The public institution of insane asylums has existed in society for centuries. However, the asylums of today are a far cry from the asylums of the 19th and 20th centuries. Not to say that the mental institutions in today’s day and age are flawless, but there is a much higher amount of regulation. For example, one of the past issues of mental institutions was the abundance of wrongfully admitted patients due to poor admission practices. Asylums became the dumping ground for the undesired demographics, such as young orphaned children, women, and the elderly, who were wrongfully committed in the 19th and 20th century. 

 "`Foisted Upon The Government': Institutions And The Impact Of Public Policy Upon The Aged. The Elderly Patients of Rockwood Asylum, 1866-1906" by Edgar-Andre Montigny was an analysis of situations of elderly individuals who were committed to the Rockwood Asylum in Kingston, Ontario. Families would often admit their aged relatives under the pretense that they were senile, and often times due to their senility, too dangerous to be free in society. Many times the elderly were a financial strain on their families, and asylums served as the dumping grounds for those who could no longer manage the fiscal responsibility. Montigny said families “lacked the resources necessary to maintain them and they had no other options” (Foisted Upon The Government). Some families would go so far as to purposely prove through drastic measures that the aged individual was dangerous or a malice to society in some way. Other people just believed the elderly were simply a nuisance to society since they could no longer provide a purpose for the community, so asylums were an out of the way place to put them. Montigny discussed how historians such as Andrew Scull said “that asylums tended to decrease the tolerance families had for difficult relatives, and as result families became increasingly willing to institutionalize their aged kin” (Foisted Upon The Government). In shorter terms, “asylums became a ‘convenient place to get rid of inconvenient people’” (Foisted Upon The Government). During the time, even the administrators at the insane asylum were aware of the increasing issue of overcrowding due to the admission of the elderly. “Asylum superintendents feared that mental institutions would fill to capacity with the incurable and the unwanted” (Foisted Upon The Government). According to a staff member at the Rockwood Asylum, the mental asylum was “no longer a hospital for the insane, but a veritable ‘Home for Incurables’” (Foisted Upon The Government).  

Another demographic that often would be wrongfully admitted to asylums were children during the 19th century. In the article "'All His Ways Are Those Of An Idiot': The Admission, Treatment Of And Social Reaction To Two 'Idiot' Children Of The Northampton Pauper Lunatic Asylum, 1877-1883" by Steven J. Taylor, the case studies of two specific young boys, John Wenborn, six years old, and Charles Luddington, seven years old, are analyzed to show the poor admission practices during the 19th century. The article claimed “The asylum was an efficient method of ridding the community of an offensive burden” (All His Ways Are Those Of An Idiot). The pretense of idiocy was used as the ailment to get the two boys admitted to the asylum. “For example on admission, Wenborn’s insanity was recorded by Edward Robotham, the certifying medical officer, ‘he walks with an unsteady gait, runs against the wall with his head… his whole manner and appearance is that of an idiot’” (All His Ways Are Those Of An Idiot). However, it was more clear that in actuality their families simply didn’t wish to care for the boys. Many times, orphaned children, or children simply not desired by the family, could be committed to asylums in the same manner. “The admission statements for Luddington suggest that the child was neglected by his family rather than insane and that his local community was playing an active part in seeking his admission” (All His Ways Are Those Of An Idiot). Similar to the cases of the elderly, financial issues sometimes were rooted as the cause for the unjustified admission of young children and in many situations the children were accepted into asylums because they were deemed dangerous and unsuitable for society. And then oppositely, there were other instances where the children were cited to be ill prepared for the dangers of society and admitted for their own protection. Either way, the reasoning for the children being committed into asylums was flawed and not in the best interest of the patient himself or herself. Asylums were again in this case a dumping ground for children to be placed in when there was not a more suitable environment. 

Women were the third significant demographic that were noticeably affected by wrongful commitment to asylums. In Nellie Bly’s “10 Days in a Madhouse”, the author herself went undercover to infiltrate a women’s insane asylum to prove that the admission practices were faulted. Through her undercover experiment, where she posed as an insane woman, she found evidence to support her claim that women were being wrongfully committed to asylums. Bly found instances of women getting committed since they could not speak English, unthorough investigations performed by doctors to see if the women were actually insane, and the doctors demonstrating a lack of respect and desire to even pay attention to the women. In Chapter VIII, Bly mentions Mrs. Louise Schanz who was an admitted patient who was committed after she could not properly plead her case because she only spoke German and was unable to communicate with the doctor. Bly herself pondered, “Can such carelessness be excused, I wonder, when it is so easy get an interpreter?” (10 Days in a Mad-House). In Bly’s situation, she cites repeatedly how the doctor paid the patients little attention in the admission process and in even her own “he gave the nurse more attention that he did me (Nellie Bly), and asked her six questions to every one of me (Nellie Bly)” (10 Days in a Mad-House).  Even the simple fact that a perfectly sane woman, Nellie Bly, was committed is proof that there are serious flaws in the criteria to be admitted to an insane asylum. The various women admitted came from an array of backgrounds and had numerous cited reasonings behind their admission whether actually insane or sane, yet all found themselves left to the asylum.

There were many demographics who were condemned to asylums because of the fact that they were uncared for by families. Because these demographics didn’t have a strong, respected voice in the 19th and 20th century, often these individuals found themselves trapped in an endless system they were unable to escape from on their own, regardless if they actually suffered a mental illness or not. All these articles not only showed voiceless groups of people that were powerless once in the system, but also often each of these groups were committed with unsound justifications that would most likely not be sufficient proof to admit a person in today’s society. Because these demographics had no power of their own to defend themselves against wrongful condemnation, often asylums would become overrun with children, women, and elderly people who become trapped in the mental institution system. 
