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Treatment of Early Mental Illnesses
In the early 1800's people with mental illnesses were treated with extreme cruelty. The idea of the time was that the mentally deranged were cursed with unclean spirits. They believed that they were willingly perverse and because of this they should be treated as beasts. Many "crazed persons" were chained in jails or poor-houses with sane people, not treated just controlled. -
Benjamin Rush Publishes Book
His book was called "Medical Inquiries and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind". This book classified different forms of mental illness and to theorize as their causes and possible cures. This was a very radical idea for the time and while his idea was wrong on the reasons for mental illnesses, he helped pave the way for others. -
Dorothea Dix Petition
Dorothea Dix sent her petition to the Massachusetts legislature in 1843 to improve conditions within insane asylums. This petition gained more understanding on the idea that the demented were not willfully disobedient but mentally ill. -
Bill for the Benefit for the Indigent Insane
This bill was to set aside 12 million acres of federal land for the benifit of the insane. However it was vetoed by presdent Franklin Pearson because they did not want to comit the federal government helping others and that it was the state's responsibility. -
Kraeplein Publishes Book
His book was called "Compendium der Psychiatrie", it argued that psyciatry should be respected as a natural science and should be investigated through experimentation and observation.
