Dorothea Dix' Prison Reforms

'The family though enjoying the means of decent livelihood, when unburthened by extra expenses, have not the means of sending him to a distant Hospital. The rich may partake the benefits such institutions afford: the poor must suffer, agonize, and bear heavily out, by slow‐ killing tortures, their unblessed life! Are there no pitying hearts, and open hands that can be moved by these miseries?...'

 Dix, Dorothea. "Dorothea Dix Pleads for a State Mental Hospital." University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. November 1, 1848. Accessed January 26, 2015. http://www.edline.net/files/_AFCQx_/b85cbe6b6962af6c3745a49013852ec4/DixDocumentPDF.pdf.


 In this document, Dorothea Dix protests the deplorable treatment of people with mental illnesses in the nineteenth century.  She was trying to get state hospitals so that poor family members of the mentally insane could get treatment for their loved ones without having to pay an arm and a leg for it.  The document recounts some stories of the horrible conditions in which many people with mental illnesses were forced to live, and contains many testimonials from doctors who have experience working with the mentally insane, making it quite reliable.  At the time when this was written, many people who developed mental illnesses whose families were too poor to send them to hospital were jailed or otherwise confined.  Dix brings to light some of the truly awful conditions these people were forced into (chained to beds, confined in dark, dirty rooms, unbathed).  Some of the descriptions really illuminated the plight of the mentally insane in the nineteenth century.  Dorothea Dix' protests are well-planned, citing ways to change the ways that people with mental illnesses were treated in the 1800s.  However, this document fails to propose a way to pay for Dix' proposed state hospitals.  Dorothea Dix attempted to get better treatment for people with mental illnesses because she felt that the ways in which they were being treated were horrible.  She uses stories and descriptions of the conditions that many insane people were in, as well as testimony from doctors and people who have been around those with mental illnesses.  She fought to convince others that state hospitals should provide care for people with mental illnesses regarding the financial circumstances of their family, and throughout the document, one can see that she truly believed that the ways in which the mentally insane were treated should be changed and that state hospitals were the way to go.