Life in the Victorian Asylum is in two parts. The first part talks to you as if you an a patient coming to be treated for mental health issues in the asylum, letting you know the rules, the routines and is an all round patient handbook, the second part discusses the history of Victorian asylums.
For anyone who hears the word Victorian and then asylum, they think of the rather well know UK asylum Bedlum, where rich people would come to look and gawk at those who were less fortunate, who weren’t at the full mental capacity as they supposedly were.
The author here doesn’t dispute that fact, in fact he admits that yes that kind of thing did happen, but in this book he brights to light that there were doctors, hospitals, staff who did focus on their patients, who tried to treat the mental health issues as best as they could given what they knew at the time. Was it always the right way? Probably not, and you get to hear the stories of certain characters in Moulsford Asylum, as well as other asylums too, but the author did extensive research about Moulsford – now known as Fair Mile Hospital – for another book, and given that the hospital had a large archive it stands to reason why he would focus on that one in particular. But it wasn’t the only place he focuses on, with Broadmore being another Asylum that he brings forth.
It’s an interesting read, if at times confusing, at least for me it was when reading the first part. I would have perhaps preferred it more if the author had made two sections, one for the patients and the other for staff, because the two merged together in one that didn’t feel very real to me, or what could have been a patients reading guide for going into this asylum.
Aside from that there was many tales to be told, from the growth of the hospital, to the staff and the risque moments they had, as well as the patients, the treatments they got, and the escape artists. This isn’t to say that the books out there that speak about the abuse in asylums are wrong, but this book brings to light that there were places that tried there best to help people get back to their families, and if they couldn’t do that, tried to make their lives as comfortable as possible.
It’s an interesting look into a world that no many really look into that deeply, and believe that these places were all abusive and evil, when there was sections that did want to care for these people as best as they could.
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