Top 10 HORRIFYING Mental ASYLUMS 10. Topeka State Hospital Where : Topeka, Kansas
Years of Operation: 1872 to 1997 It’s hard to come to grips with the medical
justification for castration, but somehow the practitioners at Topeka State Hospital
found the practice suitable. After Kansas law saw it fit to administer
castrations for “habitual criminals, idiots, epileptics, imbeciles, and insane” in 1931,
Topeka State Hospital went on to perform 54 castrations. If castrations were not enough to frighten
you, accounts detail stories of a patient who had been strapped down so long that his
skin began to grow over the straps. In addition, patients were victims of rape
and other forms of abuse. What makes the abuse of patients at this hospital
so disconcerting is that it was later revealed that many of the identities and illnesses
of the patients were unknown, with the hospital lacking the proper paperwork for them to be
committed. Somehow, the Topeka State Hospital remained
open until 1997. 9. Waverly Hills Sanatorium Where: Louisville, Kentucky
Years of Operation: 1910 to 1961 The Waverly Hills Sanatorium is another case
that demonstrates man’s willingness to experiment on his fellowman with little regard or concern
for his well-being. While not exactly deemed a mental asylum,
the Kentucky hospital housed tuberculosis patients during an era of medical uncertainty
on the subject. Without a prevailing paradigm for medical
treatment of tuberculosis, doctors resorted to barbaric methods. Cases of doctors’ removing ribs and muscles,
and even having inserted balloons into the lungs to help them expand more are well-documented. The death rate at Waverly Hills Sanatorium
has come under fire with independent researchers and medical personnel at the sanatorium claiming
different figures. According to Assistant Medical Director Dr.
J. Frank W. Stewart, the highest number of deaths in a single year at Waverly Hills was
152. Independent researchers have argued that number
is closer to 162, and have extrapolated that over 50 years Waverly Hills Sanatorium was
open, approximately 8,212 died in their care. 8. Overbrook Insane Asylum Where: Cedar Grove, New Jersey
Years of Operation: 1896 to 1975 Operations began in 1896, with Essex County
officials designating 325 acres of land as the new location of the County Asylum for
the mentally ill. Specifically chosen for its scenic view, officials
believed its remote location and high altitude location would provide a healthy, peaceful
setting for patients to rehabilitate in. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Soon after opening, the patient-to-staff ratio
became unbalanced, leaving too many patients in need of care that they weren’t getting
from an overworked staff. The results were frightening. Conditions were so bad that 24 patients froze
to death in their own beds in the early 20th century while more than 150 patients went
missing and were never found. Despite all of this, Overbrook remained open
for nearly a century, eventually closing in the 1970s. 7. Willowbrook State School Where: Staten Island, New York
Years of Operation: 1947 to 1987 One of the most important cases on our list
is the Willowbrook State School – a state sponsored institution for children who were
intellectually disabled that became the catalyst for reform of mental health institutions. Things were so bad at Willowbrook that during
the 1960s, Robert Kennedy referred to it as “zoo-like” and a “snake-pit.” Initially designed for 4,000 children, by
1965 Willowbrook contained a population of 6,000 people. First-hand accounts claimed that patients
were left to wander around the facility covered in their own urine and feces. However, what’s more troubling is the experiments
that the doctors carried out on the very children they were supposed to care for. Struggling to find answers about the outbreak
of Hepatitis, medical researcher Saul Krugman “used the children of Willowbrook to answer
those questions. One of his studies involved feeding live hepatitis
virus to sixty healthy children,” according to researcher and author Paul Offit. “Krugman watched as their skin and eyes
turned yellow and their livers got bigger. He watched them vomit and refuse to eat. All the children fed hepatitis virus became
ill, some severely. Krugman reasoned that it was justifiable to
inoculate retarded children at Willowbrook with hepatitis virus because most of them
would get hepatitis anyway. But by purposefully giving the children hepatitis,
Krugman increased that chance to 100 percent.” The great horrors of Willowbrook led to the
passage of a federal law — the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act of 1980 6. Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum Where: Weston, West Virginia
Years of Operation: 1864 to 1994 An amalgamation of many of our other cases,
the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum had it all. Built to house only 250 patients, by 1949,
the hospital had over 2,400 people in its care. A 1938 report by a survey committee organized
by a group of North American medical organizations found that the hospital housed “epileptics,
alcoholics, drug addicts and non-educable mental defectives” among its population. Those that they were not able to control were
locked in cages with others even being lobotomized with rudimentary instruments such as ice picks. All in all, the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum’s
horrible treatment of patients undoubtedly contributed to the tens of thousands of lives
the asylum claimed during its surprisingly long years of operation. 5. Byberry Mental Hospital
Where: Byberry, Pennsylvania Years of Operation: 1907 to 1987 Civil disobedience seems to have gotten a
bad reputation in our current political climate, but it’s certainly effective. When Charlie Lord, a conscientious objector,
was assigned to duty at the hospital, he took 36 black-and-white photographs which was enough
to shut down Byberry Mental Hospital. The photos led to mass outrage with even First
Lady Eleanor Rossevelt pledging her support to combat the issue. Other reformers compared the conditions to
“nazi concentration camps,” and described the overcrowded conditions where patients
were sleeping in their own feces and urine. Multiple first-hand accounts describe the
overwhelming filth of the facility and the patients’ ability to roam the facility naked. Lord’s images of the inhumane conditions
were published in a 1946 issue of Life magazine, and sparked widespread reforms of mental health
facilities. With public pressure growing, the facility
was force to downsize and eventually close its doors. 4. Bloomingdale Insane Asylum Where: Morningside Heights, New York City
Years of Operation: 1821 to 1880 Established in 1821, the Bloomingdale Insane
Asylum was formed with the intention of morally rehabilitated mentally ill patients. However, the hospital’s practices strayed
greatly from its “moral” principles. Journalist Julius Chambers managed to expose
its revolting practices in 1872 by taking extraordinary measures. With the help of a senior editor of the New
York Tribune, Chambers managed to have himself committed to the Asylum for ten days. After exiting the institution, “he published
a story detailing the inhuman practices at the asylum, including patients who were kicked
and choked until they bled, and, in some cases, “driven to suicide by systematic cruelties.” As a result of his muckraking, the Bloomindagle’s
Insane Asylum was forced to release twelve patients at the facility who were not mentally
ill. In addition, Chambers’ subsequent book,
A Mad World and Its People, led to reform for the rights of the mentally ill. 3. Pilgrim Psychiatric Center Where: Brentwood, New York
Years of Operation: 1941 to Present In the case of Pilgrim Psychiatric Center,
the gross misconduct of a single patient is more telling than the rampant abuse of its
populace. In the 1940s, Belulah Jones was taken to Pilgrim
Psychiatric Center, at the time the largest hospital/asylum in the world. Belulah was admitted by her husband after
her pregnancy with her last child, resulted in psychosis. Familly members state that her husband consented
to the leukotomy only because doctors said it would work and was the only alternative. There, Beulah Jones had 15 rounds of electroshock
over 10 weeks, despite her delusions continuing. Later, a lobotomy was performed where doctors
drilled holes into her brain and swiped at the frontal lobes. Belulah Jones’s story led Christine Johnson,
her grand-daughter, to pour over her file and demand answers on the use of the medieval
practices and why a Nobel peace prize would be awarded to a man that legitimized lobotomy
and made it into a public practice, Dr. Egais Moniz. After spending decades in the facility, in
1972, Belulah Jones was released. Somehow Pilgrim Psychiatric center is still
open today. 2. Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital Where: Morris Plains, New Jersey
Years of Operation: 1876 to present Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital does not
differ greatly from many of the other wards on this list. It was guilty of overpopulation – squeezing
2,412 patients in a space meant to hold no more than 1,600. Additionally, Greystone administered Insulin
shock therapy, electroconvulsive therapy on veterans suffering from PTSD. However, what makes Greystone unique is the
fact that it housed one of the legends of folk music, Woody Guthrie. Guthrie had a stint at Greystone from 1956
to 1961; he was suffering from Huntington’s disease, a hereditary, degenerative nervous
disorder which would eventual prove terminal. During his stay there, Woody referred to Greystone
as “Gravestone.” Guthrie wrote hundreds of letters from “Wardy
Forty”, the nickname of his hospital wing, which goes to show that patients who are diagnosed
with mental illness still need the human contact and interaction that we all do. 1. Pennhurst Insane Asylum Where: Spring City, Pennsylvania
Years of Operation: 1908 to 1987 While abuse to any patient is reprehensible,
Pennhurst Insane Asylum’s treatment of children puts it in a league of its own. Built to educate and care for the mentally
disabled, Pennhurst soon came to be identified for just the opposite. As a result of investigative reporter Bill
Baldini, in 1968, the public learned of the horrible conditions in the asylum. The news report, titled “Suffer the Little
Children, showed neglected children’s screams filling the air, large scale physical and
sexual abuse and a general lack of empathy towards patients. The report also revealed that children who
bit one another got a warning, with a second warning leading to a child’s teeth being
pulled out. After a second report by former resident Terry
Lee Halderman, the courts found that over 3,000 of the institution’s patients were
not receiving adequate care, and the institution was closed.
