Some things we’d rather never have to acknowledge. One of those includes our national treatment of mental patients prior to the 1970s. A while back I read a great book on Walter Freeman, inventor of the Transorbital Lobotomy. You know, the ice pick thing. Luckily, things have changed and we’ve moved on past jamming knives in people’s eyes as a logical treatment for mental disorders. Still, the asylums of the past still stand today, complete with all the tools, files, folders, and accoutrements from that era. That’s the subject of Christopher Payne’s new book, “Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals” He’s shared some excerpts over at Dwell. Check them out.
(via Kitsune Noir)
