Asylums in the late 1800s into the early 1900s were filled with woman who were committed against their will along with unjust treatment of their patients. 10 Days in a Mad-House was written by a female activist at the time, Nellie Bly, who aimed at exposing the cruel treatments that occurred within the walls of an insane asylum. During this time period, the rights of women were almost nonexistent due to their dismissal positions held in their marriages and their employment statuses. Because of women’s lower positions in society, it becomes evident as to why they could be considered insane for questionable reasons since it was to take advantage of them given a woman’s status. A woman could be sent to an asylum for any number of reasons including domestic issues, religious matters, abortion, and metal excitement. During a woman’s stay in an asylum, the treatments were harsh and inhumane which is why Nellie Bly was determined to shed light on these issues. It has been argued that the treatments preformed on the patients were far more detrimental than proactive which is a lot of what makes up “10 Days in a Mad-House”. By understanding the history of women’s rights and the treatments in asylums, a clear analysis can be made from Nellie Bly’s article. 

The story opens with Nellie arriving to Blackwell’s Island Lunatic Asylum and within minutes of arriving, Nellie starts a conversation with another woman that has been sent to the asylum as well. Bly asked Miss Tillie Mayard where they were and then if Miss Mayard was crazy or not. Miss Mayard responded with no and then went on to talk about how the doctors here will “refuse to listen to me or give me a chance to prove my sanity”. (Bly 281) This is evidence to back up how little rights the woman had at this time. A woman could not even get the chance to prove her sanity before she was sent away because “Important life decisions including admittance to an asylum were decided by a husband, brother, or male friend”. (Pouba and Tianen 2) The next instance that takes place that shows how little rights women did have is whenever a German woman was admitted against her will and could not defend herself because she could not speak English. The doctor who was evaluating her could not speak her language therefore she had no way of proving her own sanity. This poor woman was “Confined most probably for life behind asylum bars, without even being told in her language the why and wherefore”. (Bly 283) These two instances were just a few of the one that Bly saw take place which validated the argument of women’s social status and its correlation to being labeled insane so easily. 

Another issue that contributed to the harsh treatment in the asylums was the nurses and doctors in the facilities along with that the asylums were funded by the public. Over and over again in Bly’s tell all, the nurses continue to reiterate to the patients that “You are in a public institution now, and you can’t expect to get anything”. (Bly 287) This quote was in response to Bly asking for a night gown to sleep in after her excruciatingly cold bath.  Another example of the poor staff in the asylums is whenever Bly goes in for an evaluation from the doctor and realizes that the doctor had no concern for Bly but instead seemed to find pleasure in helping the nurse. This is to be expected of the doctor and nurses because “The majority of asylums were staffed by gravely untrained, unqualified individuals who treated mentally ill patients like animals” (Foerschner) The doctor then goes on to ask the nurse how tall Bly was in which the nurse said she didn’t know how to read the scale. This just shows how ill-fit the staff was to work at a mental hospital because if they can’t even take the measurement of a patient right, then what could they do that was beneficial of the patient. 

Throughout Nellie Bly’s story, she continues to talk about the living conditions inside the asylum. During her first night she got to experience how the food was along with the bathing process. All of the patients were required to line up and whenever they were served their food, it was a piece of toast that had been buttered, a “pinkish-looking stuff” which was tea, and then a saucer of five prunes. The first night, Bly could not touch the food but she was told that “You must force the food down, else you will be sick, and who know but what, with these surroundings, you may go crazy.” (Bly 286) This shows that even if one wasn’t crazy whenever they came into the asylum, they would be eventually and even Bly realizes this later on into her stay. Another harsh treatment that Nellie Bly experience was whenever she had to take her first bath. The bath water was ice-cold and Bly began to protest against taking the bath. With force from the staff, Bly’s clothes were removed while she stood in front of all of the other patients. She was scrubbed down and soap was all over her body. She begged for her hair to be untouched however she was constantly told to shut up whenever she spoke out. The most vivid description of the bath was whenever Bly compared the buckets of ice water that were dumped on her head to the sensations of drowning. If the people in these asylums were in fact insane, how could the unfair treatment towards them be doing any good? Bly got close with a woman named Miss Tillie Mayard, the same woman from the beginning of the story. During an examination by a doctor, Mayard was far worse off than Bly and Bly tried to tell the doctor this information. She tried to tell them that Miss Mayard needed more medical aid then she did but they did not answer her. Patients in the asylums were commonly ignored by the staff which aided the harsh treatment. 

One of the last instances that Bly writes about is whenever she say that the patients were beaten and choked by the nurses. One girl called Urena Little-Page was yelling and crying about wanting to go home and whenever the nurses got the laugh they wanted out of her, they choked her and then “they dragged her out to the closet, and I heard her terrified cries hush into smothered ones”. (Bly 297) The nurses had no sense of sympathy for the patients because they were not well trained in their work. “Any attempt at formal training of nurse’s attendants employed in asylums seems to have been a pretty hit-and-miss business.” (Rollin) 

A big argument posed was did the treatments happening within the asylums help the patients or did they negatively affect the patients even more. This argument goes hand in hand with what Nellie Bly concluded from her time spent within the walls of an insane asylum. Bly states that a perfectly healthy and sane woman would go insane living in an asylum just from being subjected to the harsh treatments that the patients experienced. It is important to know some background in what treatments where done to the patients in order to better understand Nellie Bly’s book and experience. A commonly used treatment was lobotomy. The lobotomy technic involved inserting a small pick into the patient’s brain through the eye socket and wiggling it around a bit. The result was that it cured insanity and brought the patients mental state back to a normal place. However, a major issue became apparent with the treatment in that the patients mental state didn’t just return to a normal place but instead they were practically zombies. Knowing what a lobotomy is and its long term effects can help the reader know and justify the argument of saying that the mental hospitals did more damage than they did good. Without knowing the effects, how would the reader know that some of the treatments left the patients as vegetables who are unaware with their surrounding and outside world. Also the types of treatments preformed on the patients showed how they were viewed as well as treated. Many doctors viewed the patients as a guinea pigs in which they could test and preform procedures on them in attempts to help cure other patients as well. Since mentally insane patients had no rights and were mostly taken against their will, doctors had people at their disposal to try medical technics on. Having this background knowledge is very crucial and helpful in order to understand why the insane asylums did more harm than good to its patients
