Digital Gallery

Discover...

In the 19th and 20th centuries, reformers in the United States and Europe built asylums in response to a range of social issues including disability - mental health, and alcoholism. These documents and images from the NLM Digital Collections bring to life the day to day experiences of people at these sites: the conditions of the asylums and the limits on liberty that many people in them experienced.

Illustration of a man and other figure standing looking on as two boys hold down another inside a shower

**“Dr. McFarland punishing One-Armed Wyant” from Modern Persecution; or, Insane Asylums Unveiled, Elizabeth P.W. Packard, 1873, reprinted 1973**

Courtesy National Library of Medicine

Mr. Wyant was a patient at an asylum when he struck an attendant. As punishment, the administration forced him into a shower bath. Shower baths were considered a therapeutic measure for mania and melancholia, but people also experienced them as punishments.