mentally challenged people in the 1930's?

Question

how were mentally challenged people in the 1930's?
how were they treated?

please help me
!thank you!

Answer 1

some examples


1927: The New York State Mental Hygiene Law is enacted. The DMH is given almost all responsibility for the care and treatment of the mentally ill, the developmentally disabled, and epileptics.

1930's: Insulin shock and metrazol shock therapies and surgical technique of prefrontal lobotomy were developed. As was the case with fever therapy, many psychiatrists were hesitant to embrace them.

1930's- 1945: Conditions in state mental institutions deteriorated as a result of Depression-era financial hardships and the resource and personnel demands of the war. Decaying physicial plants and extreme overcrowding were common.

Late 1930's-Early 1940's: Electroconvulsive therapy, which replaces insulin and metrazol shock therapies, was introduced into the United States.

1941-1945: The experience of treating military personnel suffering from combat-related mental illness leads many psychiatrists to emphasize the social dimensions of mental disorder and hypothesize that mentally ill civilians might best be treated outside of traditional mental institutions.

Answer 2

This was an era of the "survival of the fittest" and there was not a lot of money available for special treatment of the handicapped or people with mental illness.

There were some facilities for the mentally challenged but the treatment was antiquated such as the use of shock treatment. The mentally handicapped were mostly institutionalized and it came to light years later that many were sterilized so they could not reproduce.