during periods of home treatment of the mentally ill.  Such stories are in the form of inhumane acts that were imposed upon the mentally ill while under the care of their family.  Through the research of Shorter (n.d.) there are accounts of torturous acts that were recorded by Anton Muller.  Anton Muller was the chief of psychiatry in 1798 at the Royal Julius Hospital in Wurzburg.  It was recorded that patients coming from home care often had backs that were beaten blue, with bloody wounds.  There is a recording of a man being chained to the wall of their house by his wife .  It is also said that many of the mentally ill restrained in the home were done so in unheated rooms or in stables where food was brought to them daily.  If insane persons were not restrained in the home, they were often subdued to the same acts in workhouses, or poorhouses.  There is also evidence of royalty being impacted by mental illness, and the treatment was not far from different of that of the lower class citizens.  Literature has brought forth evidence that King George III experienced episodes of delirium in the year 1788.  These episodes led to the suggestion that King George was mentally ill.  He too was confined to his bed through violent means, including medicines, blisters, the use of a straight coat, and restraining chairs (Ingram, 1991). 

     Into the late 1800’s and early 1900’s insane asylums were being introduced.  The burden of families taking care of the mentally ill was slowly changing to a more institutionalized model.  By placing these people into asylums, society was able to turn a blind eye and forget about the mentally ill.  Patients in the asylums still endured painful treatments and inhumane techniques were still used.  Patients were exposed to strait jackets, sedatives, seclusion and restraints.  Physicians during this time believed that the body was governed by four humours: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile.  It was thought that too much black bile caused madness.  Treatments such as, blood -letting, purging, blisters, and vomiting were all seen to help rectify certain imbalances (Royal College of Physicians, n.d.).  Literature suggests that these institutions were crowded, with little personal space for men and women, and hygiene was poor.  

     The early centuries of Europe have proven to be a trying time for individuals living with mental illness.  Many individuals were vulnerable to painful, torturous acts, they were ridiculed and made a spectacle of.  Society during this time was successful in creating a severely oppressive atmosphere for the men and women deemed insane.  I think that through history there have been significant changes to this view.  We may no longer see inhumane treatment of individuals, but certain attitudes still create stigma.  During this present day I believe what was set in the early European history still trickles into the 21st century. 

~Alissa

References

     Ingram, A. (1991).  The Madhouse of Language: Writing and Reading Madness in the Eighteenth Century.  Available from http://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=LT8qbczA09gC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=madhouse+&ots=KxmeKS2lFS&sig=EUc2B2ynEkcpXKpdPAtn8Zqo2Jo

     Rosen, G. (1963). Social Attitudes to Irrationality and Madness in the 17^th& 18^th Century Europe. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, XVIII(3): 220-240. Doi:10.1093/jhmas/XVIII.3.220

     Royal College of Physicians.  (n.d).  Inside Bedlam.  Retrieved Oct 18, 2012 from http://old.rcplondon.ac.uk/HISTORY-HERITAGE/EXHIBITIONS/PAST-EXHIBITIONS/INSIDE-BEDLAM/Pages/Inside-Bedlam.aspx

     Shorter, E. (n.d.). A History of Psychiatry: From the Era of the Asylum to the Age of Prozac. Retrieved Oct 17, 2012 from http://shs.westport.K12.ct.us/jwb/Psychology/AbPsych/Birth%20of%20Psychiatry.pdf