There’s a lot we could be doing better in the field of mental health, and there’s still a lot we don’t know about the brain and its functions. Yet there is one thing we can say: we have made some progress.
Don’t believe us? Then take a look at the barbaric practices that doctors with actual degrees used to do to people suffering from mental illness.
1. Hydrotherapy
This is not the nice, relaxing bath you’re thinking of. Hydrotherapy in the old days could be pretty brutal, and included strong jets of water blasted at patients and ice-cold baths. Patients were often restrained in the tubs.
2. Sleep deprivation
Due to overcrowding in Camarillo Mental Hospital, patients had to sleep in shifts. Some doctors thought that the zombie-like state caused by sleep deprivation was a good thing and could help with depression. They were wrong; depression can actually be a symptom of sleep deprivation.
3. Malaria injections
Usually, malaria is something you inoculate against. For a while, however, it was used on people with neurosyphilis. The idea was that the malaria would cause a fever and burn out the syphilis bacteria.
4. Sterilization
Sterilization, usually without the patient’s consent, was used on schizophrenic patients and other people with mental illness. Dr. Julius Wagner-Jauregg thought excessive masturbation caused schizophrenia, so he administered this to some of his patients. Sterilization was also historically used on minority and poor women as a means of eugenics, also without their consent.
5. The Utica crib
So named for its development at the Utica Psychiatric Center, these coffin-like boxes were meant to restrain patients who couldn’t keep still. They usually caused more panic, and even shock.
6. Electroconvulsive therapy
Also known as electroshock therapy, this therapy saw patients restrained and then hit with surges of electricity, which was thought to cure a variety of mental illnesses. It’s still used today, but very rarely and in very specific circumstances. It’s known to cause some memory loss.
7. Insulin shock therapy
As a “treatment” for schizophrenia, patients would be injected with huge doses of insulin, which would cause them to fall into comas for days at a time. Its inventor, Dr. Manfred Sakel, believed that after waking from the coma, patients would be cured. They weren’t.
8. Transorbital lobotomy
For about 20 years in the 20th century, doctors thought that simply severing neural pathways in the brain would cure mental illness. A sharp object would be inserted into the eye socket or nose to achieve this. If you consider turning someone into a vegetable to be a cure, then they were right.
9. Organ removal
In the early 20th century (yes, that recently), one Dr. Henry Cotton thought that mental disorders stemmed from bacterial infections of the organs. The solution? To just take those organs out. Needless to say, the mortality rate was pretty high, and we’re still baffled that people went along with this.
10. Trepanning
Trepanning, which dates back to the Neolithic era, was literally when surgeons would drill a hole in a person’s skull to treat mental issues, as well as migraines and other head pain. It was believed to let out evil spirits. The crazy thing was that it actually sometimes worked, and people were known to survive, even 10,000 years ago. Ouch.
(via BuzzFeed)
All of these treatments are pretty terrible. Be happy that we’re continuing to make progress, and learning to be more compassionate, in the field of mental health.
