Athens Insane Asylum Research Paper

The Ridges, in earlier times called the Athens Lunatic Asylum, was a mental hospital operated in Athens, Ohio from 1874 until 1993. The Ridges provided facilities to patients including violent criminals suffering from various psychological disorders, civil war veterans and unruly children. The Athens Lunatic Asylum served Athens, Gallia, Jackson, Vinton and other surrounding counties. Levi T. Scofield was the designer of the architecture for the original building. Construction began on November 5, 1868 and was completed January 9, 1874 when the hospital was finally opened. There was an administrations building, with two wings and three sections in the main building. In the left area the males were housed, and in the right were the women. In the main building there was room for 572 patients. Dr. Thomas Story …show more content…
Besides the patients eventually being treated very cruelly, there were other strange things beginning to happen at the “Ridges’. Along with the patients being treated very unpleasant, there were a couple of the procedures that effected the patients the most, these were the water treatments. Patients were submerged in ice water for long periods of time, they came out of these “treatments” shivering and struggling with hypothermia. In conclusion, the insane asylum was meant to treat these patients for their illnesses which later became misleading for the patients were treated cruelly and unprofessionally. There were several mishaps in which patients went missing when being uncared for and were later found dead with symptoms that did not add up to how they were found deceased. The patients who are buried in the cemeteries of the Ridges were not treated respectfully, they were not given names on their headstones and later they stopped caring for the cemeteries all together.

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