Are dark secrets lurking in wings at Devizes?

[Northerner]

Residents of The Mews, a part of the former Roundway Hospital, Wiltshire?s mental asylum, are appealing for information about the history of the listed building that is now their home.

Although the Bath stone buildings, which are now part of the Drews Park housing estate, are well documented, less information is available about The Mews, which was built in 1851.

Resident Dr Harriet Dunbar-Morris said: ?With the help of the museum and some determined residents, we have found some information in a centennial pamphlet, but sadly we know very little about our building.?

Dr Dunbar-Morris?s husband, Oxford academic Peter Morris, has discovered a photograph of the upstairs floor of their home, set out with beds and subtitled ?Insulin Treatment Centre?.

At first Mr Morris thought it must refer to treatment for diabetes, but an internet search reveals a rather darker purpose.

http://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/news/9875401.Are_dark_secrets_lurking_in_wings_at_Devizes_/

How dreadful - can you imagine? 😱 😱

 

[pgcity]

Very scary.

 

[jalapino]

OMG!!! that is horrible!!!

 

[HelenM]

The daily insulin dose was gradually increased to 100?150 units until comas were produced, at which point the dose would be levelled out.[1] Occasionally doses of up to 450 units were used.[8] After about 50 or 60 comas, or earlier if the psychiatrist thought that maximum benefit had been achieved, the dose of insulin was rapidly reduced before treatment was stopped.[7][9] Courses of up to 2 years have been documented.[9]

😱

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin_shock_therapy

The writer Sylvia Path wrote a semi autobiographical novel The Bell Jar in which a young woman becomes more and more depressed and receives insulin shock 'treatment'. Plath underwent the treatment in the fifties.

The film ' A Beautiful Mind' prtrays the true story of John Nash, a nobel prizewinner who received the therapy for schizophrenia in the 60s.. You can find the relevant clip on youtube (together with some documentary footage of the therapy: not pleasant viewing)

 

[Caroline]

I have sent the article to my friend, Her mu was a pyschiatric nurse in the 40's and 50's

 

[Northerner]

50 or 60 comas???!!!!!! 😱 Sounds utterly barbaric. Seems a huge amount of insulin too - was a unit still a unit back then? A tenth of that would kill me

 

[cherrypie]

Mental health has always carried a stigma.

This article is worth reading if you are interested in some of the treatments through the ages.
The History of Mental Illness from "Skull Drills" to "Happy Pills".
http://www.studentpulse.com/article...ntal-illness-from-skull-drills-to-happy-pills

 

[Lauren]

I remember learning about insulin shock therapy at university, absolutely terrible

And I used to live in Devizes, very close to The Mews, never knew what went on in there though!