In 10 Days in a Madhouse by Nellie Bly written in 1887, mental asylums are a constant reoccurring theme throughout the entire excerpt as a whole. This is due to the fact that the overall main idea of this story is based upon Nellie Bly’s experience within the “madhouse”, also referenced as an asylum. Bly admits herself to this particular madhouse in order to evaluate and see what it was like to be in the asylum. This was rather risk taking for someone like her due to her young age but is respected due to her high level of bravery and revelations. However, as she became more accustomed to these sort of settings, she tended to become insane by residing within the asylum and similar to those of the asylum, hence she seemed to belong there more so. As the story progresses, she also learns what the living conditions are like in this asylum, extremely dirty and unfit for the average human. Some of these conditions included cold showers, filthy personal hygiene products, and others. 

The asylum described throughout Bly’s story has many similarities as well as differences compared to other asylums in other time periods. In Stephen Garton’s Seeking Refuge: Why Asylum Facilities Might Still Be Relevant for Mental Health Care Services Today, Garton discusses his findings pertaining to asylums around the modern day time. However, he incorporates historical and factual knowledge that serves a purpose with connecting modern day references of asylums to past references of asylums. Garton suggests that mental asylums offered a range of health care services. Many of these patients suffered from psychiatric disorders and coming to these asylums helped to shape them back into the people they once were previously. A reference is made to post World War II discussing how much the asylums were thriving.  Garton suggests that asylums were created to serve multiple purposes including general therapeutic conditions to other various medical treatments. Asylums were very similar to prisons in many instances and were often not renovated or restored to improve their poor conditions. Although they were deteriorating in more ways than one, they still served their purpose to serve and help those who were in certain mental states. Through these connections, one can see how similar asylums were between these time periods. Garton’s writing helps to shape the context of Bly’s 10 Days in a Madhouse by comparing and contrasting ideas of mental asylums from more present day sources and showing how they relate with the ideas of the madhouse house discussed within Bly’s work.

As for mental illness, Rachel Jenkins and Anthony W. Clare, both authors of the British Medical Journal, provide insight on the mental state of those women admitted into the asylums or madhouses during the time of Bly’s story. These women were clearly in the madhouse for a reason and most definitely belonged there. There authors researched and can conclude that “Women report symptoms of both physical and mental illness and consult doctors for these conditions at higher rates than men” (1521). With that being said, it is clear why there was only women in the madhouse and not any men. Seeing a man in the madhouse would be strange based upon this statistic. The article also states compensation has been tried to developed for these women in asylums since they have proven higher rates than men. One major mental illness that was common amongst the women was depression. Depression was not necessarily mentioned in 10 Days in a Madhouse but can be assumed due to the actions of these women. The women of the asylum had to face and overcome several things and conditions that they were not accustomed to such as physical and verbal abuse to various living conditions that were not viewed as normal to the typical civilian of society. Each of the women in the madhouse had a different mental illness, thus one can imagine how chaotic and hectic it was in the madhouse with all of the different illnesses being combined with one another. Jenkins and Clare found that the use of oral contraceptives and premenstrual tension may have a slight effect on the amount of depression a woman may be undergoing (1521). Mood disorders have also been proven to have an impact on women in asylums.

As per 10 Days in a Madhouse, while Bly visited the madhouse, she observed that the women were not treated well at all. A large majority were forced to take cold showers while others were forced to be starved. Other women suffered from more horrifying things including beatings and or sexual assault. The women were disrespected in more ways than one. For example, Bly’s writes that when they showered her “I had begged that my hair be left untouched” (287). However, the woman bathing her did the exact opposite and disrespected her. The conditions on this island, referred to as Blackwell’s island, were unlike anything Bly had ever experience which caused her to become just as insane as the other in the madhouse. The towels that the women had to use were the same ones for each person, highly unsanitary which led to the extreme likelihood of contracting diseases and such. The abuse only progressed as Bly remained there in the asylum as she was told by a woman, “There isn’t much fear of hurting you. Shut up, or you’ll get it worse” (287). The words said to these women was absolutely degrading on top of all the abuse that they received including being beaten up and hit numerously. 

Whenever women in the asylum needed to seek medical attention in the story, the doctors and nurses would frequently laugh at them and mock them for various reasons as part of the effort to downgrade them even more than they had previously. Medical attention had always been an important part of asylums referenced in Garton’s article. He believed that asylums had the purpose to help those individuals suffering from psychiatric illness and that needed a mental institution and place to have medical care provided to them in order to help better them. This way they could attempt to make an effort and go back into reality. At some points in his article, he even makes the argument to call these mental asylums, “mental hospitals” instead which has significance in the sense that he shows his support of helping the mentally insane. Garton states “My argument is that asylum treatment in the right context could be relatively effective and historians need to recover this therapeutic efficacy as part of a broader understanding of the social history of insanity” (27). This statement proves that he is indefinitely for this idea of mental hospitals and asylums and their purpose for helping those who actually need it.

Nellie Bly’s 10 Days in a Madhouse is an elaborative story pertaining to a woman, Bly, and how she goes about through this women’s asylum and all of her experiences throughout as well. As she becomes much rather as insane as the other patrons occupying the asylum, she tends to learn more about the asylum each and every day in a way through her experiences, good and bad. The articles published by Stephen Garton, Rachel Jenkins, and Anthony W. Clare help to give an additional input and opinion pertaining to mental asylums and mental hospitals both in the past and present. The information provided and opinions formatted by these individuals help to develop a better understanding of what the conditions of the asylums were actually like for these women. These articles also provide information regarding the conditions and symptoms of what the typical individual would suffer from or may have in order to be qualified to reside within the asylum. The individuals do a clear job of describing the asylums and the conditions which makes it easy for a reader to relate the two. With the help of these articles, the reader can get a better understanding of mental asylums and their conditions both past and present and how they relate back to the story, 10 Days in a Madhouse. 
