Madness, Suicide and the Victorian Asylum: Attempted Self-Murder in the Age of Non-Restraint
“During 1881, twenty-three patients had committed suicide in licensed institutions for the insane. Of these, most patients contrived to hang themselves with bed sheets, handkerchiefs tied together with bootlaces, or by “roller towels”. Some patients fatally threw themselves down stairs, whilst others cut their throats with knives smuggled out of the sculery. Three of the twenty-three patients were out of the asylum when the self-murder had occurred. One patient escaped from Whittingham Asylum and lay down on the London and North Western Railway line, where he was found decapitated the next day. Two patients had been discharged on probation, seemingly recovered, only for one man to shoot himself in the head and the other to take an overdose of “chloral”. Suicide, and suicide attempts, it would seem, were a reality of the Victorian mental hospital.”
When I think that I have it bad, and that my search for comfort in medication is bed, I look to the Victorians to calm my nerves. I am so very lucky I am born into an age that believes in alleviating mental illness with discussion and therapy, and also polite (scoff) medication without the need for intrusive or restrictive practices. Wipes sweat from brow.
As for “roller towels”… Had to do a little research on this one. But I think, after a small addition in my mind, that inmates were using roller towels – a towel connected at both ends intended to be hung from a wooden pole for drying hands, with the towel being turned from wet to dry – as a means of strangulation or hanging because of the design and the ease of placing ones head inside and attaching it to something for the purpose of hanging. Desperate times. It is chilling, the objective perspective we can have over such actions. Suicide is no joke. Nor is it an exhibit. But, I suppose, much like the Victorians, we still have a morbid interest.
Just a small interest of mine, and change of tone. Some reading while I up loaded some new music.
— Also, to those who found my blog by typing “Kayla Jo Holland email address” if you find it… you know who wants it just as much as you.
–Esther.
Esther Phase is the Queen of the robots. 