Robert G. Ingersoll, Out of an Insane Alysum: A Released Patient’s Remarkable Story of Cruel Treatment (New York, March 26, 1880)
These three excerpts come from a document titled Out of an Insane Asylum, describing the very harsh conditions of a mental hospital. The author is Robert G. Ingersoll, was a lawyer, political leader and orator in the early 1900s. Ingersoll had talked to a man name John Carrol and wrote this document about his experience in the Insane Asylum.
The reason for producing this
document was to make people aware of how mentally ill people were treated and
to try to make people act against it to prevent it from happening in the
future. This source seems to be pretty trustworthy because it was published in The New York Times newspaper, which is a newspaper that I have heard
about before. This document was written before the Prison reform which was to
put the mentally insane in hospitals instead of in jails and to care for them
and give them reasonable living quarters. From reading this document, I can
tell that the people who worked at the jails did not treat the mentally ill
nicely and did not give them nice rooms to sleep in. In the excerpt Carrol
tells Ingersoll that one time he wanted to come out of his room and when he
walked out of the room three people attacked him, they beat and kicked him
until he was unconscious. This is just one example of how the patients were
treated at the Insane Asylum. I feel like this document gives me a full picture
of how harshly the mentally ill were treated. This document gives a full
picture because it is very descriptive and explains everything that happens,
but also it is told from the point of view from a person who actually lived in
an Insane Asylum, so we can hear every detail from their torturous life. In the
last paragraph o the excerpt Carrol said that one of his roommates could not
find one of his stockings, the “watcher” got mad and tried to kill the man.
Carrol then says, “While he lay on the floor, Swanson had three violent fits in
succession. When he came to the asylum he was a strong, healthy young man, and
quite inoffensive. In a few weeks he was reduced to almost a skeleton.” This
also shows how the mentally ill were treated. Another thing that this quote
represents what the author is trying to convince. The author is trying to
convince the reader that the mentally ill were beatened almost to the point of
death and were even starved. He proves that when they first come they are very
health but over time they became even sicker. Throughout this document the
author writes in a very serious tone to get the point across of how serious
this situation really was.
The reason for producing this
document was to make people aware of how mentally ill people were treated and
to try to make people act against it to prevent it from happening in the
future. This source seems to be pretty trustworthy because it was published in The New York Times newspaper, which is a newspaper that I have heard
about before. This document was written before the Prison reform which was to
put the mentally insane in hospitals instead of in jails and to care for them
and give them reasonable living quarters. From reading this document, I can
tell that the people who worked at the jails did not treat the mentally ill
nicely and did not give them nice rooms to sleep in. In the excerpt Carrol
tells Ingersoll that one time he wanted to come out of his room and when he
walked out of the room three people attacked him, they beat and kicked him
until he was unconscious. This is just one example of how the patients were
treated at the Insane Asylum. I feel like this document gives me a full picture
of how harshly the mentally ill were treated. This document gives a full
picture because it is very descriptive and explains everything that happens,
but also it is told from the point of view from a person who actually lived in
an Insane Asylum, so we can hear every detail from their torturous life. In the
last paragraph o the excerpt Carrol said that one of his roommates could not
find one of his stockings, the “watcher” got mad and tried to kill the man.
Carrol then says, “While he lay on the floor, Swanson had three violent fits in
succession. When he came to the asylum he was a strong, healthy young man, and
quite inoffensive. In a few weeks he was reduced to almost a skeleton.” This
also shows how the mentally ill were treated. Another thing that this quote
represents what the author is trying to convince. The author is trying to
convince the reader that the mentally ill were beatened almost to the point of
death and were even starved. He proves that when they first come they are very
health but over time they became even sicker. Throughout this document the
author writes in a very serious tone to get the point across of how serious
this situation really was.
