It sounds politically incorrect today, but state hospitals in Worcester and Taunton, to which some of our more hapless and hopeless Islanders were dispatched in the 19th century, were indeed reserved for so-called lunatics. As many of us know, the word “lunatic” derives from the Latin “lunaticus,” meaning moonstruck; physicians as long ago as the 13th century believed various people were afflicted with periodic insanity, dependent on changes in the moon.
From the Middle Ages, and perhaps even farther back in time, private madhouses proliferated, and monasteries often set aside buildings for that purpose. In the Islamic world, care and kindness for lunatics was ahead of the curve; a 13th century hospital in Cairo included music therapy.
Recently, Island historian Chris Baer, who researches and writes the MV Times column “This Was Then,” uncovered some fascinating abstracts in the archives of the Martha’s Vineyard Museum pertaining to two categories of local mental patients: those kept at home, and those packed off to so-called insane asylums. In the kept-at-home capacity, the individuals were carefully noted in annual census reports. For example, in the 1829 census, there were categories for “Persons in Tisbury Reputed to Be Furiously Mad” and “Persons in Chilmark Reputed to Be Lunatics and Furiously Mad.”
Each subject was treated to an interview and analysis, amounting to a sort of rustic early social work, such as the following: “Damris Norton has been totally deranged for about 40 years, at times malicious, but trustly (sic), watched by her brother and sister and is safe.” Also: “Polly Waldron is docile at times, at other times quite infantory, and chained, is boarded in a large family where there is strict attention by watching, supported by the town.” Then we find, “Aaron Luce at times violint (sic) and lays violint hands on the family, totally void of sense at all times.” “Schubael Cottle has been deranged two years, shut up in a room part of the time, other times at liberty but at all times deranged.”
As ever, families struggled to keep mentally ill loved ones safe and at home. On a place like the Vineyard, where community extends itself as a larger family, town facilities lent a hand. The jail at times served as a revolving door for “lunatics,” drunks, and penniless folks in need of shelter, and from whom the community perhaps needed shelter as well.
So which persons were culled from a caring community to be shipped to Taunton or Worcester, the placement rendered by order of Judges of Probate? Arguably — whether one deemed these patients “lunatics” in the old days (one of the abstracts discovered by Mr. Baer was titled “Returns of Pauper Lunatics and Idiots in Edgartown, 1842”) or, today, psychotics with either schizophrenia or bipolar I disorder — they were fairly readily identified, then and now, with characteristics denoted in the DSM (“Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders”): “Loss of contact with reality, personality changes, and thought disorder. Difficulty with social interaction. Impairment carrying out daily life activities, hallucinations, delusions, impaired insight, auditory hallucinations.”
Unfortunately, in the mid-19th century, other poor souls were institutionalized for diagnoses that today seem frivolous in the extreme: A November 1852 report from Taunton listed “some of the causes of those committed recently” as “Ill health, domestic affliction, childbirth, religion, property, intemperance, masturbation! [the exclamation point is mine], spirit rappings, love affairs.”
The bizarre and unfair quality of some of these listings prompted me to consult my Cambridge friend Dr. Paula J. Caplan, scholar, author, and clinical and research psychologist, and who also, parenthetically but germanely to this subject, served as a contributor to the early DSM volumes, but who quit in dismay at psychiatry’s tendency to misdiagnose and overmedicate.
For the heading of “domestic affliction,” Ms. Caplan pointed out, many women from earlier times were committed by husbands, fathers, and brothers for voicing strong opinions and for “unruliness.” (Most of us would be behind bars if that category still held sway.) For “love affairs” she opined that this applied to unconventional sexuality, chiefly homosexuality. For “masturbation” we could only sigh with sympathy for the poor sod caught in the middle of that act. Ms. Caplan said, “We forget the strict Puritan code that predominated in this country.” “Intemperance,” as we all know, is still a huge problem — perhaps huger than ever — but we now deal with it in a separate, billion-dollar industry that removes alcoholism and substance abuse from the purlieu of mental hospitals.
For “childbirth,” we brooded over how a long and sustained postpartum depression would be blamed on the “nonmaternal” new mother. Ms. Caplan said, “Women were often institutionalized for failure in their maternal and conjugal duties.” We were flummoxed by how someone could be hauled away to the funny farm for “religion” or “property.” Ms. Caplan was similarly stumped by “spirit rappings,” but this reporter, having authored four books of true ghost stories on Martha’s Vineyard, knew exactly what was up: Strange as it seems, and this happened a lot in the 19th century, some people with psychic abilities attracted ghosts who knocked on walls and rapped under tables to communicate messages from the back of beyond. Certainly in the 19th century, when séances were all the rage, most of these disturbances were fraudulent, but every so often, the real deal came along — what William James called “the white crow,” his own term for the real deal — and some of those mediums, fakes and white crows alike, were packed off to Taunton or Worcester.
And what treatments were applied to relieve lunatic symptoms? Well, luckily the 19th century was a time of humane reform for mental hospitals. The chains and dungeons of the past were done away with. Patients were encouraged to help in the garden, and to participate in group activity with art, music, drama, and early occupational therapy.
The hardcore medical treatments are questionable by today’s standards: They included bleeding, hot and cold baths, mercury pills! [exclamation point mine], a “tranquilizing chair,” which drew a blank from Ms. Caplan, and a “gyroscope,” which apparently referred to the 19th century attempt of the “alienist” (archaic term for psychiatrist) to dig into what Sigmund Freud later designated the unconscious.
Nineteenth century Taunton and Worcester records show some patients “cured,” or at least in remission, and able to go home. The lucky ones had family or friends to accept them into the fold. Others would fall back on the almshouse, the jail, or the streets.
In some ways, incarcerated lunatics of the 19th century had it better than the mental patients of today: They had a chance to receive true asylum, a period of shelter from real life while they mended.