A COUPLE OF miles from Congress in Washington, DC, sits a large complex of buildings in a redbrick Italianate style with terracotta roof tiles. It might be mistaken for a college, were it not for the ironwork in front of the windows to stop people from jumping out. This is the old St Elizabeths Hospital, once one of the largest asylums in America. It now stands empty, awaiting redevelopment for the Department of Homeland Security.
The hospital’s walls contain a potted history of the way severe mental illness has been treated over the past 200 years, in particular schizophrenia (whose victims hallucinate and withdraw from society), bipolar disorder (which causes frequent mood swings from mania to despair and back again) and severe personality disorders (a catch-all term for people who behave in various abnormal ways). Their incidence varies little from country to country, affecting 1.5-3% of the population over the course of a life. They most often emerge between the ages of 18 and 25.
In the West the asylum movement, which began in the first half of the 19th century (and was the inspiration for giant hospitals like St Elizabeths...
from The Economist: Special report http://ift.tt/1eJfsft
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