Insanity In The 19th Century

398 Words2 Pages
We have come a long way since the Middle Ages where those considered mad were removed from the general population and isolated outside cities and towns. By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries those who were considered mad were locked up and confined to control them. The ‘‘insane’’ were perceived as deviant and Institutionalization was used to punish, not treat. By the end of the eighteenth century, the approach to insanity had evolved into the medical model approach. Lunatic asylums and psychiatric hospitals were constructed to relieve families, protect society, and provide a cure the insane. Into the nineteenth century and twentieth century, social Darwinism had emerged. Mental health disabilities were among the defects that were considered
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