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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.

A book cover

How to Care for the Insane: A Manual for Attendants in Insane Asylums, William D. Granger, M.D., 1886

Courtesy National Library of Medicine

Dr. Granger, a physician at the Buffalo State Asylum wrote this manual in order to train people for work as attendants in asylums. In it, he outlines the various types of nervous functions and types of insanity. Granger also trained the staff in how to respond to people in asylums, with kindness, observation, and strict discipline, and the different forms of treatment such as sedatives and hydrotherapy.