Insane asylums

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Some people are so mentally deficient that they cannot, on their own, function in normal society. This is the result of greatly diminished mental capacity either through natural causes or from significant substance abuse. The question has long been, what to do with these people? How to tend to them?

In old agrarian societies somebody with mental problems would be considered to be extremely stupid and to hold ridiculous ideas. They would be slotted into the role of 'the village idiot'. Still, they were familiar to all. They had a role in that society and would be accepted as part of it and tended to. As we urbanized caring for them became more problematic. Rather than just being the simple-minded and foolish neighbor, they became an unpredictable stranger who may, or may not of, be a danger.

From the 19th through the early 20th centuries they attempted to solve that problem by housing them, and caring for them, in large institutions. While well intentioned, it did not work well. Housing so many delusional and/or mentally deficient people led to too much chaos to be easily controlled, and so the places naturally devolved into rigid and frequently inhumane confinements. It is an issue we still struggle with.

These are a small sample of engravings about those old insane asylums. The cruelty and bedlam (a word derived from these asylums) of the places are depressingly captured by them.