State's Exhibit
State's Exhibit
Ep 24 - West Virgina | Trans-Allegheny Insane Asylum
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Well, we are in the spooky season and to get us prepped for scary stuff, we present a crazy story that spans generations, wars and medical practices.
**CAUTION: Graphic material.
XOXO
Page + Jenn
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You could do it. Oh , there we go. <laugh> . Oh , good Lord. Okay. Good morning.
Speaker 2Good morning.
Speaker 1It's Friday.
Speaker 2Oh , thank goodness. This has been the longest short week of my life. <laugh> .
Speaker 1Alright , well , um, good morning. This is the, I'm Jen <laugh> .
Speaker 2I'm Paige.
Speaker 1This is <laugh> . This is the state's exhibit. True crime, comedy, bad parenting, all the things. Podcast. Did I say podcast?
Speaker 2I heard it. Okay.
Speaker 1Who am I? <laugh> .
Speaker 2Where am I?
Speaker 1And what the?
Speaker 2<laugh> .
Speaker 1And that is the, the theme of this, this week's podcast episode.
Speaker 2Oh, yes. So, well, and I walk in and Jen's like, it's gonna be a long one.
Speaker 1It's a long one.
Speaker 2I can't wait.
Speaker 1Well, we gotta get into the spooky, the spooky season.
Speaker 2Have you noticed that? And I'm all for decorating, but it was September 1st when people started putting Halloween stuff up.
Speaker 1Nah , it was August 31st. Yeah. What is there ? 31 days in August.
Speaker 2<laugh> . Yeah . Huh . That's , that's one of the 30 ones. <laugh> . So yeah. My neighborhood is all decked out and has been since the end of August. And I go to all the shops and they've got Halloween stuff .
Speaker 1Does that make you Technically a has been .
Speaker 2I guess so. Man. I'm , I know I'm outta the loop, but
Speaker 1<laugh>, so the younger one was like, why is Halloween stuff out? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And I'm like, oh, well, if you head on over to Hobby Lobby, there's gonna be Christmas. Yeah.
Speaker 2Oh yeah.
Speaker 1They put , they do Christmas in June or July. It's ridiculous. And like, I'm a maker and so like Makers, we make, you know, people that make things. Yeah. Yeah. All there's like, 'cause you gotta think about the holidays, you know?
Speaker 2Yeah. So you breaking out the pumpkin spice there's , in June,
Speaker 1Well, there's Christmas in July is always the, the thing. But I've been wearing my hoodie. I got my, I got my Billabong hoodie on. I'm , I love Billabong. It's like my favorite story . I would live there if I could.
Speaker 2It looks comfy.
Speaker 1Oh . My older one's, like, what's a billabong? Oh . And I'm like, it has nothing to do with a bong.
Speaker 2No. You know what I love though, is you'll see like trucks or Jeeps or whatever, and they have Yolo or , uh, surf life on the back of like , oh ,
Speaker 1The salt Salt life .
Speaker 2The salt life. I'm like, yeah, dude, you're in Texas. What
Speaker 1You live in Dallas?
Speaker 2What? What salt are you talking about ?
Speaker 1That's not even a real lake over there. I mean , the missing , none of are man made it .
Speaker 2Most of them in Texas are so,
Speaker 1Oh , there , well, I was reading, there was like the, the best , uh, one of the best beaches in Texas is over in Fort Worth.
Speaker 2Really?
Speaker 1And I'm like
Speaker 2That I love Fort Worth.
Speaker 1Just 'cause the water meets the land doesn't make it a beach. Well ,
Speaker 2And they're building a beach by us, quote unquote . Yeah. But if you ship in the sand and there's no body of water that naturally exists there . I don't know .
Speaker 1Oh. Oh. Hey, we decided, remember last week we decided that we're gonna add onto the end of our podcast. For those of you who do enjoy rabbit holes. Oh. We have the last portion of our, of our show is gonna be post co . No, that's not it. I just wanna use rhyming words. <laugh> post show convo. Oh.
Speaker 2Oh, that's right. I
Speaker 1Forgot about that . I like how you have no idea what's going on in
Speaker 2Our podcast. No, I have no clue. I missed the memo. It's
Speaker 1Like you're someone different. Yeah. Where is
Speaker 2Paige? That's
Speaker 1Fine. The aliens took her brain.
Speaker 2So where are we going today, Lee ?
Speaker 1Oh, we have a podcast. Uhhuh <affirmative> . Okay. We're going to West Virginia. Oh boy. Like I mentioned last week or the week before, whenever that one was.
Speaker 2And I was equally as excited then.
Speaker 1Well, so we're getting into the spooky season. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . I've been wearing my, my fall wear , trying to bring in the cold weather
Speaker 2<laugh> . Even though it's 95 degrees out,
Speaker 1It's definitely 95 degrees outside. And according to my barometer, it's frizzy.
Speaker 2Yeah. High humidity, <laugh>.
Speaker 1Yeah. People say there's nothing past a hundred percent, but I disagree. Oh,
Speaker 2I've seen Houston. They, they say they don't trust air. They can't see. Yeah . That's gotta be over a hundred.
Speaker 1Oh , well, that's where I grew up, down there in the Houston, where it's just thick like
Speaker 2Butter. Embrace the curls.
Speaker 1Yeah . Well, we're going to West Virginia today. Oh boy. I haven't been to West Virginia, but it, the pictures look beautiful. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . So, so getting into this spooky season, I'm gonna talk about an insane asylum. Ooh ,
Speaker 2That's
Speaker 1Exciting. Oh , yeah , yeah. We're gonna do a little bit of history. So this is about the building. Oh , okay . This is a story about the building and the people who were in the building. And so it's not like a crime. Want what sort of crimey at the end? Yeah. Uh , because asylum's in, in their own rider . Horrifying.
Speaker 2Yeah. Especially in the early days. It's ,
Speaker 1It's just a crime inside some walls. Yeah, yeah. Right. It's, that's what , so it's
Speaker 2State sponsored. Yeah.
Speaker 1It's a crime . <laugh> . It's a crime with a roof on it. Yeah.
Speaker 2<laugh> . I
Speaker 1Love it. Yeah. Well, I found some things. I went to this a website called trivia sharp.com. Oh . And , uh, this chick is , I'm assuming it's a woman because she's hilarious. And <laugh> .
Speaker 2That's the only explanation. My
Speaker 1Therefore we're twins. Yeah. So you're, if you're hilarious, you're a woman. <laugh> . And so she has , uh, she went through, I'm assuming it's a, she, I don't know , it's a she. So on trivia sharp.com , uh, she's talking about like, fascinating laws in West Virginia. Mm . And I thought this was right up my alley. So, so she says West Virginia takes civilized communication to the next level. Do you know that you can be fined $1 for swearing in public?
Speaker 2Oh . Oh , really?
Speaker 1I would be so poor.
Speaker 2I would be broke as a joke .
Speaker 1I'm the poorest person ever living in west. I'm not moving there. Wow.
Speaker 2They say, they say cursing, like in a natural form is actually a sign of high intelligence.
Speaker 1I am the smartest person on earth. Yeah.
Speaker 2We both are
Speaker 1Geniuses. So smart. A dollar . I like it when you can put the F word like inside in the middle of a word.
Speaker 2Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Yeah . You get to conjugate it.
Speaker 1I love that. Yeah.
Speaker 2Do you have to put the dollar in a swear jar?
Speaker 1I don't know what , where you, is there like a library box and you like, put a dollar in and get a book out? <laugh> . I dunno . <laugh> . Alright . So it's illegal to possess a red or black flag in West Virginia. You are also disallowed to wear hats inside theaters.
Speaker 2<laugh> that. Okay. That so seems
Speaker 1Abraham Lincoln. Yeah. Well , you can't go Sorry.
Speaker 2Well , sorry
Speaker 1Bro.
Speaker 2He shouldn't have, he shouldn't have gone to the theater in
Speaker 1The first . He shouldn't have gone to the theater in the first. Maybe we'll cover that one. So , um, we all know it's illegal, but if you're a resident of West Virginia, then you can hit your wife on Sunday morning in public on the courthouse steps.
Speaker 2No way. No way .
Speaker 1That's , that's the only time
Speaker 2That's a real law.
Speaker 1Apparently. According to this website. I didn't.
Speaker 2So you have to like, plan to hit your wife
Speaker 1<laugh> . Yeah. It has to be premeditated. You've gotta ,
Speaker 2But just the wife, the w the wife can't like bring the husband up.
Speaker 1Duh. Oh ,
Speaker 2Sorry. That was so stupid of me. Stop. It's woman brain.
Speaker 1Uh , it's illegal to walk a lion, tiger and leopard <laugh>. Even on a leash
Speaker 2Period. Even on a leash.
Speaker 1Yeah. Because rules are rules in Anderson, West Virginia. <laugh> , Alderson, <laugh> .
Speaker 2Now that's going to create the first law of swear words in public. If I see somebody walking a cougar on a leash down the street on a Sunday morning,
Speaker 1Yeah, you can . Yeah, you can, you can walk a cougar. Oh yeah. But not a lion, tiger or leopard <laugh> . You got <laugh> . I love America's so dumb. <laugh> . All right . There's an ongoing debate as to whether states should encourage consuming roadkill.
Speaker 2<laugh> . Oh ,
Speaker 1Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> or not. Since drivers have begun to intentionally kill <laugh> animals for food. <laugh> <laugh> . It's okay though. You can eat the roadkill. You just can't kill it. Intentionally Kill it.
Speaker 2<laugh> . Oh, okay. Oops.
Speaker 1All right . There's an annual festival in Marlin to celebrate this
Speaker 2Roadkill.
Speaker 1Yep .
Speaker 2No . Did you
Speaker 1See all the roadkill on the way to my house?
Speaker 2I did. Raccoons,
Speaker 1Skunk squirrels s are the worst.
Speaker 2Oh, yeah .
Speaker 1It just gets inside your air conditioner vent . And , and then if you roll your window down to get it outta your <laugh> , it just comes back. It's like a circulation.
Speaker 2Wow. So there's a festival, like, is it like a potluck?
Speaker 1We're heading to West Virginia soon. It's
Speaker 2Oh my gosh. Yes.
Speaker 1It's now. Listen, do you know also in West Virginia that <laugh> , you're not allowed to whistle underwater <laugh>.
Speaker 2Wait, wait. How does somebody whistle under water ? <laugh> .
Speaker 1Well, what if you're working and you can't whistle while you work?
Speaker 2So who's gonna catch you?
Speaker 1I don't know. The other
Speaker 2Seems like a , I have questions . Lot of old men.
Speaker 1This clearly stuck sitting in
Speaker 2A room making cougars and lions and whistling is
Speaker 1My grandson's an idiot. You know what he did last week? <laugh>. <laugh> . All right , listen. You're also gonna be jailed for a half a year if you make fun of someone for entering a challenge.
Speaker 2<laugh>
Speaker 1Firemen are allowed to flirt with women who pass through the firehouse.
Speaker 2No , I like that one. I like that one a lot.
Speaker 1Yeah. But not if they're underwater and then you're whistling at them. No go. No go . The show.
Speaker 2<laugh>,
Speaker 1You'll be taxed 1 cent for every nine and 12 ounces of Coke bottles purchased. That's fine. That's just a regular tax . It's , but listen, if you've got a cold, you'll need to get written consent from your neighbor to dig up Jensen from their yard. <laugh>.
Speaker 2That's what I always do.
Speaker 1What's happening in West Vir ? Are you from West Virginia?
Speaker 2Right in. You
Speaker 1Gotta tell us
Speaker 2Now there's some funky Texas laws. I would be curious to do a comparison, but there's , I think that this list is gonna be hard to beat.
Speaker 1Well, you should look at the, the Uniform Code of Military Justice. There's some dumb rules in there.
Speaker 2Don't be pregnant.
Speaker 1Don't be pregnant while alive. <laugh>. We didn't put that baby in there. We did not issue that
Speaker 2Baby. We did not issue that baby <laugh> .
Speaker 1Okay. And then , uh, we've got, West Virginia also has a strict law prohibiting children whose breath smells like wild onions to attend school.
Speaker 2<laugh>. No.
Speaker 1Well , kids eating wild onions. And
Speaker 2Who's
Speaker 1Not my kids?
Speaker 2I mean, well,
Speaker 1The older one, maybe .
Speaker 2Oh , the breath check on that one.
Speaker 1Sorry. I keep clearing my throat. It's ridiculous here though. It's , you
Speaker 2Got a little bit of the ,
Speaker 1It's pollen. Ugh .
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah. I wake up every,
Speaker 1Well , months a year. Mm-Hmm.
Speaker 2<affirmative> . Yeah . Wake up every morning. Love
Speaker 1That. Don't move to Dallas. So live-in couples can be jailed for a year if they were , uh, to associate lewd with each other. But you can walk away paying $20 for adultery so you can be dating, but you can't be making out in public. But adultery, $20.
Speaker 2Now they say lewd. I wonder what lewd means in West Girl.
Speaker 1You . Oh .
Speaker 2And she's my cousin .
Speaker 1I was like, you know , but maybe we're actually gonna talk a little about <laugh> , about what's going on with that. Oh , okay . Never give anesthesia to a woman if you're a male doctor or dentist. West Virginia law states that women can be put under anesthesia only if there's another person apart from the dentist or doctor in the room. Which to that I say Yeah.
Speaker 2Sounds like there's , there's a roofy problem. <laugh> . Yeah. What's
Speaker 1Virginia? Why is that a law? <laugh> ? Because something happened. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . West Virginia is a quote . Stand your ground state. You know, just like, yeah.
Speaker 2Texas,
Speaker 1Florida. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Uh, but it's , um, it has some pretty stupid laws about open carry. Okay. So here we go. West Virginia State law says that individuals below the age of 21 can carry a switchblade, but it can't be concealed.
Speaker 2So, like around their neck?
Speaker 1Yeah . You could just , you're carrying it in your teeth. <laugh> . Right. You're just biting down a switch blade . A switchblade. You can't conceal it. I don't know how they would know if it was concealed.
Speaker 2Right. That wasn't out in the open, sir. <laugh> and a switchblade. I mean, maybe a pocket knife, but he use
Speaker 1A switchblade. Right. The Swiss do <laugh> .
Speaker 2And the <laugh>.
Speaker 1You can't be Swiss in , in West Virginia. That's the thing. Oh, that's
Speaker 2The other law. Yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah . Well, that , I just made that up. As I typically make all of our things up here, I feel if nothing here is factual, probably.
Speaker 2I feel like half this list is not factual.
Speaker 1Yeah. I don't know. What do you think? Are you from West Virginia? Right in? Is it true? Can you, can you eat a skunk? I gotta know You got
Speaker 2Plates . <laugh> .
Speaker 1And don't slap it unless it's Sunday <laugh> . All right . Do you wanna get into the story? Let's do it. Okay. So we're gonna talk about some people and some things and some things that happened, and then some other things that happened.
Speaker 2But no geography.
Speaker 1Well, it's in West Virginia. Okay.
Speaker 2But no triangle. So
Speaker 1If you're not from America, it's like in the middle of this country. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> ish . Yeah. In the, in the Appalachian. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> area. That's the Appalachian Mountains. That's where you get murdered. Yeah. All right . The trans Allegheny lunatic asylum. Dang. Later called the Western State Hospital. <laugh> . I like the first one better.
Speaker 2We gotta clean up our reputation now. It's the Westin .
Speaker 1It's the Weston . Oh, I didn't even think about that . How did I not?
Speaker 2I've stayed at Westin's . You're welcome . You're welcome. Yeah . Well, we're all a little crazy.
Speaker 1Yeah. So this was called a Kirkbride Psychiatric Hospital. So, who's , who's Kirkbride? We're gonna find that
Speaker 2Out. That's a good question.
Speaker 1It was operated from 1864 until 1994.
Speaker 2Oh, wow. Long run.
Speaker 1Yeah. That was not 10 years ago. <laugh> for those of us in our forties, <laugh> . Oh,
Speaker 2It feels like it.
Speaker 1Yeah. That was the year after I graduated high school.
Speaker 2Oh, wow. You're much, much, much older than I'm,
Speaker 1I was in high school in the eighties. I was 1989. I was a freshman.
Speaker 21994. I was a freshman.
Speaker 1I'm old af Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah . <laugh> still we're alive. It's amazing. <laugh> . So it operated from 1864 until 1994 by the government of the United States of <laugh> , West Virginia .
Speaker 2<laugh> . Oh , really? Yeah.
Speaker 1It's in a city called Westin . Makes sense.
Speaker 2Makes sense. Okay .
Speaker 1Yeah. The Western Hotel. It's not the ,
Speaker 2There's no affiliation.
Speaker 1No, definitely. No. Okay. <laugh> Western State Hospital got its name in 1913, which , uh, was used while patients occupied it, but was changed back to its original commissioned, unused name. The Trans Allegheny Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.
Speaker 2Okay. So many .
Speaker 1It's mouthfuls. So many words.
Speaker 2Yeah. It feels like they need acronyms. You're
Speaker 1Living there . Acronyms . It's like you Yeah. The TALA . Yeah. The Taylor . The Taylor . I'm making it up. <laugh>. So it was then later reopened, like past 1994 as a tourist attraction <laugh>.
Speaker 2You can like the people that like go and view <laugh> , view executions. <laugh> . Yeah . It's ,
Speaker 1It's a real problem.
Speaker 2Wow . Well, and kids will break into places like that. So you might as well charge 'em a, you know, buck , a buck a pop . So they're , it's ridiculous. It's, it's now a place you can go visit, or it was when Yeah.
Speaker 1Both of those. Okay. So we're gonna , we're , yeah. We'll get into that. Designed by Gothic revival and Tudor Revival styles by Baltimore architect, Richard Snowden Andrews.
Speaker 2Ooh .
Speaker 1I don't think there's any relation to that other Trader <laugh> . It was constructed from 1858 to 1881. It took a long time to build this dog.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1Uh , it was originally designed to hold 250 people. It became overcrowded in the 1950s, the 2,400 patients. Wow .
Speaker 2Oh yeah . Wait, wait, what was that first number?
Speaker 1250.
Speaker 2And it went to 2000. Yeah . Ah , okay. All right .
Speaker 1Where are the , for all you math people out there, you're probably mouthing how many times bigger that is. <laugh>.
Speaker 2Where are the fire marshals?
Speaker 1Oh, yeah, they were probably in the asylum. Okay. Yeah. Locked up. Yeah. It's forcibly closed in 1994. <laugh> duh .
Speaker 2Forcibly closed <laugh> .
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah. So , uh, it was bought later , uh, by, in 2007, by this guy named Joe Jordan. Uh , it's open for tours and events if you wanna have get married Your wedding.
Speaker 2Yeah. Hmm .
Speaker 1Where we'll talk about what happened there. I don't wanna get married there ever. So, my main research is , um, based on this book called Lunatic the Rise and Fall of an American Asylum by Edward s Gleason. So , before we get into why the asylum was created, we have to go back , back to the way back machine to the 17th century.
Speaker 2Oh, wow.
Speaker 1Yeah. We're transporting, we're getting on the crime express and we're moving in the 17th century Europe , people who behaved in a certain way Mm . Were considered possessed by the devil.
Speaker 2Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah . We've talked about this
Speaker 1Before. Demons or witches. Yep .
Speaker 2Or have epilepsy.
Speaker 1Yeah. Treatments. Oh, wait till I have you read the reasons you can be <laugh> , uh, uh, brought into the asylum for check-in. Okay. Yes. You're gonna be like, stop.
Speaker 2That's me. That's me,
Speaker 1That's me . That's , I literally, I own the place now. <laugh> . So their treatments for all these ailments were brutal. And that's being nice about it.
Speaker 2And just so y'all know, Jen is doing a lot, quote the air , quote , quote quotes, air quotes . Yeah.
Speaker 1You can't see that because this is a podcast
Speaker 2<laugh> . Thank goodness you can't see anything that's,
Speaker 1You don't wanna see what I look like this morning. I did manage to get some mascara slapped on this face, but other , otherwise I looked like I got hit by a train yesterday. <laugh> . I gotta find that train. Alright . So it was the crime train. Alright . A common practice was to drill holes in people's heads. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> using a corkscrew type thing. Wow . To release the Damons Wow .
Speaker 2<laugh> . Oh , so they can fly outta the side of your
Speaker 1We could do that later this afternoon.
Speaker 2Yeah . That'd be so fun.
Speaker 1So fun with
Speaker 2A drill , like a corkscrew.
Speaker 1So, yeah.
Speaker 2Wow.
Speaker 1Ooh . That's worse than the dentist. Yeah. Yeah. And because this was so fun. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , you were asking about this. Yeah . Common folk were invited to watch, said release of the Damons. What
Speaker 2Kinda weirdos, or it's like,
Speaker 1I , you know, when you, there's like, there's like studio seating, right? Oh , like theater seating. It like goes up. Yeah . The doctors there with the headlamp. Ooh . Looking over.
Speaker 2Wow.
Speaker 1I like that. Yeah. That's fun. So moving forward to the late 16 hundreds was the Salem witchcraft. Hysteria. Right. Everybody's insane.
Speaker 2I feel like that should come back. It should make a revival.
Speaker 1We should do that here in our town.
Speaker 2Yeah. Let's start
Speaker 1It. Everybody's a witch.
Speaker 2She's a witch.
Speaker 1Yeah. Except that we're gonna kill people who aren't witches. Yeah . We're gonna flip it. We're gonna flip the script. So, typically, insane people we're just executed. Yeah .
Speaker 2Well , yeah .
Speaker 1You just go. Yeah. So basically, I would've been executed <laugh> fun when I was six. They're like that one. Mm-Hmm .
Speaker 2Drill. Drill the demons out. Yep .
Speaker 1Well, science showed up in the 18th century <laugh> . <laugh> .
Speaker 2Thank goodness.
Speaker 1Science. So fun. <laugh> . It lessened the fears of Satan. But, but the treatment of insane people was still barbaric. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . They're still doing all the things. And
Speaker 2It was very experimental. There wasn't a lot of people coming around to check your practices. Well,
Speaker 1They didn't, they didn't think it was experimental, though. They're like, this is cutting edge. Yeah. Literally. Ugh . Yeah. So , uh, most insino were just called the quote village idiot. <laugh> , to which I say they're all in my neighborhood. <laugh>. They could hang out in the streets and beg or whatever, as long as they behaved.
Speaker 2Uh , yeah. And don't curse and
Speaker 1Yeah. Don't, yeah. Wait till Sunday to slap people. Okay . So a lot of times they were just dumped in some town and became someone else's problem. Yeah. We're gonna just let Johnny be over there.
Speaker 2Larry is just walking the streets . The
Speaker 1Original Gary Gary. Mm-Hmm . Yep . Some families did take care of their own village idiots, but most of them just got dumped off.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1We don't wanna be embarrassed by those crazy peoples.
Speaker 2Yeah. That's because
Speaker 1They're embarrassing. Yeah. Don't fix 'em. Just
Speaker 2Stick 'em somewhere. Stick.
Speaker 1Just put 'em somewhere else. So a lot of times , um, their loving family members Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> would , um, stash the, the people, the , uh, the crazies in the attic, or pigpens or even holes in the ground. <laugh>. Just sit over there, Johnny.
Speaker 2That's Gary's hole. <laugh>. That one's yours.
Speaker 1You know, what's going on. So in the 1770s, the colonials started to build facilities to store the insane <laugh> .
Speaker 2<laugh> like a storage unit. It's a
Speaker 1Storage unit. Yeah. You've got 17 CI like it. <laugh> . Don't lose your key. So, quote , the first lunatic asylum was open in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1773. Virginia, taking it, taking it, taking it in there. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . So, these institutions were designed solely to remove the individual from society, not to help him or her regain control of their lives.
Speaker 2<laugh> . Well, if you're dragging somebody out of the attic to store them somewhere else,
Speaker 1Or the hole.
Speaker 2Yeah. <laugh> the Gary hole. You
Speaker 1Gotta get
Speaker 2<laugh>.
Speaker 1Yeah . You gotta get outta the hole, Gary.
Speaker 2Yeah. We're not on a path to recovery here .
Speaker 1Yeah. We gotta put you behind a gate. Now, <laugh> , the late 18th century brought the age of enlightenment. I don't know where it went. Yeah . <laugh> , it went somewhere else because we <laugh> we're not there anymore. Men, like Benjamin Rush, a doctor played an important role in the, in asylums, in like the building of, in asylums, and then mental health reform. You're yawning already. I'm
Speaker 2Sorry, that's, yeah. No, I wanna hear about this.
Speaker 1Uh , you do. Yes. <laugh> , you definitely do. He opened his first clinic in Philadelphia and advocated for the humane treatment of people with mental health conditions.
Speaker 2Okay. Well,
Speaker 1Way to be a human.
Speaker 2Wow. That sounds pretty progressive. I mean , so
Speaker 1Yeah. Don't just push him off the bridge. Yeah.
Speaker 2Sounds like a good guy.
Speaker 1Some of his practices are bizarre, but he was considered the father of American psychiatry.
Speaker 2Oh, okay.
Speaker 1All right . Dad. He believed mental health problems were in the blood.
Speaker 2Oh , yep .
Speaker 1And conducted bloodletting practices. Oh ,
Speaker 2Wow . Mr . I spoke too soon. Yeah.
Speaker 1If they pass out, they can't be , uh, affecting our cra or the craziness of the environment or something.
Speaker 2So just blood blooded him . Okay.
Speaker 1Yeah. Uh, so in theory , um, his conditions were, or he, he , his theory was that these conditions were brought about by four circulation <laugh>.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1To which I say, that's why I think I'm insane. I have terrible circulation.
Speaker 2It's like watching one of those commercials where they're advertising, do you have itchy legs from time to time? Do your eyes blink? I'm like, yes.
Speaker 1Do your eyes blink?
Speaker 2They're like, you might have hippo stenosis. I do have hippo DNOs .
Speaker 1<laugh> . Take this pill. Yeah. Yes. But , um, death might result. Yeah . Side effects . Call your doctor if you've died. <laugh>, they'll just tell you you're insane. So while Dr. Rush was moving and shaking a bloodletting, another me mental health advocate was , uh, coming along and her name was Dorothy Dix .
Speaker 2No,
Speaker 1Not the same Dorothea, like from before. Okay . She's not making bookcases. She's, we actually like her. Okay. <laugh> . She grew up poor, non-educated and basically raised her siblings. So this is , you know, the ,
Speaker 2The 18 ,
Speaker 118 hundreds of it time . Yeah . So , uh, she, she was raising her siblings until the age of 13 when her aunt was like, Hey, 13-year-old, who's raising toddlers? <laugh> , come live with me.
Speaker 2Wow. Where have you been? Aunt ? Yeah.
Speaker 1Where have you been? Well, they didn't have like, phones and internet back then. Okay.
Speaker 2So,
Speaker 1Like , she couldn't, like, Hey, mom and dad died last week. <laugh> ,
Speaker 2It'd be really nice if I could get an adult here.
Speaker 1I'm not saying, I'm just saying, yeah . Could help out maybe with the food. So, despite having no formal education, she actually opened her own private , um, school in Warchester, Massachusetts. I probably pronounce that wrong. Sorry. Massachusetts people .
Speaker 2No, I can tell you because I'm, I've,
Speaker 1You're from there.
Speaker 2No, it's Worcester.
Speaker 1Worcester . Oh, that's right. Yes. It's Worcester. It's spelled W-O-R-C-E. I'm not gonna try to Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Yeah . W Worcester.
Speaker 2Wor they say Worcester. Worcester . But it's Worcester.
Speaker 1Okay . So she opened a private school in Wisa , Massachusetts. There you go.
Speaker 2I did it. Right. Yeah. Good job . Wedding .
Speaker 1Five years later, she opened another one in Boston. I can say that one. Boston. Boston. Boy . There's a W in Boston. So she had a life-changing event in 1841 when she visited a local jail in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There, as in all the jails in America at the time. The insane were just thrown in with the homicidal people.
Speaker 2Ah, good. Great combination.
Speaker 1Teamwork makes the dream work. <laugh> , <laugh> , they're naked, chained to walls. Oh , the walls are cold. Yeah. The place is cold. There's, there's not electricity, there's, it just sucks. Wow. Right . So they're in the dingy, dark. It's all gray. It's terrible. It's that creepy vision You get where they're like in the corner and their hair's scraggly.
Speaker 2There's a skeleton and chains next to 'em .
Speaker 1Yeah. Steve died last week. <laugh> . It's so, she spent the rest of her life correcting this atrocity, or attempting to, anyway, had a girl. She's like, what is happening? Yeah.
Speaker 2Somebody should pay attention to this, I guess I'll
Speaker 1Bad. Yeah. Bad things. So she used her family connections. So her aunt, they're like, big time . For some reason, even though it took 'em a while to,
Speaker 2To find, collect
Speaker 1The kids ,
Speaker 2The children living in the hills, eating skunks,
Speaker 1<laugh> . What is going on? Yeah. She, well, the vehicles were moving much slower back then. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . So it took a couple times to hit the skunk. But anyway, so , uh, she used her immense connections, and then she got with the newspaper people, and she shamed the Massachusetts state legis legislature into authorizing funds to help said people chain to the walls and the jails.
Speaker 2That seems like that should be a law.
Speaker 1They're like, fine. Dorothea.
Speaker 2We'll , quit having our road . That's
Speaker 1All right . We'll do something with those people. <laugh> . They just, I can't see 'em. It's not happening. Yeah . Athletes . Ugh . So she traveled around the world in her life. She caught the eye of this guy named Dr. Thomas Kirkbride. So you remember I told you at the beginning, you probably don't remember Kirkbride. The Kirkbride facilities was like the standard, the standard for asylums. If there was, why is that a thing?
Speaker 2<laugh> ,
Speaker 1Standard for an asylum? I
Speaker 2Feel like this is a very personal one for you.
Speaker 1Well, I grew up in an asylum. Okay. I'm one of these people, <laugh> . So, Dr. Kirkbride felt the same way as Dorothea. He had a soul. We have a soul, bro. Alright . So he went about the world also and the United States to collaborate with local leaders and develop insane asylums that would help to rehabilitate the mentally ill. Uh, because they're not criminals. Yeah .
Speaker 2Well, unless they're with the <laugh> the criminal, in the same ,
Speaker 1Unless they are crimin criminals, then they're criminal. But before that, they're not criminals. Yeah. So, Dr. Kirkbride was born from a Quaker family in 1809. And because his father thought he was too frail for farming, send him to <laugh> . Send him to a private school. Yeah. You're not gonna make it kid. You're
Speaker 2Gonna have to do some learning. Yeah. Be big in the brain.
Speaker 1So Thomas eventually became a doctor. As he's became doctor . He couldn't , that wasn't his first name. <laugh> .
Speaker 2<laugh> . That's an idea.
Speaker 1I know. I think people have actually done that. So eventually gaining residency at the Quaker Run Friends asylum for the insane,
Speaker 2Oh, let's put a sunshine on the front of the building.
Speaker 1Scrubbed in sunshine for the insane <laugh> <laugh> . And so that was in Frankfort, Pennsylvania, just outside Philly. Uh , that's Philadelphia. For those of you who aren't in America. Philly. So , uh, that's where the Philly cheese steaks originated.
Speaker 2I told you, I can't hear the word Philadelphia without automatically singing in West Philadelphia. Born , born , raised
Speaker 1On
Speaker 2The playground. <laugh> . I have to, like, work the song out in my head. I love that .
Speaker 1Until I can , well, I woke up this morning to the, what did I text you this morning? Instead of , uh,
Speaker 2Rise and shine.
Speaker 1Breaking up is hard to do. Waking up is hard to do. <laugh> , now you're gonna have that in your head all day. You're welcome. <laugh> , waking up is hard to do. Yeah , I did . I had to give the coffee to the young one. The 12-year-old. Don't judge me.
Speaker 2Hey , I'm not judging my 11-year-old is .
Speaker 1Yeah . Oh , well , you know, you gotta start those addictions early <laugh> . Yeah. So he quickly, so Dr. Kirkbride quickly gained respect and went on to develop what's known as the Kirkbride plan. Okay. His plan involved building a large loose v-shaped building. And when you look at it from overhead, it's, it's a u it's not a VI don't know about the letters back in that in the 18 hundreds, but, Hmm .
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1It's not a V, but that's beside the point. So it was a loose, a loose v-shaped building that lets lots of sunlight and fresh air. Oh,
Speaker 2How cool. What a great idea.
Speaker 1I know. I was like, I wanna live there, <laugh> . Maybe I did. You'll never know. Will you <laugh> ? So , um, they, his goal was to get the mentally ill back into society.
Speaker 2And that's, I mean, that's the first time that people, instead of just storing them away, or like, Hey, let's do some in a hole . Yeah. Let's, let's try to help them. Maybe
Speaker 1We help them. Hmm .
Speaker 2Good plan.
Speaker 1I like that idea. Yeah. Yeah. That's my , my doctor personally has that plan too. <laugh> , we , Jen, we're gonna get you back into society so you can make a podcast. That's ridiculous. <laugh> . Thanks , Doug .
Speaker 2I'm ready.
Speaker 1So , um, side note, Kirkbride actually , uh, oh. So his plan actually influenced over a hundred facilities in North America. Oh, how cool. Yeah. So it's, it's like, it's still a thing, sort of. We don't have asylums, sort of just like orphanages.
Speaker 2Yeah. <laugh> . Yeah. I was in an orphanage. <laugh> .
Speaker 1I know. You were you. Poor thing. Well, at least you weren't in one of the Kirkbride facilities. He actually married one of his patients and had a family. So, p to show you that, see, you're judgy. Look at your
Speaker 2Face . I'm a little judgey .
Speaker 1You're , she's judging.
Speaker 2I feel like
Speaker 1There's , that person was insane. And she's thinking the doctor took advantage of the patient, but maybe he healed her.
Speaker 2I feel like it's a Hippo Hippocratic oath issue .
Speaker 1You're a
Speaker 2Hypocrite. Yeah, <laugh> . Anyway, carry on.
Speaker 1Hey, people can be rehabilitated like me. Oh,
Speaker 2I agree. People can be rehabil.
Speaker 1Look at me.
Speaker 2I quite frankly thought he was married to Dorothea <laugh> .
Speaker 1No, he's not married to Dorothy. He, he married one of his patients.
Speaker 2Okay .
Speaker 1They raised a family.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1She's so judgy. Yeah. Anyway, I don't know what her name is. Mrs. Kirkbride. <laugh>. <laugh> . The mrs. Shifting gears and moving to our main story about the trans Allegheny Insane asylum. In 1858, the government of Virginia realized they needed a third mental institution. Oh, wow. Because they had a report that stated that they had 922 lunatics <laugh>. This is in a report, a state funded report, <laugh> 922 lunatics, and 945 idiots <laugh> in the state of Virginia.
Speaker 2It seems like a low number.
Speaker 1<laugh> . How much has changed?
Speaker 2I'm surprised the idiots don't outnumber the
Speaker 1The lunatics.
Speaker 2The lunatics, yeah.
Speaker 1All right . So someone went around <laugh> at the census counting the idiots.
Speaker 2Yeah. The
Speaker 1Census people
Speaker 2Were <laugh> .
Speaker 1So the census is like <laugh> . We've got the father, and we've got the wife, Mrs. Father. And then we've got <laugh> three idiots, two normal ones,
Speaker 2And a lunatic.
Speaker 1And one lunatic. But she's in the back <laugh> .
Speaker 2And they're
Speaker 1Old . She's in the hole . How is this a report on the top from the state of Virginia, United States Report number 5 6 7 3 2 C two <laugh> reports. <laugh> , Virginia. What are you doing in the 18 hundreds? <laugh> ?
Speaker 2I like that they report it's <laugh> .
Speaker 1I wanna have a new report about that. <laugh>. Oh, I love the 18 hundreds of all of this. Okay. So the Virginia government needed to place a new asylum in the west side of the state, west of the Allegheny mountain chain. So , uh, hence the Trans Allegheny Lunatic asylum. So a commission was appointed <laugh>? No , based on the report. There's so many idiots. <laugh> .
Speaker 2I'm the vice chair of lunatics, the reporting secretary on idiots.
Speaker 1All right . So this is , so the commission was appointed <laugh> . There's, I love this. The whole thing of this <laugh> , they looked at , all right . So they looked at Fayetteville, Virginia, Sutton, Virginia, and then Weston Virginia <laugh> . Okay.
Speaker 2Yes . Those
Speaker 1Were their three options . I'm getting busy from my, from the laughing. Yeah . So, well, the rich folks in Richmond, Virginia had the purse strings. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . They were like, well, we ain't putting it here.
Speaker 2No, thank you.
Speaker 1It's gotta go over there. Yeah . In the west portion of our state where the riffraff and the idiots go. <laugh> . So , uh, this made the west, the , the , the Western Virginia folks mad.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1They're like, why y'all putting all your idiots over here, <laugh> , we don't want your idiots. So this rich guy named Jonathan Bennett , he donated hospitals, schools, railroads. He's like, monopoly. Yeah.
Speaker 2You get a railroad, you get a , get a railroad road . Do not pass . Go . Do not collect $200 <laugh> . Put your idiots in this hole. <laugh> .
Speaker 1I just can't even with these people. I love you, Virginia. You're silly. Jonathan Bennetts donating all these things. Right. And he became the first mayor of what later became the incorporated Westin Virginia. Okay. Okay. Long story short, anyway, what Virginia divided, and now there's Virginia and West Virginia. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Yeah . Just like the Carolinas that happened. Yeah . Yeah. So, Bennet another rich guy, and another , another rich guy named George Arnold pushed hard for the asylum to be in the town of West and West Virginia. And so now we've, we've become West Virginia. I'm gonna gloss over how that happened. Yeah . Because it's not important. So they got the town people to paint the walls. They were like, Hey, we need this asylum to come here because money, we like money and fences, and paint the walls and mend your fences and get those pigs out of the road and bring 'em on over here. They need to be. Okay . So the, the government came in the , uh, the committee,
Speaker 2The idiot committee,
Speaker 1The idiot committee, <laugh>, the idiot committee showed up in town and they were like, this place is fancy. Let's bring it here. So they, 'cause at they got it looking, looking good. The pigs were
Speaker 2Spiffed it up a
Speaker 1Bit. Mind . Yeah. They minding their business. Oinking over there. Yeah. Where they should be. Got a oink in the right place. Unfortunately, a flood happened, washed away all their work <laugh> right before the unannounced visit of Dorothy, who was now the mama of mental health. Oh , okay. So she shows up and she's like, we can't stash any idiots here. <laugh>. <laugh> .
Speaker 2This is gross.
Speaker 1She saw squalor and pigs rooting up in the streets and run down houses and turned her nose up and said, Nope. But the idiot committee was like , um, we saw like white houses and like pick offenses and stuff. I don't know what you saw, Dorothy, but we're doing it.
Speaker 2Okay. So the idiot committee over overrode Dorothy.
Speaker 1Yeah. It was a unanimous vote by the idiot committee. <laugh> funding went straight to Westin <laugh> and began the trans Allegheny lunatic asylum construction. Alright . The location of the asylum would be on the banks of the West Fork of the way for it . Oh , Manon , Gallaghan River. <laugh> ,
Speaker 2The
Speaker 1Manum , the Manila man
Speaker 2Phenomenon River.
Speaker 1If you're from West Virginia, I'm so sorry. <laugh>. That's I am, it's my, it's me, not you. No,
Speaker 2That's, that's whoever named the river.
Speaker 1It was probably , um, native Americans. Maybe it was
Speaker 2One of the idiots.
Speaker 1It probably means idiots reside here. <laugh> , <laugh> River. Just All right . So it's just of the roof from Weston . Okay. So the state purchased 269 acres for just under a hundred thousand dollars, which in today's time is 3.5 million ish. Hot Dallas . Dr. Kurt Bride was the four most authority. He's author <laugh> of the asylums. They hired an architect named Richard Andrews, but Richard Snowden Andrews, no relation , uh, to build the facility that would hold 250 patients. They broke ground on the facility in the fall of 1858. So like right around our time, the fall when it's humid. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , it had an estimated cost of just under $400,000. That's like 7 million now. Okay . Yeah. Ish . The very first laborers were African American convicts sent . So they're the happy to be there. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So happy. Yeah . Yeah . Sent by the gov by Governor Weiss from Richmond. One dark night in April, eight of the 23 workers escaped from their quarters. Yeah. What else are you gonna do when you get shipped on over to Idiot Bill <laugh> ? You just follow the river. What
Speaker 2Happened? The rest of 'em , they were just
Speaker 1Like, oh . They just were like, oh , we'll just stay. Yeah. So they headed , uh, they were heading up to the free state of Ohio, because states weren't always free back then. Yeah . Because
Speaker 2I remember that
Speaker 1In history . Idiots ran the country. Yep . The idiots should . Yeah . Anyway , anyway, they got lost and were recaptured. Mm-Hmm . The govern , the governor then hired paid workers.
Speaker 2Oh, that's crazy.
Speaker 1It's a fascinating concept. <laugh> to work alongside the convicts. Yeah. So they got to building the limestone building in the spring of 1861. One section of the asylum, though unfinished, was ready to receive patience.
Speaker 2<laugh> . Okay .
Speaker 1We don't need it to have all the walls. We just need some walls. Yeah. So the foundation for the next wing had just been completed when on Sunday, June 30th, 1861, citizens of Wessin were awoken , awakened, awoken , awoken , woken up. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> Woked woke. They got woke. <laugh>. They was woked by the sounds of drums, fifes and t Trumps of soldiers marching into town from the North
Speaker 2Fifes. You don't hear that? Yeah. Oh , I know it's a flute of some type. But you
Speaker 1Don't , you gotta keep the left, left your left right. Left the seventh Ohio Infantry had come to Weston . Do you know what I'm talking about? At this point, west end of Virginia, we're still one state. But in about 15 minutes, Colonel Eeb Tyler had ordered his troops. It's the
Speaker 2Civil War <laugh> ,
Speaker 1In case you weren't following along with what was happening in America. <laugh> . So in 15 minutes, Colonel Tyler ordered his troops through town to arrest all the known Confederate sympathizers. Uh , Tyler's, forward guard occupied the principal buildings in Weston , including the new wing of the asylum. Hey, we just built this for you guys. <laugh> ,
Speaker 2Come on in.
Speaker 1Idiots. Come on in.
Speaker 2That's right. We, we had a ribbon cutting ceremony about 10 minutes ago. It
Speaker 1Was so good. Yeah. We're , we didn't build this for you, but you can take over. And also the courthouse and also the Bailey Hotel. Mm-Hmm . Awesome . Tyler's men then went to the bank, which held $30,000 to pay the wages for the asylum workers, and they took the money. All right . How do they get in there? So let's, the bank teller <laugh> , the bank was inside his house, <laugh> <laugh> . So it was easy for them to get in there. Yeah . And he actually slept over the bank vault so he could hear people coming in. So , uh, so he requested, so they came in , it seems like
Speaker 2A stressful living environ environment. It was really
Speaker 1Stressful back in the 18 hundreds. Wow . I'm glad that I was born in the seventies, man. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . So , uh, the soldiers came in and they were like, we taking you money Bross. And he was like, okay, can you please leave $2,371 and 23 cents, because I've gotta pay the workers who were building the asylum. And they're like, fine. <laugh>.
Speaker 2That's very specific. It was
Speaker 1$2,371 and 23 cents <laugh> . Oh, well , I like it so much. Could
Speaker 2You imagine being one of the people that was working alongside the people that were getting paid? Hey, hey , I know we're in the middle of slavery.
Speaker 1Listen,
Speaker 2But
Speaker 1We've gotta bring these idiots here. Yeah. So the story is like, I know it's awkward. Yeah. And you did try to escape and you brought, but we're still not gonna pay, but we're gonna pay these other people. So we had to make sure that the soldiers from the Civil War, that's about you. And also not you get paid, you have to pay them. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . It's
Speaker 2Circle. Yeah.
Speaker 1Don't be mad <laugh> , sorry. But if you are, we're gonna lock you up here in this asylum after it's built that you built. I like America. Mm-Hmm . We're dumb. So they left the amount that $2,371 and 23 cents.
Speaker 223 cents. Don't miss a penny.
Speaker 1Don't you miss that penny? Uh , all right . So , uh, so anyway, they left the money, took the rest stating that they wanted the money, but that Weston could , could keep their lunatics. That's fine. <laugh>
Speaker 2Sounds like a good deal. <laugh> .
Speaker 1It's the New Deal. Yeah. <laugh> . That's the actual new deal. Ah , okay . Somehow the money went to fund the quote , new state of Virginia, which officially became West Virginia in 1863. So, so we're not quite West Virginia yet. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . But we do become that later. And by we, I mean them, this strategic location actually has the future President McKinley. Remember when I told you McKinley? I love McKinley. So, yeah, let's go back to episode. I'll tell you about what episode it was later in , in , but , uh, so pre the future President McKinley and what ? Rutherford b Hayes. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> Were here. So remember back in the day I told you that he got in his , uh, he got his mule and he got the fu the food, and he tromped into battle.
Speaker 2Yes . Yes . This
Speaker 1Is where it was. Oh . Oh , no way. Yeah . Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . He was just a , uh, he was a commissioned officer, but for some reason he was also like a low, lower ranking enlisted person, but he was a, he was a cook. So , uh, so anyway, that's where these guys, so McKinley and Hayes are actually stationed at this location. Like right around this time the war raged on . And in 1864 with the Confederacy dying, Raiders stole another $5,287 and 85 cents from the same bank teller again.
Speaker 2Oh , I know. That's a bad setup though, in fairness.
Speaker 1Yeah. Later on, they did move the bank to an actual building. Oh, well that's good. Yeah. Out of his house. Okay. <laugh> . Then they moved to the partially built asylum and stole their food, clothes , and blankets. Oh , how sweet . That was for the patients. <laugh> , you gotta do what you gotta do in war. You know what I'm saying? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , at this point, the asylum had be been renamed the West Virginia Asylum for the insane. That's a lot more letters. The local people banded together and replaced the items that were stolen. Oh , that was so good. I know. Autumn of 1864, the asylum officially opened, and nine patients were brought in from Ohio. Okay. Yeah. Then another 23 patients came in. Sadly, when the patients died, they were stored on shelves in a stone house that acted as a morgue. Your face is fascinating. Wow. They just , her mouth is hanging wide open. They just , as I told you, I told you that your face would be hanging wide open. <laugh> .
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah. I'm a I'm
Speaker 1A little, yeah . Yeah. We're getting into it now. Uhhuh . Yep . They had to be placed in there during the winters because the ground was too hard to dig <laugh> , you know, for the hole .
Speaker 2Well, I mean, I guess they're preserved if it gets cold enough, I
Speaker 1Don't know . Yeah. Yeah. Mm-Hmm.
Speaker 2<affirmative>
Speaker 1Just stack Steve on top of <laugh> . Willie dead <laugh> . I don't know what the names were back then. Actually, I do know the names of the people back then in this area, but we'll talk about that later. The asylum grew and helped the state become financially secure, and that's why everybody wanted it to go to Westin . Like they, they saw the dollars. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , because people gotta work there. They gotta build the things. They gotta , they gotta supply the stuff. Yeah . It's a business. Yep . It's a business. So fi So , uh, they became financially secure and in fact, in 1916, it had the most money of any state funded facility in the state of West Virginia.
Speaker 2Oh, wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1We rich over in west and y'all <laugh> in the winter of 1866, there were 45 patients. There were patients of all ages from an 8-year-old who was unceremoniously dropped off at the train station having been insane since he was three.
Speaker 2Oh .
Speaker 1His mom just dropped him off. Like, see ya , good
Speaker 2Luck. Here's your snack pack . <laugh> , here's your apple.
Speaker 1See you .
Speaker 2Wow.
Speaker 1Lunchables and applesauce. The oldest patient was 93. Light and water were a problem because electricity. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , most things were invented out of like thin air. They just, they just started bringing water in from somewhere and they just would light things with just , they could , they were just trying to do the best they could, is what I'm saying. Yeah . Yeah . By 1868, construction continued, but they had almost 200 patients.
Speaker 2Oh , okay.
Speaker 1So they're almost at max capacity. Yeah , because it was built for 250 patients. So in 1869, a year later, there were 75 insane people waiting to get in. Oh, okay . So we're at 275 are waiting math's gotta be
Speaker 2A pretty interesting wait list over number. Yes . Yeah . <laugh> ,
Speaker 1You're gonna make it. I don't know,
Speaker 2<laugh> .
Speaker 1So the newspaper actually started to complain because Dr. Kirkbride really wanted a beautiful, nice calming retreat for people to get healthy. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . But, so they were worried about like koi ponds and like wallpaper
Speaker 2And stuff like that. Yeah . And not getting enough .
Speaker 1And the newspaper was like, how about you build more rooms? <laugh> ? They were like, nah . So, so at this time, because they want , he wanted, Kirkbride wanted to have all the fresh air and all of the sunlight. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> and those butterflies and rainbows. It was thought at this time that noxious air caused mental problems, to which I say, yeah,
Speaker 2<laugh> . Yeah . Yeah, yeah . I mean, was that a problem?
Speaker 1Well, obviously it was noxious air . There's a lot of pollution back then.
Speaker 2<laugh> . I don't know . Okay.
Speaker 1I didn't live back then. Yeah.
Speaker 2I, I
Speaker 1Was born two years later. <laugh> , I dunno , <laugh> . I mean, it's still true. You go to LA you're gonna die. Yeah . The molecules like, don't even fit in your nostril. They're so big. You're like,
Speaker 2I thought the sky was blue. It looks so gray. <laugh> black . Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> .
Speaker 1We live in space. So the workers were obsessed with air circulation. They eventually added 15 miles of ventilation pipes.
Speaker 2Wow. That's
Speaker 1A lot of miles.
Speaker 2Yeah. Because
Speaker 1This thing is only like, it's only, it's on like 269 acres. But that's
Speaker 2What I was wondering is I wonder how many <laugh> , I mean, that would be like tip to tip it sounds like.
Speaker 1Yeah, just the tip. So the <laugh>, I think the whole thing ended up being like a half a mile wide. Okay . The whole facility itself, like after it was finally completed, a million years later, <laugh> like two years ago. So , uh, the facility was being built de uh, and despite the emancipation proclamation, which freed African-Americans, blacks and whites still had to be separated because America's dumb.
Speaker 2Yeah. It took , took a while to, I mean, we're still not there, but
Speaker 1Go ahead. My eyes are literally stuck in the back of my head. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> from rolling them in 1873, they finally built the building that would house the African Americans. Awesome. Built by African Americans. Yeah.
Speaker 2Without pay.
Speaker 1Ugh . At this point, the state's asylum population was over a thousand <laugh>. So, but only 68 were black. And this was because of racism. So most people like, just killed black people that were crazy.
Speaker 2Oh , okay. Yeah. Instead
Speaker 1Of like seeing them as a human and
Speaker 2Wanting them to get help. Yeah. That makes sense. <laugh> ,
Speaker 1America's dumb <laugh>. I can't say that enough. Okay. So hey, 1873 people, <laugh> , we're all humans. <laugh> . Yeah. Yeah. But you're all dead, so you don't care. In 1881, the West Virginia hospital for the insane was finally complete.
Speaker 2Okay. Wow. In
Speaker 11881, but it wasn't really complete 'cause they kept adding on. Yeah. So it was nearly a quarter of a mile long and contained almost 10 acres of floor space.
Speaker 2Wow. 10 acres.
Speaker 1So my yard, if you look out the window, which you can't 'cause you're listening on a podcast, but Paige can. So we're, my acreage is, this is an acre and a half. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . So they were 10 acres.
Speaker 2That's, I mean, of floor space. That sounds like that's a lot of floor space. Yeah. They've got a lot of room.
Speaker 1Yeah. So , um, a 200 foot clock tower crowned the central section of the six lower Coppola's decorated. Um, it, so the, so the it de they decorated each wing and it had like, beautiful architecture around it. And just, if you can imagine going to Versailles
Speaker 2Oh, wow.
Speaker 1Like, or Rome. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . That's what it's looking like. Wow. It's very grand. It's beautiful. It's got high vaulted ceilings. Lots of light coming in. So
Speaker 2This is a place of healing.
Speaker 1Yes. I wanna go there. Yeah. Or do I <laugh> It had a thousand windows.
Speaker 2Oh ,
Speaker 1That is a lot of windows. My house has like eight windows.
Speaker 2That sounds amazing though.
Speaker 1It does. They did have bars on 'em . 'cause you know, <laugh> can't have the people escaping downtown . <laugh> <laugh> . So there was even an underground railway to move food and supplies. And I'm gonna post the pictures. There's lots of pictures in the book that I was using to, to research this. There's it, it's just like, you imagine there's like a little cave and then Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> A little railroad that goes under, because remember the mayor is the guy like donating hospitals and railroads. Yeah . So he sticks a railroad underneath there. It's got a little cart. It transports the food, the linens. Oh , that's so
Speaker 2Smart.
Speaker 1Yeah. The people, the , it's really cool . The dead bodies. Yeah . Steve , the hand is flopping. Yeah . You know all the things. Yeah. Who was , uh, the , the , uh, Russian granny? She'd love this place.
Speaker 2<laugh>. I get my pot.
Speaker 1I get my pot . I hit you in head. <laugh>. So there was, there was an underground railroad and then the surrounding area of Lewis County was thriving. They're like, yeah, this is our jam man. Bring in all those idiots. Let's do it. Yeah. The hospital was like a little town on its own though . It was really cool. So at this point there was over 700 patients nearly triple the amount of the total , um, that was initially proposed. Yeah. But like the surrounding area, they had like their own farm. They had cows and horses. How cool. And ponies. They had a whole farm with carrots and fruits and vegetables and the whole thing. Okay . I mean, it's awesome. It's, it's super, it's super awesome. Most of the new patients were shipped in from jails where they'd been , uh, for like years or decades. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> just living the best life. That's right. Living , living that best life. Most. So at this point, the treatments were still like, bordering on bizarre to, to help help most of the patients were diagnosed with chronic mania. <laugh> , also known as parenting <laugh> .
Speaker 2Yeah. I've, I feel like I'm suffering from that. What's, what's the treatment? Electroshock
Speaker 1It . When your eyes start switching, you know that you've, you've become a parent. <laugh> . So most of the patients were diagnosed with chronic mania and all, all-inclusive diagnosis meaning , um, the, that it just wasn't known what your problem was. You got something We
Speaker 2Can't quite put our finger on it. So we're we're
Speaker 1Gonna put it in quote. Yeah . You're just an idiot. We're
Speaker 2Gonna put you in the idiot box.
Speaker 1Yeah. But , uh, whatever it was, whatever it was it , you gotta go necessitated the , their removal from society immediately. A majority probably had PTSD from the recent Civil War.
Speaker 2Oh, that makes so much sense. Yeah . Oh, let's lock 'em up. Yeah , that's a great idea. Yeah.
Speaker 1That's great. Yeah. That's legit. Yeah. Wow . Some of the diagnosis diagnoses were <laugh> death of sons in war. These are like what they're diagnosed with. So you can be diagnosed with cancer or multiple sclerosis. Yeah . Or death of sons in war.
Speaker 2<laugh> What?
Speaker 1Decoyed into the army. Excitement as officer, which I totally get. I was an officer in the military and you get real excited. What ? You gotta save people. <laugh> , explosion of a shell nearby exposure in the army. <laugh>
Speaker 2<laugh> .
Speaker 1Just being in the army. Yeah . You're diagnosed with being in the army. <laugh> , which it's still still
Speaker 2Legit .
Speaker 1Today's, I mean , it's , that's a
Speaker 2Fair
Speaker 1Assessment . Fall from <laugh> .
Speaker 2Oh no . Fall
Speaker 1From horse in war. Gunshot wound. Or just simply the war.
Speaker 2The war. Wow. In the army, in the war. I fell off my horse. I'm going to the nuthouse .
Speaker 1You were in America in the 18 hundreds. <laugh>.
Speaker 2What the heck? I know. That's everybody. Yeah.
Speaker 1So opium abuse, reared its ugly head. Head and an upswing in narcotics addiction and liberal morphine use in the latter part of the 19th century dominated the West Virginia landscape. So many questions are being answered just by this podcast alone. Yeah , you are welcome. By conservative estimate, the US had around 200,000 drug addicts by the end of the 19th century. Mm .
Speaker 2Good
Speaker 1Winning morphine addiction was considered the army disease.
Speaker 2<laugh>. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1It's, I like that. Nothing has changed. Yeah. This is great. Wow . We're doing a great job, guys. It's an estimated nearly 10 million opium. Did I say million ? You did, I said that. Yeah. 10 million mm-Hmm. Opium treated pills were administered to union soldiers.
Speaker 2Oh, good. So when they get home and they go cold Turkey, they're crazy.
Speaker 1Opium wasn't just used for pain, it was also used for dysentery. Oh , and malaria. Stop it. <laugh> . That's not what opium is for. I don't know what it's for, but it's not for that
Speaker 2<laugh> . Wow.
Speaker 1I've never used opium before.
Speaker 2I've never had malaria before. So I'm Are you
Speaker 1Addicted to opium? Right . In <laugh>. Did you use opium for malaria in the 18 hundreds? Right . In <laugh> drug addiction wasn't understood back then.
Speaker 2<laugh> shock. Duh .
Speaker 1So when the government turned off, the drug donation pipes withdraw happened to thousands of people. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And that induced psychotic episodes.
Speaker 2Oh , how crazy.
Speaker 1<laugh> . It's a literal lot . It , it's a horrifying social experiment. Yeah. Like, okay. Like if you wanna research something that the government did to people Q anon, people go to the 18 hundreds of it. Yep . Because that's when it was really a problem. So some of the war veterans were being admitted for drug addiction. Many were being admitted for sinning,
Speaker 2<laugh> sinning .
Speaker 1Their medical diagnosis was immoral life.
Speaker 2<laugh> <laugh> . That's awesome.
Speaker 1Or n infomania .
Speaker 2Oh,
Speaker 1I don't you don't have that in your forties. Sorry to let you know. Ladies <laugh> . No, you don't have that. A particular concern was sex with oneself.
Speaker 2That was a concern.
Speaker 1Well, it was a thought. It was, it , it was thought that the cause of that was insanity. <laugh> . So you're insane if you are having sex with yourself. Okay.
Speaker 2Maybe
Speaker 1You just can't get a date.
Speaker 2Yeah. I'm just saying, seems like safe sex to me. You can't
Speaker 1Have sex with others because that's a sin. And you also can't have sex with yourself. <laugh> , who
Speaker 2Were you gonna have sex with?
Speaker 1<laugh> .
Speaker 2Not <laugh> , not West Virginia
Speaker 1Donkeys. That was, that was a crime.
Speaker 2But yeah. Not if you're welcome. Not if the donkey's dead on the side of the
Speaker 1Road. Yeah. So moms, if you wanna turn this off, go ahead and do it for the next 30 seconds. Just go ahead and fast forward. There was also those who had suppressed masturbation. I don't know what that means . So you can't have masturbation, but you also can't suppress it.
Speaker 2Suppress it . So if it is a natural inclination, you're
Speaker 1What if you did it in your dreams? So , uh, so that was suppressed masturbation. And then you have <laugh> , deranged masturbation.
Speaker 2Wow. What does that consist of?
Speaker 1I don't know.
Speaker 2<laugh> . I can imagine.
Speaker 1I'm, I , it just, ma it just takes me back to American Horror Story. When they had the asylum, the asylum season. I , I
Speaker 2Still have ,
Speaker 1And there's the guy in , you gotta
Speaker 2Watch it . I know, I know. We started it and then we got sidetracked.
Speaker 1It's , it's September mm-Hmm.
Speaker 2<affirmative> . Okay . Perfect
Speaker 1Time . Just go ahead and watch the asylum one. Just skip over all the other ones. Okay. And just go straight to that one. 'cause you'll be like, oh, now I know what deranged masturbation is.
Speaker 2<laugh> . Oh , good . A hundred percent
Speaker 1Good . Yep . They've got it in there. All right . So , um, there was one dedicated patient who had performed an epic masturbation for 30 years.
Speaker 2What? Like ,
Speaker 1You're welcome. Hashtag weird diagnosis of the 18 hundreds
Speaker 2Constantly.
Speaker 1I don't know. I wasn't there. Okay. I don't, I don't , there's no, like video. I dunno . <laugh> . There wasn't a podcast about it back then. So between 1850 and 1880, most medical liter literature used surgery to cure the curse.
Speaker 2Oh .
Speaker 1Curing it. Males frequently had their genitals ca cauterized, And some were occasionally castrated. The most common cure for women was to cauterize their clitoris. Or a full removal of all female parts. Oh. Hey. Guess what? They still do that in Africa today. Way to go. People of Africa. By the end of the century, I told you your mouth was gonna be hanging wide open. By the end of the century, doctors had moved to use physical restraint with their hands tied and using like, metal mittens. And this was the opposite of what Dr. Kirkbride had planned. Yeah. He's like, fresh air and rainbows and sunshine, butterflies, <laugh> . And they're like, how about we just chain 'em to the wall again
Speaker 2And put some iron mitts on them ?
Speaker 1Mittens.
Speaker 2Mittens.
Speaker 1They're not warm and fuzzy.
Speaker 2They sound like clubs.
Speaker 1They sound like horrifying things. Adolescents were threatened with general genital mutilation if caught masturbating. Although physical restraints were discouraged by the doctrines of the Kirkbride plan. Many patients, including the non masturbator <laugh> , were placed in mechanical restraints, at least on a temporary basis. But some permanently Oh . Various means were employed. Straight jackets, restrictive mittens with locks. With locks at the wrists. So you couldn't like, bend your wrist
Speaker 2Or, oh,
Speaker 1Couldn't bend your
Speaker 2Or the mittens. So they wouldn't like, scratch people or scratch themselves.
Speaker 1I like how you think I know what the answer to that question
Speaker 2Is . Or . Here's our masturbation wing of <laugh> , the hospital.
Speaker 1They used straps to restrain the motion of the legs. That sounds horrible. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . I need to curl up into a ball.
Speaker 2I like, am constantly moving . Shuffling. Yeah . Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1That's why our metabolism is so high. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . So , uh, they used leftover rush chairs. That was Dr. Rush from before to immobilize the overly active. And lastly, the controversial Utica crib. What is the Utica crib you ask? The Utica crib was first used by a superintendent at the pre Kirkbride facility in upstate New York. It's a bed. I'm gonna show you a picture of
Speaker 2It . I feel like this is gonna be awful. Yeah.
Speaker 1Hold on. I'm gonna show you a picture of it. Okay. We found the bed.
Speaker 2Oh . So
Speaker 1Paige is gonna describe it.
Speaker 2It looks like a metal box. Uh , like imagine a crib with the slack baby crib, a baby crib, sweet
Speaker 1Little baby crib. But
Speaker 2It's got a big metal door with bars that come down over it. This
Speaker 1Look . How , how tall is it? Like,
Speaker 2It's not very tall and it doesn't look very, I mean, it's long like it's a rectangle, but is it right off the floor ? I can't tell that .
Speaker 1So the measurements are, it is six feet long. Dorothea Puente would love it. <laugh> , it's six feet long and then the sides of it are only 12 inches. Yeah.
Speaker 2It's very narrow.
Speaker 1So when you lay down on it and the lid comes down, you can't turn over on your side and you're , you're just laying there like in a coffin.
Speaker 2Yeah. That's exactly what it looks like. If a coffin was made of metal and had slats, and it's not like there's a mattress on the bottom. It's just like metal slats . Yeah.
Speaker 1So they would use this to transport people, to restrain people. And some people actually died in it because Yeah . They felt like they were suffocating. Which I, yeah, a hundred percent. Oh, I got, I went into the MR MRI the other day. I'm not, I'm not real . I'm not claustrophobic. Yeah. But I, and I know I'm not claustrophobic because of survival school <laugh>. So I , I am okay with going into an MRI , but this time there was like something laying on my throat, like a Oh , it was like a weighted , um, cable. Oh , yeah . For the ear earphones. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And they're trying to make it pleasant. Yeah. It's not, it , it wasn't pleasant this time. And the mirror was on there. I had to , I actually had to get out of , this is like my 60th, the MRI had to actually have them move me out and like, reorganize things and take the mirror off because I was like, it's too much. Yeah.
Speaker 2It's , I'm overwhelmed.
Speaker 1It's too much because I can't have something like laying on my body, like laying . And we're gonna get into more of this. It's so fun. This is a great story. I love it so much. Yeah . So the Utica crib was also used to transport difficult cases. <laugh> ?
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1You mean people that move <laugh> ,
Speaker 2Overly active. Weird.
Speaker 1Um, over long distances. They were literally traveling cargo until they got to the asylum.
Speaker 2Oh my gosh. It's like one of those like fryer baskets, right. That you put fish in and a fryer
Speaker 1Basket with a lid on it.
Speaker 2Yes. But very narrow. So you're just in this fryer basket
Speaker 1Coughing . Do you feel uncomfortable right now? Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> right in <laugh>.
Speaker 2I always think of food. I'm like, oh , I know what that looks
Speaker 1Like. I could totally eat that
Speaker 2Cage. Yeah. <laugh> ,
Speaker 1The staff at the hospital frequently use straight jackets or like those wrist locking mechanisms. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Um, but then there was like locking chairs. You can just put a lock on anything. Really? Yeah. Um, it forced pat patients into that upright seated position. Mm . Which reminds me of the ejection seat in my jet. Oh. Where we were just like, you're, it , it's 90 degrees seated, and then you're strapped in for nine hours. Wow. Getting shot at. Yeah .
Speaker 2It's degrees <laugh> . Sounds awesome.
Speaker 1I definitely need to go to this . Asylum drugs. Were also used like morphine to calm them down. We got to calm you down. I , I , I don't understand why shows have side note , rabbit hole, whatever you wanna call it. <laugh> . Why are they jamming things into the person's neck?
Speaker 2I don't know. I don't think
Speaker 1That's a thing.
Speaker 2No. That's usually like when you wanna knock somebody out. I don't , I don't know morphine. I don't know how it's administered, but I imagine it's probably, but
Speaker 1In all the movies, it's, they jam it in their neck
Speaker 2Maybe. I don't know .
Speaker 1I don't think that's a thing . No, I think it's can just go in your arm .
Speaker 2Yeah. I would think so.
Speaker 1But I think they do it for like, the visualness of it all. Okay. The horrifying ness of it all. So , uh, they also use laxatives to , uh, quote , purge the patients tonics to then restore them and naca narcotics to get them to sleep.
Speaker 2It sounds like they're on the road to health here.
Speaker 1I love , uh, <laugh> . It's just like eating turmeric. Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah. It'll, and it's fine.
Speaker 1Or digging up , uh, <laugh> whatever issue or whatever in your neighbor's yard. So , uh, if none of those works booze.
Speaker 2Ah, okay .
Speaker 1Booze was the answer. Now
Speaker 2I can get on board .
Speaker 1Yeah. Patients were no longer being cured. It was more like a, a , uh, modified prison system nationwide. There were over a hundred thousand insane people or idiots,
Speaker 2<laugh> or alcoholics at this point now .
Speaker 1Or Luna or opium addiction. Yeah. Post-war veterans
Speaker 2Yeah. Veterans as well.
Speaker 1Yeah. If you're a veteran, you're just insane. So , uh, this would last for like a century.
Speaker 2Oh my gosh. I know.
Speaker 1It's ridiculous. Most of the new patients were too far gone to respond to the Kirkbride method of sunshine and rainbows. Imagine. Yeah. Um, they were just lifelong wards of the state. Mm . I think that's kind of like still a thing. Yeah . I think, yeah. In 1880, a woman named Isabella Brown joined nine of her relatives at the facility. Oh,
Speaker 2Wow. Just stick
Speaker 1The whole family in there. Yeah . Clearly
Speaker 2In the
Speaker 1Blood . The local normal people were okay with this because dangerous people were no longer walking the streets. Visitors were welcome to the facility. So there were no doubts or speculations as to what was going on there. Mm-Hmm . Your money is going toward good things and sunshine and stuff. Even Charles Dickens would visit a mad house in every country he ever visited . Visited. So, yeah. Charles Dickens. The rider . Yeah . The rider . You've heard of him? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah . Something about Christmas. <laugh> . So he decided that one could not judge a country without seeing how they treated their insane.
Speaker 2Ooh . I would love to hear his comparisons.
Speaker 1Yeah. I want him, I want I I didn't pull it up, but maybe we'll have like a reading of Charles Dickens for Christmas about Insanes
Speaker 2<laugh>. That'll be so festive. So
Speaker 1Christmasy. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. I like it. It reminds me of jingle bells and snow and murder <laugh> under the Christmas tree with people coming to view the insane. Lots of critics popped up the local paper called the Wheeling, called the Wheeling Intelligencer had an anonymous writer, explained that the asylum was no place for rehab. And that the superintendent William Bland was not qualified and didn't understand the Kirkbride plan. They actually went through a lot of , uh, superintendents. Well,
Speaker 2It's about time though.
Speaker 1It's , it's a big turnover. Yeah. In , in an 1884 issue, the newspaper published a horrific story alleging neglect at the asylum. Allegedly the corpse of a patient named Mcgain had been left unattended overnight. Rats ate off his nose, <laugh> . And so disfigured his face that he was not recognizable.
Speaker 2Oh .
Speaker 1Uh , we laugh because we don't understand <laugh> .
Speaker 2Yeah. So what the hell , was he just hanging out in the hall? Or had he passed in his bed?
Speaker 1I don't know. The
Speaker 2Rats got him .
Speaker 1The rats got him . His family requested his remains be sent home. But that was not done when they came to claim the body. They were told that he had already been buried in the asylum cemetery.
Speaker 2Mm-Hmm
Speaker 1Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> probably. 'cause they wanted to cover up neglect. Yeah. I don't know . I'm just thinking
Speaker 2Actually, he's out in this , uh, this chiller, this he in this where we've stack .
Speaker 1Yeah . Yeah. We call it the stack <laugh> . Yeah. The, the , uh, the accusation made was that this was done in order to hide what had happened. And , uh, some people accused one of the directors of appropriating quote , appropriating paint for his own home.
Speaker 2What,
Speaker 1Bro, let's steal paint. We gotta paint over the blood. Come on. Oh , come on . The director was accused of canceling baseball.
Speaker 2Oh, no.
Speaker 1Because it was messing up the lawn.
Speaker 3<laugh> .
Speaker 2As long as it looks pretty outside.
Speaker 1<laugh> with the newspaper <laugh> , he canceled baseball 'cause of 'cause of the lawn. What a , don't mind that dead body in the corner.
Speaker 2<laugh> . Yeah. That's first base .
Speaker 1<laugh>
Speaker 2<laugh> . Steve's third <laugh> .
Speaker 1The Kirkbride pan plan was to have only the most caring of staff working there. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . But most of the people who worked there like didn't even actually know how to deal with mental patients. Yeah. So there was probably 10 doctors, 20 nurses, and 300 normal people who just were voluntary their time there.
Speaker 2Wow. That's, I mean, that's impressive. Yeah.
Speaker 1It was a high turnover rate. Yeah. Yeah. Big. Yeah. Most days the patients were awoken at 6:00 AM they would eat and then they had to count their forks and knives to make sure that they didn't have any weapons. <laugh>,
Speaker 2The frisking line is over here
Speaker 1To start doing that in the morning. <laugh>
Speaker 2Better have your switchblades and open. <laugh> open. You can't
Speaker 1Conceal hide those switch blades . Right ? No forks. No. Don't stab your eye. <laugh> . Stop it.
Speaker 2We've gotta put corks on top of all the knives and forks.
Speaker 3<laugh>
Speaker 1Corks on Forks. <laugh> trademark. The patients learned to sow or read or tended to the gardens. The patients were supposed to be treated with kindness or eaten by a rat, whatever, <laugh> . But occasionally they had like abrupt violent outburst and they did have to be restrained, which
Speaker 2I , yeah.
Speaker 1That's like timeout for my kids when they're like slamming doors. Yeah . And throwing out the I hate shoes . Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And you're the worst mom ever. Yeah. I got your worst Mom. Go sit
Speaker 2In your room . She's
Speaker 1Out in asylum. That's right.
Speaker 2Having a vacation. It's like a spot .
Speaker 1It's getting a face eaten off. Uh, so the attendants often use confinement chairs, chair cages and isolation cells. That's the best place to person to put someone insane . Oh, yeah. In the isolation. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Yeah. Um, they were actually used until the day the asylum closed.
Speaker 2Wow.
Speaker 1Fun. Yeah. The rusted rings to which the most violent were chained in isolation cells on the, on the third floor. You can still see those.
Speaker 2Ooh , really? Really
Speaker 1This big? I can't see that. It's like two inches around. You know, if you put your little fingers together Yeah . You made a
Speaker 2Circle. They just chained them to that. It's ,
Speaker 1It's the width of a coffee cup.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1Yeah. Like my sarcasm queen coffee
Speaker 2Cup. Yes. I was just thinking that's kind . Bought it for myself. Yeah . Yeah.
Speaker 1That's what you do. Most of the at attendants lived on the asylum grounds earning about $25 a week. That was actually a lot for back then. Yeah. And that was like six. That ,
Speaker 2That's a heavy lifting job though. It
Speaker 1Is. Yeah. <laugh> . It only gets worse. Yeah. So you can imagine like, the sounds of living there. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . So they're living, and what they're hearing is like the moans and the screams. So the lights are off.
Speaker 2And the masturbation,
Speaker 1It's echoing through the halls. It's just like floating, laughing, crying. Screaming.
Speaker 2Screaming. Yeah.
Speaker 1I wanna live there. That sounds awesome. It sounds like my house actually. Yeah. Sat in a bark. And you're in , you're in my house. <laugh>. So electricity showed up in 1892. This was helpful.
Speaker 2That's exciting.
Speaker 1Yeah. In the fall of 1901, president McKinley was assassinated by a mentally ill man. So if you wanna hear that, that's episode 15. So yeah . Tell
Speaker 2Dad . Great. It's episode
Speaker 115. Great story. That should have been a two-parter was so good. The asylum was That's, that's me reading more books.
Speaker 2Yeah. <laugh> . Well, you need to quit doing that, or we're gonna call you insane. I have my books read to me. <laugh> .
Speaker 1Maybe I do too. Okay. I I , this one though, I actually read with my eyes. I had a
Speaker 2Girl with my
Speaker 1Eyes. <laugh> . I love it. The asylum was increasingly more scrutinized. The new superintendent, Dr. Straters , was in court after being accused of abusing his posi position. One night, Dr. Straters entered the room of Mrs. Mary Somerville, a patient, and made unwanted sexual advances. Mm-Hmm . Asking her to be his pet.
Speaker 2Ew .
Speaker 1Stop it. He was also accused of taking one of the nurses to St. Louis for immoral purposes. Uhoh , you know, you're insane if you do an immoral stuff.
Speaker 2I was about to say, he is about to get put in room 4 21. Dr .
Speaker 1Struthers <laugh> . After the year long case. Why is it taking a year?
Speaker 2Yeah. Let's just interview some people and get it over there .
Speaker 1I don't know why they believed any of these insane people. Anyway , <laugh> , clearly I'm making it up. Uh , the board of directors asked Dr. Straters to resign. He was like, nah, I'm staying. And they were like, listen bro, if you don't go, we're gonna fire you. And he was like, fine. The
Speaker 2Idiot committee has ruled we
Speaker 1Rule over you over the next few years. The building grew in size. They had to build one more building just for the piles of laundry of the over 1000 people.
Speaker 2Ugh .
Speaker 1It was like a laundry mill.
Speaker 2Yeah. That's , uh,
Speaker 1I wonder what that smelled like, because they only changed like, literally once a week.
Speaker 2Ew. Really? Yeah.
Speaker 1They, they showered once a week and change their clothes once a week. And their bed linens were changed once a week.
Speaker 2People are throwing feces and all types of Hmm . Amazing. Joe Rogan needs to do a , uh, dirty Jobs <laugh> episode on that.
Speaker 1Joe. I do. Like Joe. They do . In the early 20th century, the doctors begin hydrotherapy. So when you watch the , uh, when you watch the, the asylum season on , uh, American Horror Story, they have this hydrotherapy.
Speaker 2Is it water boarding?
Speaker 1No. Okay. So let me, let me describe, we have a bathtub. The process placed the subject in a hammock suspended over the bathtub or suspended in a bathtub. So , Ooh . So the hammock is in the bathtub. It sounds nice. That sounds
Speaker 2Amazing.
Speaker 1Until this
Speaker 2Oh ,
Speaker 1Uh, the bathtub is now covered with a canvas sheet and your head is sticking out at , at
Speaker 2The end of it. Oh , okay. No , yeah . No . Mm-Hmm,
Speaker 1<affirmative> . So , um, patients might stay in the tub for hours or days.
Speaker 2Ew .
Speaker 1Yeah. Sometimes with bandages over their eyes and ears. Oh,
Speaker 2No, no, no, no , no .
Speaker 1Nope. Do you wanna go now?
Speaker 2No,
Speaker 1That is no . Do you wanna go home now? Yes. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> sounds super fun. Patients who were , uh, depressed and lethargic were placed in a needle shower.
Speaker 2Ew . What? Oh ,
Speaker 1What is a needle shower? You asked? I do, I actually wrote that in there because I knew you'd ask .
Speaker 2I am, I'm
Speaker 1Asking. I know. You, you ask questions. Yeah . <laugh> . What is that? Basically you're being power washed with frigid water for several minutes.
Speaker 2Oh,
Speaker 1This happened to me in survival school. It's not refreshing. So it
Speaker 2Feels like needles.
Speaker 1Yeah. You wanna die. It's supposed to stimulate blood flow. Yeah . Happy to revitalize the patient. Do you feel revitalized? No. I feel like I'm cold and in pain. I hate you. Oh , now I'm insane. Yeah. I wasn't before. I am now. <laugh> . So there was also a , a wet pack. Hmm . Okay . So we, we've got a , you take sheets. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . You dip 'em in water. Okay . You wrap 'em around the patient until only their hands and feet and head are sticking out. <laugh>
Speaker 2Like one of those balls. <laugh> .
Speaker 1Yay . I'm so happy I can't move any of my parts. So as the sheets dry, they actually shrink. Oh . And tighten restricting your breathing. It , it's good for you.
Speaker 2I cannot understand how any of these Okay. Carry on.
Speaker 1It's so good for you. Yeah. Yeah. I'd probably kill myself if I was there. Yeah. Me jumping off things a hundred percent. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> suffocation for all my friends. So what was the , uh, so that was the wet pack. Uh, there's also a dry pack. Oh yeah. You could see , you know, sheets. Basically you're in a straight jacket by another name. Okay. In the 1920s hearings were held re re regarding the death of a 38-year-old female patient who was in the hospital for 48 hours before she died.
Speaker 2Hmm . That's suspicious.
Speaker 1She was, she was brought in because she's like, I am the Virgin Mary and I like to , uh, not eat and I will sing loudly.
Speaker 2Okay. Sounds like she's checked herself into the right place. Yep .
Speaker 1And they found her, she was still in her restraints with bruises all over her body. When she was brought in, she had become violent. So they put her in restrictive sleeves. Her stockings were tied around her ankles, and then they secured her to the bedstead. So, like that , the headboard.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1A sheet had been stretched across her stomach and then tied to the side bed rails. Then they left.
Speaker 2Oh , bye. Oh , good luck. She
Speaker 1Died from suffocation.
Speaker 2Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1I don't wanna die from suffocation. No,
Speaker 2That's, that's a nightmare of mine.
Speaker 1Yeah. Wow . Like drowning is my biggest fear.
Speaker 2How is that not murder?
Speaker 1Well, she checked herself in and it's , she's the one who was the virgin Mary
Speaker 2<laugh> .
Speaker 1Not their fault Lord . Yeah. So the family accused the asylum of mistreatment. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And for an investigation, the hearing revealed that there were only three doctors on staff.
Speaker 2Wow.
Speaker 11300 patients.
Speaker 2Oh my gosh. No way.
Speaker 1One nurse for every 25 patients. Ah ,
Speaker 2Sounds safe.
Speaker 1And some of the nurses were just at attendants with no formal nursing education. They were like, we are here to help 'cause we love humans.
Speaker 2<laugh> ,
Speaker 1I don't know anything about anything, but yeah.
Speaker 2We forgot about this 38-year-old woman in four B for five days. 'cause we're overworked.
Speaker 1You know, she was in bed <laugh> , she was sleeping Wow. With stalkings tight, whatever there , uh, so there weren't enough staff to patients like that ratio. Mo most of the , uh, most of the most violent patients had to be restrained because like, you got one person to 25 and 10 of 'em are running around being violent. Yeah. Now you're gonna go get, I'm gonna stab you in the neck with something and then tie you to something else. Yep . The nurses were absolved of all of their wrongdoing as they should have been. Unlike these times today where the nurses get go to jail
Speaker 2Prosecuted. Yep .
Speaker 1Spare me The hearing revealed that there wasn't enough funding to assist in bringing in more doctoral care. The sa the the staff simply couldn't , uh, care for all the patients. Yeah. Yeah. Duh . The superintendent from 1921 to 1928 said that he backed up his staff and that he would always prefer restraint over narcotics to control the patient . So that , I like that. I like that he believed that the use of morphine made acute psychotic conditions worse.
Speaker 2Hmm . Eureka. Hey,
Speaker 1Fi way to bring someone who's smart finally
Speaker 2Sounds like a medical that only took a hundreds . Yeah . Yeah .
Speaker 1One. Uh , okay. So this is , uh, the next one. And this is , uh, what the whole entire.
Speaker 2Oh,
Speaker 1No, I'm gonna call that sec the section of that. So , okay . Um, insulin shock therapy. Okay. As a mom of a type one diabetic. This is a terrible idea, guys.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Okay. So worst idea ever, the doctors would give extra insulin to the patients until their blood sugar would drop so low that they would salivate, have a seizure, and then go into a coma. Like , oh my gosh . They're literally inducing low , low blood sugar.
Speaker 2For what ? Your brain
Speaker 1Can't function like that. For what? Because they're insane. Duh. What , what have you not been here for the song ? Sorry,
Speaker 2I'm just thinking like for what purpose? Yeah.
Speaker 1So the doctors , uh, were literally the insane ones. For some reason, the doctors thought that the subsequent brain damage was successful.
Speaker 2Oh, okay. Because they're drooling on themselves instead
Speaker 1Of Yeah . Well, they're calm now. Okay. They can't hurt other people now that they're brain dead. Duh . Around 1912, state run facilities were encouraged to do forced steril sterilization of quote , mental defectives.
Speaker 2So all of the veterans all, okay.
Speaker 1Yeah. They're mental. Okay .
Speaker 2Duh .
Speaker 1There was already a practice of sterilizing women who are promiscuous
Speaker 2<laugh> . Of course.
Speaker 1How else are you gonna get knocked up when you're 12
Speaker 2<laugh> Exactly. By your uncle.
Speaker 1Exactly. So , um, yeah. Especially if they were already in asylum care. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And then they became promiscuous or, Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . Someone thought they were, they sterilize
Speaker 2'em . Let's just sterilize 'em . That'll keep 'em
Speaker 1Going . It's , we're trying to keep the population level down here in West Virginia. There is a lot of births in the asylum.
Speaker 2Oh, really? Oh .
Speaker 1If the facility staff decided though that the mother was insane, they would just take the baby from her and they would raise the baby somewhere else. So some other insane person was raising those babies.
Speaker 2Oh my gosh. That just, mm .
Speaker 1Yep . There was an orphanage in the basement of the building,
Speaker 2The basement. Perfect place for it .
Speaker 1Yep . Gary in the basement. So there was an orphanage in the basement of the building that was used to segregate, segregate black patients. And it was also an old laundry room. But, but when segregation stopped and everyone was in the same population, they're now using it as an orphanage.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1But when they became 12, they were placed in the general population.
Speaker 212. Yeah . What do you think the chances of getting raped in that situation are?
Speaker 1Well, they would've already had their nuts cut off by then .
Speaker 2This still doesn't mean they can't ugh . Can't rape 'em . Well,
Speaker 1At least the , the shape of the building is good for , um, making hiding places.
Speaker 2Yeah. Oh yeah . Very good point.
Speaker 1It wasn't until 19 7 71 that a separate , um, a separate wing was established for minors. And that was in the old tuberculosis building. <laugh> . Oh ,
Speaker 2Good . Could just paint with some opium on the wall. It'll
Speaker 1Fix it. I like it. I like all these thoughts. At the time, there were about 40 of them
Speaker 2Kids miners Oh my gosh .
Speaker 1With the youngest at 11. Uh , but they all had a mental age of like five.
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah. That's not a thriving.
Speaker 1No. So many Appalachian communities were actually isolated from the modern world. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And a lot of inbreeding was happening. Specifically, there was two families that were inbreeding. It's the Blake family and the rifle family. So you would just, like, the last names were like Blake Rifle or Rifle Blake , or Rifle or Blake
Speaker 2<laugh> . And they just had a whole graduating class of them .
Speaker 1Yeah. So this inbreeding was causing birth defects.
Speaker 2Yeah. As some , as it
Speaker 1Does. Yeah. And some of the birth defects children were given to the asylum because the families couldn't take care of them. Okay. My mom also inbred birds on accident and it's not a good thing. <laugh> . God did not plan that.
Speaker 2No.
Speaker 1Yeah. So many of the, many of these inbred children actually died in the asylum. Um, they had like brain, brain defects.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Um, they couldn't nurse, they couldn't thrive, you know, all these problems. By 1930, there was over 1300 patients. Holy cow. More buildings were being built and a general hospital for surgeries and autopsies was built. Here we go.
Speaker 2I'm waiting for it. We're in ,
Speaker 1We're in the basement. It's dark. There's spiderwebs, there's dust on all the shelves. Jars of preserved human organs floating in , formaldehyde lined the shelves. And a bank of refrigerated body containers covered a whole wall from top to bottom. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . They , they moved from stacking them in that, that shack. Yeah.
Speaker 2I was just thinking they've upgraded the Stack shack. All right , so you're welcome.
Speaker 1Trademark.
Speaker 2Yeah . Stack Shack. <laugh>.
Speaker 1That's what we should call this place.
Speaker 2The Stack Shack.
Speaker 1Yes . <laugh> Fire was always a concern in the asylum. And the morning of October 3rd, 1935, a fire broke out on the fourth floor. And before it was put out, six wards were consumed by fires. And the als and the , and the roof caved. Caved in. Mm . Miraculously no one was killed.
Speaker 2Oh, I thought you said six people were are you?
Speaker 1Six floors
Speaker 2Became inflamed. Oh , okay.
Speaker 1So Legend has it that they rang the , the dinner bell and everybody moved to the cafeteria and they were able to get them out that way. <laugh> . That's awesome . Ding .
Speaker 2It's like , pop nothing
Speaker 1Over the side . Let's go . It's dinner.
Speaker 2We're , we've got pudding for dessert.
Speaker 1Yeah. Well, this is kind of cool. One patient was trapped . I mean, it's whatever. One patient was trapped behind the metal bars, like on the windows. Oh yeah . And the fire was behind him. So one of the firemen actually got up there on the ladder, was able to pull, bend down the, bend down the , um, the metal bars and pull the guy out. What? So everybody lived
Speaker 2Wow. Right . Ridge <laugh>
Speaker 1Bend the iron. That's why you work out . That's why you gotta work out in case you need to bend metal . That's right. So of course, the news always doing their things. They claimed on the radio. Uh, so this is like the Twitter of the 18 hundreds. Okay . So they claimed on the radio that all the patients were burning to death. And the flames.
Speaker 2What?
Speaker 1Come on guys. Fake
Speaker 2News. Yep .
Speaker 1The National Guard and the state police were brought into corral the onlookers. <laugh> can't I like that. Nothing's changed . Kim . Here
Speaker 2You looky-loo <laugh>.
Speaker 1No, idiots aren't on fire. Come on. Get over here. Get in your hole. <laugh> . Stay over here in the tuberculosis wing. You'll be fine. Idiots. After an inquiry into the fire, the police found an 18-year-old man named Forest Culvert. I like that. His name is Forrest . Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> had set some paper on fire on the fourth floor, but it, like lit stuff, and so he got scared and ran off.
Speaker 2Oh, okay. Maybe
Speaker 1He just don't light stuff on fire. Moron . So this was cool. President Roosevelt authorized $115,000 to rebuild the facility. Great. Thank you. Roosevelt. In the mid 1940s, the , the facility was still running as a well-oiled farm. They had over a hundred head of cattle, tons of fruits and vegetables and coal. They were actually like mining coal from a local area.
Speaker 2Oh, wow. Yeah . So they're really self-sufficient.
Speaker 1Yeah. They're like a little town. Yeah.
Speaker 2However,
Speaker 1The 1940s brought along electro shock therapy.
Speaker 2Ah . I was waiting for it . Electro shock therapy
Speaker 1For all my friends.
Speaker 2It provided
Speaker 1A less expensive, more effective way to create those doctor loved induced convulsions. Doctor ,
Speaker 2Loved .
Speaker 1Are you feeling insane? <laugh>?
Speaker 2You need a little electricity going through your brain.
Speaker 1Log onto electroshock therapy.com. Wow. Use whatever our pod podcast name is for a 20% discount. <laugh>
Speaker 2State's exhibit <laugh>
Speaker 1Electrodes were placed on either the forehead on either side of the forehead. A massive jolt of electricity was passed through the temporal lobe. The temporal lobe is what makes time happen in your brain.
Speaker 2<laugh> good .
Speaker 1It induced violent convulsions. Oh .
Speaker 2And
Speaker 1Up until numbing injections were , uh, were were brought about . Yeah. Prior to the procedure, 40% of those treated, suffered broken bones from the thrashing they were thrashing about
Speaker 2Wow.
Speaker 1From the electricity that was in
Speaker 2Their brain. Well , what about all the clamps and restraints and
Speaker 1Well , well, this is different therapy
Speaker 2Oh's . Oh . So I'm so stupid. Oh God. You're
Speaker 1An idiot. <laugh> . I mean , uh, I'm not shocked . Like , shocked by this voodoo B the patients tried to escape after a few times. Yeah. Yeah . So then they, then they started to restrain them.
Speaker 2Oh, okay.
Speaker 1Yeah. Again, just kill me. Just Yeah . Just ,
Speaker 2Just get it over with .
Speaker 1Just kill me. Yeah. Just give me a cyanide pill. I'll be fine. <laugh> . Yeah. Some suffered brain damage. Weird. Oh, so weird. A couple
Speaker 2Died. You can control electricity. You
Speaker 1Know, you who dies from shock therapy in their brain to the brain. So weird. You should have been stronger. You had all those vegetables, tuberculosis. After World War ii, there was no end in sight to more incoming patients. Great .
Speaker 2Yeah . Mm-Hmm.
Speaker 1<affirmative> . Yeah. Because now we're, now we're dealing with a new war. So the Civil War, world War ii, now the New War brought in patients that were taught , and so they topped outta 1600 patients.
Speaker 2Okay. Taking no more.
Speaker 1Yeah. Now we mean it. Yeah. Yeah. It was started 250. That, that ain't nothing. So in 1948, a rehab center was built and a forensics department. Why is there a forensics department and an asylum?
Speaker 2That's a very good question.
Speaker 1Well, there was also arts and crafts. <laugh> . They had an arts and crafts center built next to the forensics
Speaker 2Department . Quit eating the glue. You idiots.
Speaker 1Despite these efforts, life at the asylum was grim. Yeah. Shortly before retiring in 1949, superintendent Dr. Knapp led journalists from the Charleston Gazette on an inspection tour of the asylum. That graphically revealed how gruesome the institution had become. Yeah. It's not lights and rainbows and sunshine.
Speaker 2No . Now Yeah . Murals.
Speaker 1And with the population of over 1800.
Speaker 2Oh , okay. Yeah. We didn't mean it Mm-Hmm . But this time we
Speaker 1Do. Yeah. Overcrowding had become a crisis. <laugh>.
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1Yeah. Because you have literally like a , a small country living in a building, <laugh> . And they're , and they're angry. Yeah. <laugh> patients were sleeping in halls in common areas, rooms for product . So basically like college. Yeah. Now that I think about it, rooms for productive activities were remade into bedrooms with beds only being inches apart. Hmm .
Speaker 2Good. So what used
Speaker 1To be painting of murals? Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> is now just sleeping next to that smelly guy. As a rule, the more mentally disturbed a patient was, the further away from the center they would be,
Speaker 2I would crazy it
Speaker 1Up . Yeah. You're crazing it up on the, out on the outside wings. This would ensure that visitors could un avoid unpleasant smells and sounds and sight .
Speaker 2Oh, so the stinkies in the middle ? Yeah.
Speaker 1So , um, this is where the journalists went to.
Speaker 2Oh , uh,
Speaker 1Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , they noted that there was one toilet for 60 people.
Speaker 2No way.
Speaker 1There was pools of malodorous water all over the floor. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Only one attendant was there to care for these 60 people <laugh> . One toilet, one attendant. So these 60 people were , uh, like not able or not willing to control their bodily functions.
Speaker 2Well, I mean, imagine a house full of kids waiting on a bathroom. This is 60 people for one toilet, and they're giving them laxatives.
Speaker 1I went to, I went to my younger one's toilet yesterday because the older one was vomiting. And , uh, I was like, why is your face so close to that toilet gross? Let me spray bleach all over it. Ew . <laugh> . Like, I bleached all the things yesterday. I was like, oh , okay . No wonder they're stink . And imagine like 60 and only, no . Yeah . So the hardwood flooring in the whole facility was a hundred years old. Ew . And it had all hundred years worth of feces. Yeah . And urine and whatever. It's a biohazard. Uh , just burn the place down. These quarters were secure behind a giant metal padlock door.
Speaker 2Good . Yeah.
Speaker 1That's where you go. The staff hoped for a miracle. And around 1948, the lobotomy showed up. Yeah .
Speaker 2I was waiting for that one too.
Speaker 1Yeah . I like this. Yeah. So it started in Europe, known as Ice pick surgery. <laugh> the first Lobo Lobotomy. <laugh> . Stop it. <laugh> . Yeah. But a hundred years from now, I wonder what they're gonna say about what we do now.
Speaker 2Yeah. Well, yeah. That's all I have to say is, yeah.
Speaker 1Ugh . The first lobotomy in the US was performed by Dr. Walter Freeman after reading notes and writing back and forth with Dr. EGAs Monez , um, who had invented the, the dichotomy later called the lobotomy. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . So the lobe, yeah . Dichotomy.
Speaker 2The removal of the lobe
Speaker 1Yeah. Or the damage of it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Yeah. So he'd been writing back and forth with Dr. Monez, who is like the first guy who was thinking like, all this . So he is got all these intricate paperwork and notes and all this stuff, you know. So the theory was that if the connections in the brains that cause panic and agitation was disconnected or severed, the brain would rewire itself. All right . I can get back , I can get , I can, I can get behind this because I have ms and like my brain is constantly rewiring itself around lesions. So like, I I,
Speaker 2But do they really know enough about the brain to stick a pic in it and know exactly where the wires cross and uncross?
Speaker 1Um, this is people who were like putting people in water baths. Yeah,
Speaker 2Exactly. And
Speaker 1Them ,
Speaker 2Oh , and Kennedy family
Speaker 1Had this electrocuting and giving them too much insulin. I don't know why you are concerned with this.
Speaker 2I'm just saying it seems like a brain surgeon type
Speaker 1Job . Well, this was the start of neurology actually. Okay. Yeah . I mean, maybe you could be the next neurologist because you're questioning how brains work. Well ,
Speaker 2<laugh> well, that's step one.
Speaker 1Yeah . So , uh, so they, they thought the patient would feel better after this <laugh> . Yeah. After ice pick is in their Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> brain. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . I get that. And when I get migraines. So, Dr. Freeman p practiced on cadavers at first, before moving on to his first live human Freeman's first attempt would be on a 63-year-old woman with a long history of mental illness. She had been in and out of St . Elizabeth's for 20 years. And although treated in every other imaginable way, alas , her long suffering husband has agreed to the procedure. <laugh> , yes. Please jam this in my, in my wife's brain. The very first time you ever do it. Yep .
Speaker 2And let's have a bunch of people come and watch. Yeah.
Speaker 1So, assisted by Dr. James Watt, the scrupulously replicating munoz's precise descriptions. Okay . Very, very into it . We've
Speaker 2Got a blueprint and crayon here . They
Speaker 1Got to work first. They cleaned and shaved the scalp then marked a spot just between the bridge of the nose and the eye socket. Ooh . Go ahead and locate that on your face. Yeah. Yep . There it is. And then they drilled a hole. I don't know why they shaved her scalp.
Speaker 2Yeah, exactly. What
Speaker 1Does that got to do with anything? I don't know . So of this was followed by the insertion of an ice pick , which was manipulated in an arc, which severed the connections in the frontal lobe. The operation lasted just under an hour. And after two weeks of convalescence, she went home.
Speaker 2Oh, wow.
Speaker 1Her husband said that while occasionally his wife was child, like she's, she no longer was agitated and panicky.
Speaker 2Yeah . She's drooling on the couch again. Yeah .
Speaker 1Yeah . She's five. Whatever. Dr. Freeman went on to complete 40,000 lobotomies.
Speaker 2Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1Okay. In 1948, ed Reser was now the director of the West Virginia Hospital for the insane, and he was at his wit's end. He's like, I got a bajillion people here. And they're all insane at my asylum. Yeah. Which is weird. He begged his old buddy, Dr. Freeman, to come to West Virginia. Help him out. Come on, come on. Freeman headed to West , West Virginia. He headed on down. I know how to do lobotomy. Now. 1952, Dr. Freeman performed 787 lobotomies, including 225 in a 12 day span.
Speaker 2Holy cow. In a 12 day span. That's just, he
Speaker 1Should get like the medal of Honor or something. Oh . Or something. He could reduce an adult to a childlike state in under 10 minutes.
Speaker 2How weird. With an ice pick seems . Yep .
Speaker 1Here we go. Here's our first joke. Freeman crisscross the state in his van dubbed the Lobo Mobile .
Speaker 2No, no, it wasn't.
Speaker 1I didn't do that.
Speaker 2<laugh> . Wow.
Speaker 1That was them. Wow . Thedo Mobile
Speaker 2<laugh> . Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> <laugh> .
Speaker 1We got jokes in the fifties. This was great for Freeman. But his partner, Dr. Watt, was horrified that Freeman could care less about hygiene. Is this your brain? Whatever. Yeah. Freeman's ego was so big that once he turned around for a picture and the ice pick . Okay. So he turned the ice pick's in the woman's face. Right? It's in her face. Oh, he tapped it turned around for a picture. Picture the ice pick broke in half. Oh . And the ice pick was stuck in her face .
Speaker 2Oh my gosh. <laugh> .
Speaker 1Apparently he never washed his hands either. Ew . Or his tools. And he kept his tools in his pockets.
Speaker 2Oh , gross.
Speaker 1This is so fun. I love this guy. One time working in DC framing , got a call from the family that their family member was detained by police and he was being very violent. So Freeman shows up with a Twinky ink . He's got all his stuff. They're at a motel. They're at a motel.
Speaker 2No , he's got the mobile parked in the front. <laugh> .
Speaker 1They are restraining the guy in the hotel on the floor. Police are there. They're holding the guy down. And he was like, Hey, guess what? I got in my pocket. Okay. So he happened to have an , uh, an electroshock kit in his cigar box. <laugh> , you know, as one does. And he, so he shocks the patient. He's like, Hey, while I'm at it. Yeah. Let me just give 'em a lobotomy.
Speaker 2<laugh> my gosh.
Speaker 1On the floor of a motel. Well, how fortunate. That was great. The family was happy because they only had to pay the hotel cost and not a hospital visit.
Speaker 2Oh, that's good.
Speaker 1I like that about that family. I think I'm related to them. The patient came away a zombie and the family toted them away to recover at home. <laugh> ,
Speaker 2Come sit in the guest room that you live in now.
Speaker 1Wow. I just can't even, how is this a true story? I can't even with this guy. So the ice pick era came to a close in the 1950s with the advent of prescription drugs. Okay.
Speaker 2Seems a little bit less
Speaker 1Jail . Yeah. <laugh> , not all of Freeman's lobotomies were a success. Like the one he did on Rosemary Kennedy. You know, JFK's sister? Uhhuh <affirmative> . Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . She was 23. She tended to have like very unpopular outbursts in public. So she was embarrassing. So the Kennedy family had her lobotomized. Yep . The results were disastrous. Yes. Yes. Yeah. 'cause he doesn't wash his hands and stuff. And she ended up spending the rest of her life institutionalized. Yeah. Where , where you go , dude. Yeah. Maybe you could tell that story next time. Anyway. Freeman lost his license. <laugh> . And he died of colon cancer in 1972. See ya . Good.
Speaker 2Back
Speaker 1To the asylum. Over the years, the local rich folks would hold proms and dances or parties in the ballroom of the grand front lawn. However, occasionally the staff was called out to the front lawn because the patients are getting naked and doing lewd acts on people. <laugh> . Yes . Which
Speaker 2Is illegal. Yay .
Speaker 1High school games. High school football games were held. Um, even baseball, billiards, bingo, whatever the town people would get there , play games on. They were like, let's do this. Yeah, yeah. Occasionally patients would escape <laugh> through the uh, uh, although the staff would use the word elope. They were eloped. They were , they eloped. Eloping. Because they didn't wanna say there was an escapee
Speaker 2Outta town.
Speaker 1<laugh> radio stations would announce when patients had eloped.
Speaker 2Oh, nice. That
Speaker 1Radio stations for the win . Yeah. So most escapees were harmless and they were all dressed in uniforms. So they were easily identified. <laugh> . One man who had murdered his parents escaped and was running around town scaring people. Yeah. Yeah. They caught him. He's fine. The mass, a mass escaped happened in 1967 when nine males escaped and were hiding around town <laugh> .
Speaker 2Oh. And like a Where's Waldo of the insane asylum <laugh> .
Speaker 1That's exactly what I thought. I was like, where's Waldo? This is legit. That's, that's how Where's Waldo actually, actually started. I don't know if that's true. There were also hushed up murders behind the asylum walls. These murders never went public because the murderers were already declared insane. Mm . They're just doing their thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2That's what they do.
Speaker 1Yeah . That's what you do when you're insane. So there is a murder involving devil worship. So he was actually worshiping the devil at this time. Okay. Yeah. So David m targeted A childlike George b as a sacrifice to the devil. David and a buddy convinced George to go into a room in the basement. What's with the basement? Oh , George. So they choke George repeatedly with a sheet that was tied to the ceiling pipe. They had a lot of pipes, like exposed pipes. Yeah. Yeah. When David and his buddy got tired, they drove a bed post through his temple.
Speaker 2Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1I know. It just killed him right away.
Speaker 2That's so's So weird . It's like a lobotomy. I cant believe he
Speaker 1Didn't survive . I know . It's like a side otomy. Another murder occurred after the staff couldn't find a patient for several days. Um, a uh , a bad odor was coming from his room though. Um, so they found a decaying body stuffed under his bed.
Speaker 2Oh .
Speaker 1So another patient had just become annoyed with his snoring and strangled him to death and then stuffed him under the bed.
Speaker 2That I can appreciate.
Speaker 1Yeah. Same disease . Of course, there was the occasional suicides. The first suicide was way back in 1875. I would've been the first suicide. Yeah. And also the last <laugh> he had hanged himself. So remember Isabella Brown? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . She was there with her family. Yeah. Yeah. She hanged herself too. Oh yeah . The suicides , um, weren't always hanging. So one person used a sharp metal part on his bedpost
Speaker 2Oh wow.
Speaker 1To cut his femoral artery.
Speaker 2Oh , ish . But can
Speaker 1You , okay. Do you know where that is? It's on your leg.
Speaker 2Oh, is it back here?
Speaker 1It's like, and goes into your crotch. So he's,
Speaker 2Oh my gosh. Just blah .
Speaker 1You should cut off the sharp metal parts on the bed post Guy <laugh> one suicide was by jumping off of a high stairwell. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . So the stair , so the stairs, the way that they had 'em , it's kind of like a hotel where you can like look down the center. Oh , okay . And there's that hole in the center
Speaker 2Square . Yeah .
Speaker 1Yeah. He jumped. Mm . I wonder if he hit the other stuff on the way . Dinging, dinging <laugh> . I don't know . One lady was missing, was missed as a patient by the staff. Um, so she's a patient. They had a big ball. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . The staff didn't notice. She was all dressed up for the ball. They didn't notice that. She just ran right out the door. <laugh> . She went out in town, bought several cans of lighter fluid, went back to her room, doused her dress that she was wearing, struck a match and lit herself and burned to death.
Speaker 2Holy cow.
Speaker 1If you were insane, you are now. Yeah. Yeah. One man, one woman ran out the front door and before she could get caught, jumped from a bridge into the river and drowned. Oh .
Speaker 2Like
Speaker 1People just doing it. Yeah.
Speaker 2But after everything they've been through <laugh> ,
Speaker 1The final suicide was a man who was supposed to be leaving that day to reenter society.
Speaker 2No way.
Speaker 1When the staff went to collect his stuff, he was hanging there by a sheet.
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1Why do you have so many freaking exposed
Speaker 2Pipes? I know . Cover it up. Yeah. Get some rubber sheets
Speaker 1Or , I mean, are we going for like Italian decor or like industrial? What are we doing here? Sounds
Speaker 2Industrial.
Speaker 1A few days before the asylum closed, there was a lady who was sane enough to work out in town. So sometimes they could actually do that. When she was told that she was gonna leave , um, she didn't want to. She's like, I live here. I've been living here for 20 years. This is what I do. Yeah.
Speaker 2This is my home. Yeah .
Speaker 1Her daughter , her daughter had picked her up and took her to California, but the woman refused to take off her nasty coat that she'd been wearing for 20 years. Oh . So when the staff talked to her on the phone, the daughter's like, my mom won't take this freaking coat off. Yeah. And they were like, Hey, check the lining of it. 'cause we used to see her like sewing it all the time. She had thousands of dollars in her coat pockets. No
Speaker 2Way. Yeah . Impressive.
Speaker 1Hashtag bank. Yeah .
Speaker 2Good . Thanks. Mom.
Speaker 1The 1950s was the beginning of the end of the asylum area. A new drug was on the market called Chlorpromazine. Is
Speaker 2That chloroform
Speaker 1Also known as Thorazine? Mm . You don't know all your drugs.
Speaker 2No.
Speaker 1Such an opium addict. <laugh>
Speaker 2<laugh> . A simple
Speaker 1Pill could get rid of the hallucinations and the delusions, to which I say, please give me some. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> it reduced threatening behavior. And by the mid 1960s, it was a commonly prescribed drug with fewer patients. Overcrowding went down. Mm . Throw a pill at it. Drug companies were thrilled with the new money coming in. They were . Yep . Halfway houses became very popular. Yeah. So, so now the people that were , uh, locked up got some pills and now they're living next door. <laugh> .
Speaker 2Oh
Speaker 1Boy. So fun. <laugh> the asylum slot's. First female superintendent. Go girl. Get it . Dr. Cornelia Wilber. So this is really interesting. I like, there is so many spinoffs that could happen from this one podcast. So , um, Dr. Cornelia Wilber and her more progressive approach to mental health was starting to come about. So before working in Weston , she had worked for 11 years with a patient named Shirley Mason. This woman was abused as a child and she had 16 different personalities. Oh yeah. So she later wrote a book called Sybil.
Speaker 2Oh my gosh. Yes.
Speaker 1I know. Sybil became a by word for schizophrenia. Ah . And thinking back, people used to call me Sybil
Speaker 2<laugh> . I just thought it was a pet name. Oh ,
Speaker 1A decade later, Dr. Wilbur was a consultant on the case of Billy Milligan. So on Netflix right now we have the 24 faces of Billy Milligan. Oh,
Speaker 2I'm gonna have to watch it.
Speaker 1So she was like, well versed in the schizophrenia area. So he was the first man in America to be acquitted based on his multiple personality disorder. Mm . Yeah. It's really interesting. Um, so the asylum had roughly 25 patients in the 1960s. And then that number dwindled down to a thousand in the 1980s. And then finally in the 1990s, there were few fewer than a hundred. Awesome.
Speaker 2Okay. Where
Speaker 1To throw a pill at it, man? Yeah. And uh, they were mostly just like chronic drug and alcohol users. So it just became a rehab center. Pretty much new laws and policies were put in place. And the families lo lobbied for more patient rights. In 1987, the West , the Westin Hospital almost said Hotel <laugh>. It's kind of a hotel now. Uh , so the , in 1987, the Weston Hospital for the insane closed its doors plans went forward for the construction of the William a r Sharp Junior Hospital on the rear acreage of the old farmland completed in 1994. It was designed to hold 150 patients, which was just about what was left over after the asylum closed. Awesome. So amongst the very last group of the, of the transferred was the murderer. David m the guy who, you know, shoved the bedpost through the guy's through George's head.
Speaker 2Ugh . In the basement.
Speaker 1Yep . His , uh, weapon of choice was the bedpost he spent the rest of his life in , in , uh, life at Sharps. They called it Sharps. Now. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , um, dying. In 2011 , approximately 20,000 people died at the asylum between nine , between 1864 and 1994. Many rewards of the state whose remains were unclaimed. That's very sad. Their bodies placed in crude coffins and their vital stats enclosed in glass jars and buried without ceremony . There was no names to identify them. Only numbers carved on the row of concrete markers in the hills behind the asylum. This is like the saddest thing ever. Yeah. People just threw away their people and then threw 'em away again. <laugh> , just so much throwing away in later years, the cemetery, the cemeteries became overcrowded and coffins had to be stacked on top of each other again with the stacking.
Speaker 2The stacking. Yep . What is
Speaker 1Wrong with you? People? After the Department of Health and Welfare took over the abandoned asylum in 1994, they were like, bro,
Speaker 2<laugh> , we gotta get this fixed.
Speaker 1We got a problem. Yeah. Houston, we have a problem. So they're a maintenance crew to make it easier to mow. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , you know, 'cause it's about them. Ew .
Speaker 2<laugh> .
Speaker 1They just pulled up the markers and then dumped 'em off to the sides, and then they eventually just disappeared. Yeah.
Speaker 2And you have no idea who's down there anyway after you pull 'em up. Oh , all right . Well,
Speaker 1Some of the old markers have been found around Weston over the years. Oh . A set of 12 was returned by a man who while removing a wood stove in his basement again with a basement, was um, surprised to find that the foundation of his house was old gravestones from the asylum.
Speaker 2Ooh . Yeah.
Speaker 1So you're just like looking at the floor and there's just like numbers.
Speaker 2Do you put that on Zillow when you list your house? <laugh> ?
Speaker 1I bet he did. Old
Speaker 2Section . Yeah.
Speaker 1Well, so the cemeteries are open fields now with just a few gravestones , um, like placed by private parties. Yeah . So, so family members came in and the asylum's oldest cemetery was a single stone that stands burying the name of Civil War veteran Jasper Wyatt. So now I'm gonna go to that page. So some of the old markers have been found around Weston over the years and we've got Jasper in life. So I'm just gonna show you a picture of him and I'll post it on , um, he was a Civil War veteran, so there's Jasper.
Speaker 2Aww .
Speaker 1Yeah. And if you go to the next page over, you can see his , um, his little gravestone.
Speaker 2Oh , that's cool. Yeah. Jasper Wyatt. He's a handsome old guy.
Speaker 1Yep . And then there was this other guy that was this wild guy he had watched , um, he had watched the movie , uh, about Tarzan Uhhuh and he actually became like a living Tarzan. So he's called the Wild Man of Clay County.
Speaker 2I think I've heard of that actually. Well,
Speaker 1He joined the Navy and the Navy was like, Hey man, you have to wear a uniform. But he, this is what he wanted to wear. He looks like literally Tarzan, he is wearing like a leaf for underwear. I mean, he is , he is a hair as long he is . Got a long beard. He's just a hot mess.
Speaker 2Yeah. It kinda looks like wolf
Speaker 1Boy . Yeah. So he ended up joining the Navy and the Navy was like, Hey man , uh, you have to , uh, wear clothes. And he was like, f that. And so he ended up going into the asylum for 11 years and when he was let out, he went right back to his regular life. So his name is Orville. Orville ,
Speaker 2He's a of course is , oh , there's his cured picture.
Speaker 1He's cured.
Speaker 2Cured <laugh>.
Speaker 1And that is, that is the story of the trans Allegheny Insane Asylum <laugh>. Orville's cured. Orville's cured. I'm gonna , I'll post a picture of that on Instagram. It's hilarious. So , oh well what a neat story. Yeah, so there you go. So we can, maybe we'll do like the other three stories that go off of that one or four or five or six people's do one on Orl . Some spinoff. Spinoff. Yeah . So , so where are we going next week? We're going to New Jersey. New Jersey. New Jersey . I love it. Yeah. So we're gonna have more spooky stuff and we'll even have some stuff about Halloween. So thanks for tuning in. Check us out on Instagram , uh, state's exhibit podcast, and then you can email us at states states pod@gmail.com. And , uh, please write to us anytime . Yes, we wanna hear from y'all. We love you guys. We wanna hear your stories and if you want us to do another one. All right , we'll see you next time. This has been a clear right production .
