In Nelle Bly’s chapters from the book Ten Days In a Mad House, the excerpt helps to show all of the wrong practices used by doctors in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The wrongdoings are in regard to the mistreatment of females who were deemed insane by expert doctors at that specific time period. These doctors did not know any other way of diagnosing these patients however. For Victorian times this standard of treatment was very normal and at that time thought to be the correct way. The doctors had been given what was thought to be proper training in Victorian times to come to these conclusions regarding women’s mental health. Furthermore, women were treated inhumanely by the living standards they were forced to live in after they were deemed insane. All of the practices that doctors used in classifying females as insane were not accurate and all of the expert doctors needed much more training and experience. Society at this point in history did not know how to properly deal with these diagnoses and doctors were just doing what they had been trained to do. With evidence from articles, the practices have changed drastically in the current age regarding the process by which women are deemed insane. By researching Bly’s excerpt it is very apparent how far the medical industry has come since the time period Bly describes. The text also helps to expose problems that were relevant in all mental institutions at this time period. The process of determining insanity and the way in which it was treated was very wrong by doctors of the early 1900s, however with more research into the issue the doctors have received the training required to accurately assess mental health problems.

In Bly’s chapters most are in reference to how all of the women who are held prisoner in the asylum know that they are not insane. In a discussion with another woman in the asylum in the chapters the women say,”Are you crazy?” I asked. “no,” she replied;”but as we have been sent here we will have to be quiet until we find some means of escape.”(Bly, 281). This quote shows how the women did not believe they were insane and were just looking for a way to escape. However, all of these women were sent to the asylum by the expert doctors who were trained properly at that time to diagnose these women. The focus of that chapter is about the doctors at that current time diagnosing the patients as they sent them off to the asylum. The doctors from the Victorian age had no other training and were just doing their job. In an article by Psychnet, the process for determining mental illnesses is described as a very well thought out process that is based on a person to person basis. All of the patients require different tests and processes that help to truly come to a determination of a person’s mental health. The doctors are also trained much more in their respected field; this means that people get the best possible care. Although the doctors Bly describes knew no better, their process they used was not the proper way of diagnosing individuals with mental problems.

One of the problems that I recognized from the chapters was that the process used by the doctors was a very set process that did not vary from person to person. Every single patient received the same process and series of questions, this is not the correct way to go about diagnosing mental health. All of the patients need an individualized process, there is no set process that works for every human on earth. With medical research this became very apparent in this current day and age. The article shows that all of the patients deserved an individualized process before the conclusion was made in regard to their mental health. The text helps the reader understand the culture of the world during that time period. The women in the asylum were truly never given a chance to explain themselves and doctors just immediately assumed the worst. The culture was heavily male dominant and women were never given a chance to prove themselves. This caused many women to end up in the mental asylum for no apparent reason other than a judgment call of a doctor with little experience. All of this evidence from the article shows how far the medical field has come and how the process used by the expert doctors at the time was not correct.

Corresponding with the previous paragraph, is the very controversial idea of how the people in the asylum were treated poorly after getting diagnosed as insane, another instance in which the doctors were trained poorly. The asylums had such poor standards of living in all aspects, the entire place was way too cold all the time and the food was very poor. Bly says, “How we shivered as we stood there! The windows were open and the draught went whizzing through the hall. The patients looked blue with cold, and minutes stretched into hours.” (Bly, 285). This illustrates just how bad the living conditions were in the asylum. This is no way to live for anyone, especially people who are diagnosed as mentally insane. In an article by Science Direct, the ideal living conditions for those deemed mentally insane are described in detail. The living spaces need to differentiate from patient to patient depending on the extent of their mental illness. Many of the people in the asylum who were not insane most likely ended up insane due to the inhumane living conditions described in Bly’s chapters. The article looks into the history of mental institutions and how they have been improved drastically throughout history. The psychiatric hospitals are used to help those with mental conditions to improve their condition and give them a safe environment to live in. In Bly’s chapters she often refers to just how bad the living conditions were in the asylum. The description is a living situation that is not suitable for anyone, especially those suffering from mental illnesses. Through research and experience the mental institutions have improved greatly since the 1900s and continue to improve to promote healthy lives for the patients. The medical fields improvement in this aspect show just how far they have come in regards to treatment of their patients.

All of the patients that were put into the asylum ended up worse off than before getting placed into the asylum. The low living standards caused the patients who were placed in there to ultimately become more mentally unstable. The entire purpose of a mental institution is to help people out, the asylum that Bly describes does not achieve this purpose by any means. Mental institutions are now more geared towards helping individuals who were placed in them through the correct process. With more research and knowledge in this particular field all of the improvements have given patients the best possible care for their problems. In Bly’s book it seems as though no one truly knows not only why they are in there, but why the conditions are so poor if they were sent there for help. None of the patients are positive as to why they are living in the asylum. The living conditions also made the patients at more risk to develop more symptoms of mental insanity. Considering everything, the asylum made all of the patients worse off than before. This is not proper treatment of anyone, and certainly not the people who were deemed mentally insane in the Victorian age.

With all of this considered, the entire diagnoses and treatment by which women were put into these institutions did not promote healthy living, or recovery from the illnesses they suffered were said to be suffering from. Through medical research and experience all of the institutions in this current day and age are much different than the asylum described in Bly’s writing. All of the patients at the asylum were never given a chance to explain themselves and lived a very poor life while locked up in there. It was more of a prison than a mental institution, that is something that was overlooked and everyone just assumed that the women would disappear. This tells us many things about the Victorian age regarding women. Regarding the current time period, everything is very well thought out, and the ways in which expert doctors gain experience in diagnosing patients shows how wrong the doctors in the early 1900s were doing this process. All of the people were not given a chance to explain themselves and lived in such poor conditions, the United States has come a very long way since then, and will continue to progress with more information on this topic. Bly’s text helps society understand the process and living conditions that mentally challenged women faced, as well as insight to the culture of that specific time period.  The entire mental health industry will keep getting better and better to make sure that events described in the chapters will never happen again.
