Fig 1. “Digitus Coeruleus” - “Blue finger”. Analogous to “club finger”, or clubbing of the fingernails, which often ends up with a blue tint at the end of the fingers. Many times clubbing develops in response to inadequate oxygenation of the blood, where there is either a problem in the heart or in the lungs (including the formerly ubiquitous TB), so the blue tint is not unexpected.

Fig 2. Onychomycosis - Fungal nail infection, often characterized by thickened, yellow, crumbly nails.

Fig 3. Onychia maligna - Severe inflammation and ulceration of the matrix and soft parts of the nail bed, accompanied by oozing lymph, purple-red hue surrounding ulcer, nail loss, and pain. Caused by mild trauma in debilitated or immunocompromised patients. Finger becomes bulbous and deformed if not treated. Was known to be caused by strumous or cachetic habits of the insane.

Fig 4. Onychia maligna - Similar to above, longer duration. Bulbous deformation of finger evident.

Fig 5. Arthritis urica Gichtknoten an Finger und Ellenbogen - Gouty arthritis, with gouty deposits in the fingers and elbow. Wow, is that ever some gout. 

Die Chiurgischen Krankheiten der Oberen Extremitatan. Paul Vogt, 1881.

Questionable Health Tips Night:

Don’t be a farmer’s wife. You WILL go crazy.

Dr. Foote’s Hand-Book of Health-Hints and Ready Recipes. E.B. Foote, 1882.

poorimpulsecontrol:

Image of Rhoda Derry a patient in Bartonville Asylum

Rhoda Derry was born in Adams County. She was the daughter of a wealthy farmer and she was a strikingly handsome girl. While still in her teens, she was wooed by the son of a neighboring farmer. The young man’s family were apposed to the match. In order to prevent the young couple from marrying, the young man’s mother visited the girl and threatened to bewitch the girl if she didn’t release him from the engagement. The girl was so terrified by the mother’s threat that she started to display all the signs of a person possesed by an evil spirit.
One night shortly after the threat, Rhoda came home, jumped on the bed and stood on her head spinning around like a top and declared that the “Old Scratch” was after her. For a short time she was cared for by her relatives but was eventually sent to the Adams County Poor House. She remained there for 40 years.
The inhumane treatment of the poor girl at the Adams County Poor House is unparalleled. For many years she lived in a basket lined with straw and cared for by other feeble minded patients. During this time her legs drew up until her knee nearly touched her chin. Her muscles became so atrophied it was impossible for her to move her legs or her hips.
After years passed the basket was replaced with wooden box with holes for wastes to pass through in to a pan beneath the box. Mice and other vermin crawled into the box, made nests and raise their families next to the poor woman.
With her long fingernails she would scratch at her eyes until she went blind. With her fists she would beat her face until her front teeth were knocked out. She had also lost her ability to speak. When placed on the floor she would hop along like a toad. In 1904 she was taken from these surrounding and placed in the Bartonville Asylum. She was taken to the hospital for woman where she was bathed regularly and slept between clean white sheets.

A very interesting historic case, but sadly not all that extreme for the time. Worse than most, of course, but not nearly as much worse as you’d think. Why do you think the Utica cage existed?

questionableadvice:

“This poster was commissioned by the English Eugenics Education Society and designed by Benson’s advertising agency in 1926. The society was founded in 1907 and by 1914 it had over 1,000 members. It aimed to promote public awareness of eugenic problems, advocating the ‘improvement’ of human hereditary traits through social intervention.”

via 20th Century London

Sadly, susceptibility to many mental disorders really is hereditary. The thing is, the majority of the time, it’s only a susceptibility, much like hereditary alcoholism. And environmental factors almost always come into play before the mental illness manifests, and almost always affects the degree of severity to which a person is affected.

Someone with one or two “insane” parents might be perfectly brilliant, but with a moderate propensity towards developing whatever “insanity” their parents have…if their parents were forcibly sterilized or institutionalized while they were still at a vulnerable age and not emotionally mature, they likely would have developed whatever their parents had. Trauma tends to do that. And with institutions being what they were back then, there’s no way someone who went in there would come out in a better mental state, if at all.

The Utica Crib for uncooperative patients at insane asylums, and later, at (somewhat) more legitimate “institutions”.

questionableadvice:

~ Dr. Chase’s Recipes: or, Information for Everybody, by A.W. Chase, M.D., 1864