In “Ten Days in a Mad-House” the author reveals how women were mistreated in mental institutions during that time period. This story takes place in the nineteenth century, where “hysteria” was a new and upcoming disease that the world really didn’t know much about. Lunatic asylums were often a place that families would dump their wives to be taken care of by somebody else. Since this disease was so new, doctors did not know much about treatment or care for these women, so typically the conditions they lived in were almost torturous and no one would believe what the women had to say since they were deemed “crazy”. 

Nellie Brown is a woman who was sent to the “Blackwell’s Island Lunatic Asylum”. She claims that she is not clinically insane but her doctor insisted that she was sent to the asylum, even though she was only nineteen years old. During the nineteenth century women were not looked at as highly upon as they are today. They had less rights and were always inferior to men. If a doctor said that they were insane, that was the end of it and their next stop would be the asylum. In the article I found they state: “But

hysteria was also considered to be the result of a woman’s participation in too many “masculine” activities, the cure for which was the prohibition of these unwomanly practices: “snuff, coffee, strong tea, and alcoholic drinks.… Hot and crowded rooms, the dissipations of society, and all causes of excitement… should be shunned” (“Hysterics or Hysteria”1874).” This shows that what people considered hysteria in the nineteenth century was far from the actual truth. In the same article it talks about how men were never diagnosed with hysteria, that men had their nerves together and no such thing would ever happen to a man. It was easy and simple to say a woman was hysteric, and send her away. 

Throughout the story Nellie shares what goes on inside the asylum not only to herself but as well as the other women in the asylum with her. As soon as she got to the asylum she was sent to see the doctor, during her visit the doctor seemed to almost shrug her off, along with the nurse. When the nurse was examining her and reporting back to the doctor she stated the wrong eye color, but no one seemed to notice. It was almost like everything was a joke to the doctors and nurses. During her time in the room Nellie said that the doctor was paying more attention to the nurse than what Nellie had to say. Since hysteria was discovered around this time, doctors seemed to go “hysteria crazy” and diagnose almost any women who seemed a little out of line with hysteria. “In sum, the cultural/medical phenomenon of hysteria helped organize and amplify a host of paradoxical fantasy formations about nineteenthcentury white womanhood (Vicaro 1)”. The article talked about how the discovery of hysteria almost created an outbreak, and doctors were diagnosing women without really knowing enough about the disease. That’s why in this story, Nellie was sent to an asylum under false accusations. Of course there were women who did have hysteria back in the day, but there was no specific test to detect hysteria, so doctors were the ultimate decider.

When Nellie was in the asylum she talked about how everyone had to wear the same thing, a very boring and unflattering dress. It was almost like the asylum wanted the women to feel self-conscious and almost ugly. They took away what is most important to a women and that is inner self-confidence and beauty. The nurses were brutally mean to the women, because people with hysteria during the nineteenth century were considered disgusting and not human beings. “In this sense, hysteria can be read as sub-genre of the “freak,” the borderland figure that secular scientific positivism would endlessly seek to identify, classify, and control (Vicaro 2)”. People were afraid of the clinically insane, there was still not enough information about hysteria to know where it came from, what exactly it was. When people hear the term freak it suddenly warns them off, and they have a negative outlook on the clinically insane. 

Since hysteria was so new, there was no rules or regulations for the asylums themselves, so nurses and doctors could presumably do anything that they wanted to the patients. The women in the asylum had everything taken away from them; they could not bathe, get dressed, or even brush their hair themselves. It was almost like the asylum was meant to treat them like an object; they had the simplest rights taken away from them. The baths were ice cold for no apparent reason, and the nurses were rough. When the nurses would brush their hair they would just rip through the knots as the women cried. “Well, you don’t need to expect any kindness here, for you wont get it (Bly 287)”. All of the women were treated disrespectfully and if the women tried to talk back to them explaining they were being hurt the nurses would only hurt them more. Medications back in the day were very strong so most of the time the women would be out of it majority of the time. Which is also another reason why the nurses just brushed them off whenever they had a complaint. 

Comparing the article with the story was almost disappointing because you don’t want to think that women were actually treated this way in the nineteenth century. All of the stories are true. People back in the day automatically assumed that hysteria was a curse and people who had it should be done with. Also, men could easily claim their wife had hysteria and everyone would believe him and not the wife, because if he said she was crazy that meant she was crazy. 