Archive:History of Psychiatric Institutionalization

Psychiatric Hospitalization has been around for a long time. The first psychiatric hospitals and insane asylums were built in the medieval Islamic world as early as the 8th century. Muslim physicians built the first ones in Baghdad from 705, followed by Fes in the early 8th century, and Cairo in 800. Other famous psychiatric hospitals were built in Damascus and Aleppo in 1270. Bethlem Royal Hospital (Bedlam) was the first known psychiatric hospital in Europe, founded in London in 1247 and by 1403, had begun accepting social outcasts, the "crazy people", "lunatics" and those who just couldn't stay hidden in society anymore. It soon became infamous for its cruel treatment of the insane, and in the 18th century would have outsiders pay a penny to come and watch their patients as a form of torturous entertainment. In 1700 it is recorded that the "lunatics" were called "patients" for the first time, and within twenty years separate wards for the "curable" and "incurable" patients had been established. Mental illness was now no longer an affliction, but a disease, to be diagnosed and potentially cured.