Needle and Tourniquet

This hypodermic needle and tourniquet are from Powick Asylum. As the asylum’s first annual report shows (below, left), it was believed that to improve mental health, physical illness needed to be treated first, and so general health procedures were carried out regularly. Blood tests were used to identify any diseases or illnesses that may have been the underlying cause of mental illness.

The annual reports list the ‘Assigned Causes of Disease’ of patients, which were categorised either as ‘moral’ or ‘physical’ causes. As seen in the table below, the presence of physical illness was often listed as the cause of mental illness. Moral causes ranged from religious fanaticism, desertion by a partner or spouse, and, on one occasion, excitement from witnessing a spectacle of horsemanship.

[1] Richard Noll, ‘The Blood of the Insane’, History of Psychiatry, 17.4 (2006), pp. 395-418.