Ten Days in a Mad-house

Description

The book written by the reporter Nellie Bly presents the living conditions in an asylum for mentally ill women, describing the gruesome way the nurses who were supposed to assist the patients in their curing efforts treated them in fact.

When the director of The New York World, the publication for which the author worked at the time, granted her the permission to carry out an undercover investigation in a “mad-house”, the author had no idea of the terrible experience that she was going to live. Of course, she did not expect the patients of such a facility to be treated as royalties, but what followed left her completely unprepared.

In order to be admitted in the asylum, she had to simulate the signs of insanity, so that everyone around her be convinced that she is mentally ill. What came as a surprise was the superficiality of the medical examination and the rapidity in establishing a positive diagnosis of madness. From this point of view, it was not a surprise for the undercover reporter to see that other women in the asylum were also perfectly sane.

However, witnessing the cruelties the sadistic nurses inflicted on the defenseless patients was the hardest part of her mission. Although the style in which the book is written is rather stern, specific to a reportage, the revolt for the terrible living conditions and the sympathy for the victims are easy to notice.

Nellie Bly was born in 1864, in the Burrel Township from Armstrong County in Pennsylvania. She became famous for undercover investigating the living and working conditions of women from the late 19th century American society.

“The insane asylum on Blackwell’s Island is a human rat-trap. It is easy to get in, but once there it is impossible to get out.”

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