Scary Asylums of the Past

There is no way out……

Creepy photos of old asylums.

Serbian Psychiatric Hospital. Photo taken by George Georgiou who worked in Kosovo and Serbia between 1999 and 2002.

Female patients receiving Radium Therapy, early 20th century

Chair used to calm hysterical patients–looks an awful lot like an electric chair

An insane asylum patient restrained by warders, Yorkshire, 1869, Henry Clarke.

A patient undergoing lateral cerebral diathermia treatment in the early 1920’s. Diathermia used a galvanized current to jolt psychosis sufferers. Doctors eventually deemed it unsafe and unreliable.

Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA insane asylum, 1870’s.

A chronic schizophrenic patient stands in a catatonic position. He maintained this uncomfortable position for hours

The Pilgram Psychiatric Center in Long Island, NY, USA could house as many as 14,000 patients at a time. This self-sufficient mental asylum adopted extremely aggressive methods of “curing the insane”. Lobotomies and electric shock therapy were the norm. The doctors at this asylum started using large doses of insulin and metrozol to drive patients into a violent coma, just to be rid of them.

Basement Dining

A list of actual reasons for admission into the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum from the late 1800s.

Pilgrim State Hospital Brentwood NY, USA 1940s

Lobotomy tools

Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry. Man in restraints, B, violent ward. 1945

Mechanical slapping massage device at BC sanitarium

Norwich State Hospital, Connecticut, USA

A mother who has tuberculous, and is on strict bed rest, leaves her room at the sanatorium for a Sunday walk with her family…. but she does not leave her bed.

Made by a paranoid schizophrenic patient

Cuenca, Spain, 1961 Insane asylum

Sections of brain encased in wax. West Park Mental Hospital ‘Mortuary’

Washington, D.C., circa 1921. “Foundling Hospital, playroom.” Tots at the Washington Asylum for ‘Foundlings’

Self harm at an Asylum, 1964

Patients in steam cabinets, c 1910.

An X-ray image of needles driven into the flesh by a psychiatric patient.

Abandoned asylum, Limbiate, Italy

In the late 19th century it was a widely held belief that masturbation caused insanity and devices such as this were designed to prevent the wearer from touching or stimulating himself. They were often used in mental institutions.

17th-Century Insanity Mask.

Hydrotherapy first used in the early 1900s, Immersion in a tub of water to make a patient relax when agitated or relieve some ailment, lasted a few hours to overnight. 1936

Self decorated patient, Asylum life 1800s

Sunland Asylum…Dr. Freeman, the quack who invented lobotomies. The procedure turned most ‘problem’ patients into zombies.