Dorothea Dix

Throughout history mental illnesses have been the most misunderstood conditions affecting mankind. People exhibiting “strange”, “unusual” or “bizarre” behavior were shunned and/or feared. The person was thought to be possessed by “evil spirits” or “devils”. Over the centuries, many different “treatments” were devised to rid the person of the evil spirits that possessed them. The practice of drilling holes in a person’s skull to let the evil spirits escape began thousands of years ago and…

The hygiene of the camps was poor, especially at the beginning of the war when men who had seldom been far from home were brought together for training with thousands of strangers. First came epidemics of the childhood diseases of chicken pox, mumps, whooping cough, and, especially, measles. Operations in the South meant a dangerous and new disease environment, bringing diarrhea, dysentery, typhoid fever, and malaria. There were no antibiotics, so the surgeons prescribed coffee, whiskey, and…

women risked their own life to make others better. Even if these women had their own personal problems, they would put them aside to make others problems shrink. Many of these women have risked everything they had to help others. Mother Teresa, Dorothea Dix, and Irena Sendler are just a few examples of world changing women from our past. Mother Teresa is just one prime examples of women from our past that has impacted today’s generation. Mother Teresa was born on August 26 of 1910 in Skopje,…

house as well as provide proper treatment. The correctional facilities now house more mentally ill individuals then hospitals, reverting back to the nineteenth century means of handling the mentally ill (Terry et. al., 2010). The reform efforts of Dorothea Dix in 1840, prompted a new…

Distraught by the death of his father and the sudden remarriage of his mother-to his uncle-, Hamlet resorts to a state of frenzy and exaggerated insanity. His demeanor is motivated by his father’s words spoken through a ghostly apparition. After learning that his uncle murdered his father in cold blood to usurp the throne, young Hamlet assumes a state of insanity in order to justify avenging his father’s death. Hamlet’s madness can be characterized through five main causes: grief from his…

More Americans have died during the Civil War than any other war. 620,000 soldiers died in the line of duty. Two-thirds of these didn’t die from wounds. They died from diseases such as typhoid and dysentery. Civil War medicine was not yet advanced enough to connect a lack of hygiene with an influx of disease. Lack of hygiene in hospitals and camps also contributed to the spread of disease. Placing a latrine downstream away from the clean water supply was sometimes also overlooked. Disease spread…

Chapter 11 Homework Questions (Religion and Reform) What does individualism mean and how was it used to define a new American identity? (p.346-347) Individualism explores one’s individuality towards their own communication to God, themselves, and nature. It encouraged the people to not be trapped into a certain tradition It encouraged Americans to be one with themselves and to not constrain themselves to cultural conformity Explain how Emerson’s ideas influenced the development of American…

Dix was a very important woman who changed mental health care for the better. She “advocated the hospital movement” which was aimed to protect and cure the mentally ill and improve their quality of life and within “40 years” she “got the U.S. government…

compared to the conditions in Bedlam Hospital. During the next years, in the U.S, another reformer calls for change. The reformer, Dorothea Dix, observes that in the 1840s, Massachusetts’s asylums housed naked women and men of all ages with criminals. The patients were left in darkness and did not have access to heat or bathrooms (PBS). Over the next 40 years, Dorothea Dix would have helped establish 32 state hospitals for the mentally ill. Fast forward another century and U.S President Harry…

Nightingale who established the first nursing training school in London in 1860 (Black 2014). During and after the American Civil War the need to train nurses to care for the sick and wounded soldiers became essential. Through this surfaced a leader, Dorothea Dix, and 3 nursing schools that molded the Nightingale school in England (Black 2014). Throughout the history of nursing, there has been a significant growth in the education of nurses and the nursing profession. Now, due to the dynamic…