Insane Asylums Search In the 1800’s and earlier you could be institutionalized for a wide variety of things: Wives and daughters who did not obey their husbands or fathers could be put away, alcoholics, depressed people, “angry people”, women in menopause, and people going against the norm...
Wilkins—'com- missioner in lunacy for the State of California'—opened his report on insanity and asylums with the question: What is insanity? This question has been always asked but perhaps has never been satisfactorily answered, for the simple reasons that insanity assumes so many forms and ...