ABSTRACT
This chapter describes life in the mental asylum. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, asylums used a wide variety of mechanical restraints; chains, straps and manacles. During the first decades of the nineteenth century, modern mental asylums were established in western Europe. The chapter considered therapeutic to remove the insane from the families and local communities of the monasteries and replace the potentially harmful and chaotic social environment of the patient with the medical and strictly regulated environment of the asylum. Historians have observed how, upon the admission of new patients, asylum doctors often just officially confirmed the certificate of madness already made by the families, local poor relief administrators or other non-medical community members. As the asylum system developed and hospitals became bigger and less home-like, the dialogue between the patients and the staff was minimized. The chapter concludes with an interpretation of the asylum in terms of its fate as an institution.
