
In the review of The Architecture of Madness: Insane Asylums in the United States and Curing the Insane in New Orleans: The Failure of the “Temporary Insane Asylum” it is shown how insane asylums were unproductive and misguided in previous years. These articles relate to the narrative Ten Days in a Mad-House by demonstrating the overall theme that insane asylums were not helping cure their patients. Doctors did not have proper research or knowledge when using methods to try to help cure these patients. Along with not helping their patients, many doctors made their patients mental state even worse than when they were checked in. People could be taken in by police officers with very minimal evidence of insanity and checked into an asylum. Since it was very easy to be checked in, many poor people with low economic status were put into asylums. In many of the public funded asylums the doctors were relatively clueless; and did not have the funds or determination to figure out ways to properly help their patients. Some doctors even believed that architecture of the building would purely help cure patients, this was found to be false after years of trials without success. Both sources above show that Nellie Bly’s experience in an insane asylum was occurring to people all over the country in different asylums. 

During this time period many people were brought into insane asylums on little evidence of insanity. Many poor people that were picked up on the street by police officers were brought in, and put into an asylum in a short period of time. “Victor Wallace, an insane man, was arrested by Officer Lahey while wandering the street yesterday and he was taken to the second District station. He appears to be a hopeless imbecile. He will be sent to the asylum today” (Vandal 166). This occurred many times throughout this time period, when officers did not know what to do with people they sent them to insane asylums. Once these people were sent to the asylums there was nearly no hope from that point on helping their mental state. Since the majority of these people were poor, they would be sent to the public funded insane asylums which were not the best asylums for treatment. The doctors with high education in this field would not work at these asylums, they worked at private practices where they could make more money. The amount of people being deemed insane was on the rise. In New Orleans, 192 people were deemed insane during the year 1880 (Vandal 166). With lack of research and knowledge, many doctors had obscure theories about how to treat these patients. Certain doctors believed that the architecture of the building directly correlated to patients cure of insanity. These buildings would replicate Greek temples, and other figures that were meant to give off the sensation of warmth. Eventually doctors realized that this was not the cure after many years of trials with very few successes. 

In Ten Days in a Mad-House Nellie Bly discusses her personal experiences when she spent ten days in one of the worst insane asylums. When Bly arrived to the asylum, she was examined by the doctor and his nurse. The nurse could not even read what height or weight she was. These so called “experts” that were supposed to help cure patients were not even educated themselves, let alone in any good enough mental state to help those who were thought to be insane. The nurses also explained to Bly how she was lucky to be in the asylum, and how it was basically a charity. When Bly gave suggestions to the doctor about improving the facilities, he nearly shrugged them off, displaying how he was not very concerned about the patients well-being. In Curing the Insane in New Orleans: The Failure of the “Temporary Insane Asylum” Vandal states how some of the mental illnesses the doctors diagnosed patients with were “feebleminded”, and even “idiotic”. (Vandal 176). This historical context displays that doctors were not only uneducated in dealing with these patients, but lacked the interest in finding a cure. Most doctors did not have proper training or necessities to establish a method of treatment, and decided to basically give up on helping their patients. Along with not having proper treatment, the patients were treated as peasants with lack of any freedom or liberty. According to Barber mental asylums were designed to help cure patients, even though they were locked inside a tiny cell with nothing to do but stare at blank walls. Once checked in, all patients gave up their freedom and were under the rule of the workers of the asylum. 

The food, clothing, and clean water was something that Bly struggled with in her stay at Blackwell’s Island Lunatic Asylum. Bly states that there were two towels for forty-five women cleaning themselves in the bathroom. The food rations were very small, and the food was poorly cooked where it was unhealthy to consume. In the New Orleans asylums it was the same, where hygiene was not a priority of the workers. “In 1870, the building was so deteriorated that the grand jury concluded that the lives of the staff and patients were endangered. Nevertheless, almost nothing was done to improve the material conditions of the institution” (Vandal 179). In pubic insane asylums the funding was low, and this contributed to the lack of proper food, housing, and clothing for their patients. This attributed to the slim to none percentage of patients that were cured from their stay in the insane asylum. The asylums were putting the patients through stuff that would make a sane person start to believe that they were mentally insane. The nurses would make fun of patients, and when the patients would act out they would physically harm them. 

The thought that the architecture of the buildings would provide a cure is completely absurd. Locking mentally insane people inside a tiny room together with up to ten people in one cell is a terrible idea of treatment. Even though the outside of the buildings were supposed to be welcoming, the inside of them was absolutely horrific. These asylums were not clean, and did not provide a sense of home or warmth to patients. The patients were not separated based on conditions. Having a bunch of insane people in a room together and locking the door is not going to help anybody’s mental state. “Nocturnal fights were common, and patients often emerged with bruises in the morning. Some conflicts were more serious. In October 1868, for example, William Johnson, and African American patient killed Juan Constantine, a white patient” (Vandal 180). This gives evidence that the rooming arrangement in asylums only led to violence, and more interactions of insanity. The workers of the asylum did not fix this problem, and this only made patients mental state worse.

Overall, public insane asylums in the past hundred to two-hundred years were very unsuccessful. The doctors and nurses lack of knowledge and desire to cure patients was prominent through many asylums as shown above. This led to many patients having worse mental conditions, or they would just stay as insane as they were when they were checked in. Most patients checked in were mentally insane, but also some were checked in with not much information to see if they actually needed to be in an asylum. These public asylums treated their patients with a lack of care, and were not concerned about their progress in treatment. Both of the sources Curing the Insane in New Orleans: The Failure of the “Temporary Insane Asylum” and the review of The Architecture of Madness: Insane Asylums in the United States demonstrate similar experiences to Bly’s. These sources demonstrate the theme that doctors did not have proper training to treat these patients, and did not care about the well-being of the patients. The same theme is represented in Ten Days in a Mad-House as Bly tells her experiences with uneducated doctors and nurses, poor food, and disgusting sleeping arrangements. 
