List of reasons for admission to mental asylum 1864 to 1899

[dixiegrrrrl]

( my favorite...novel reading)

[Trajan]

1. LOL to 'Masturbation for 30 years'

"Is THAT all? ...."

[ailsagirl]

2. Salvation Army??

Egotism?
Business nerves?

POLITICS!!!!!!

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. "gathering in the head"

[intrepidity]

4. No way, this can't be true

"Greediness"??? If only

[NightWatcher]

5. Time of Life? Wtf is that?

[dixiegrrrrl]

9. One of the many euphemisms for menopause.

Women's bodily functions were very hush hush and many euphemisms were used.

[Solly Mack]

6. Apparently there was an amount of masturbation considered reasonable...

as well as a certain way (no smoking while...), and you must be free of certain diseases (but not all)...but you must do it, otherwise you're suppressing, as long as you don't do it for 30 years.

Masturbation and Syphilis
Masturbation for 30 years
Tobacco and Masturbation
Deranged Masturbation
Suppressed Masturbation


I won't even get into some of the others.

[southerncrone]

7. Heck, I'd OWN an number of asylums based on these reasons!

[annabanana]

8. lots of reasons to lock up women on that list

Desertion by Husband
Female Disease
Rumor of Husband Murder
Ill Treatment by Husband
Imaginary Female Trouble

Boy! you LOOK at a guy cross-eyed and you've had it Sister!

[eppur_se_muova]

10. Well, "Uterine Derangement" would be a little more publishable than "Pussy Riot".

Hope somebody grabs that one.

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. Lol......good point.

[TexasBushwhacker]

12. "Political Excitement"

Lock me up!

[IrishEyes]

13. I would be locked up.

Novel Reading and Politics. Especially since I'm a woman.

This fascinating.

I find over action of the mind, mental excitement, overtaxing mental powers strange. It sounds like how I would feel when I would study for finals in college.

I see that all of the seven deadly sins are here. Of course, my know that might qualify for the religious enthusiasm reason.

[trof]

14. Where did you find this?

Bryce Hospital for the Insane?
It's in Tuscaloosa.

[dixiegrrrrl]

15. Found it on Borowitz site.

Someone wrote in and said it was a State Hospital in the East somewhere had some architectural fame for how it was built.

[postulater]

16. My Gggggrandfather died in an asylum in the 1880s.

After leaving Ireland during the Great Starvation he spent four years fighting in the Mexican War. Got hepatitis and then went insane. I don't think it was masturbation since he had twelve kids.

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. So did one of my relative.

My Grandmother, born in 1898, had a brother, named John...and 6 sisters.
Big family, as was common turn of the century.
And, as was common, not rich, so the brother left home aged 17.
and no one heard from him again.
This was just before the Depression, and of course during it work as hard to find.
and it is an Irish family, and they drank.

The missing brother was part of family lore.
When my Grandmother died, in 1983, her oldest son had to probate the estate, and had to account for all the relatives, including the missing brother.
Damned if he did not find him, too.
The brother had been locked up in the state mental hospital, 60 miles away from the city where all the family lived, sometime in the early 1930's..
He had had severe case of Dt's, was a serious alcoholic.
And, back then, once you were locked up, and with no family or help, you stayed in the hospital.
apparently he did not know where the family had moved to, after he left home.
He died in the late 1930's there.

[postulater]

18. Some amazing stories when you start digging.