(In Pics) Six Abandoned Insane Asylums: Dungeons for the Helpless

Human history has an extremely patchy record when it comes to the treatment of the mentally unwell. Doctors, baffled by the behavior of their patients, have pointed the finger at everything from demonic possession to divine inspiration, but for the individuals themselves things rarely end well.

Often such people were seen as an embarrassment or an inconvenience to their families, to be kept out of sight. In a world driven by money this inevitably led to the rise of the asylum, where patients could be safely forgotten under the gossamer-thin guise of “treatment”.

Such treatments were often brutal and misguided, and thankfully much of that age is now behind us. However, in the ruins of the abandoned asylums that remain we have a haunting reminder of the cruelties of our past.

1. Volterra’s Sanitarium

*Notorious for its brutal treatment of its inmates, the Volterra Psychiatric Hospital was founded in 1888 in* *Italy* and was only closed in 1978 following a new Italian law which forbade such establishments. The corridors offer mute testament to the lives that were destroyed here, with bars on the doors and abandoned medical equipment (*Emanuele Mazzoni* */ Adobe Stock)*

2. The Orlovka Asylum

*This abandoned asylum in the town of Orlovka in the Voronezh region of southwestern* *Russia* *tells a similar story. The* *windows* *were constructed with three separate grids of iron bars and reinforced glass, physically and mentally isolating the inmates form the outside world (Mulderphoto / Adobe Stock)*

3. The Colorno Psychiatric Hospital

4. The Manicomio de Mombello

Established in northern Italy in 1878, the Mombello Psychiatric Hospital was enormous, the largest in Italy and the size of a village. Patients were categorized into four groupings: “The Quiet Ones”, “The Agitated Ones”, “The Filthy Ones” and “The Workers”. While there was much mistreatment in the early years (as this bed fitted with restraints shows), in later years the asylum experimented with *music, exercise and art (Rob* */ Adobe Stock; Unknown Author /* *CC BY-SA 4.0*)

5. Abandoned Brazilian Mental Hospital

*As with the Russian hospital above, this* *Brazilian* facility emphasizes the need to contain patients in its architecture. Huge, windowless and metal-reinforced doors line this hallway, designed to secure patients and isolate them from each other. The architecture brings to mind an industrial building or an abattoir (*Paulo Nabas* */ Adobe Stock)*

6. The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum

*Located in Weston, West Virginia, a lack of proper care in this* US hospital led to an estimated 500 inmate deaths during the 20th century. The hospital was originally designed to hold 250 patients “in solitude” but housed as many as 2,600 at its peak in the 1950s. Notoriously the home of the “West Virginia Lobotomy Project” at that time, the *hospital* *was only closed in 1994 and is a tourist attraction today (Guy Bryant* */ Adobe Stock)*

Top Image: Abandoned asylum interiors offer a haunting testament to the mistreatment of the patients housed there. Source: Aliaksandr Siamko / Adobe Stock.

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Joseph Green

Joseph Green is editor for Historic Mysteries, which combines his background in English Literature with a lifelong fascination for the strange and the unexplained. Read More