Leeches Role In Medical Treatments In The Middle Ages

Leech sculpture
Leeches are aquatic, parasitic worms that feed on the flesh of living things. They were commonly used in medical procedures in the Colonial times. They were used to drain so called “bad blood” from patients. Leeches were first used in medicinal treatments in the Middle Ages to treat various diseases. They went in and out of popularity over time, but in the end, leeches were very useful creatures.
Shackles
Shackles were commonly used in prisons in early times, but they also migrated over to asylums. All patients had shackles in their cells, and were always chained up unless they were getting treated. Patients had no room to move around, and sometimes, the shackles were so tight they couldn’t lie down. The metal could scrape into the skin of the ones being chained. In fact, people got injured and even died from being chained up for so long.
Moon
In early Colonial times, people believed that the moon affected the state of a person’s mind.
She experienced the terrible conditions while she was serving at an asylum, and she wanted things to change. She wrote many incredibly detailed papers on the conditions in mental asylums, bringing it to the public’s attention. The people rose up against the government, and secured safer hospitals for the mentally ill. Without her, mental asylums could still be the same today.
Cell in Eastern State Hospital The Eastern State Hospital in Williamsburg, Virginia was the first mental asylum in the United States. Although it was technically called a hospital, it sure didn’t seem like one to the patients when it was first founded. The cells contained only a mattress, shackles and a chamber pot. The mentally ill spent all of their time in these cells unless they were being “treated”. Many patients even died in the bars of these cages.
Mentally Ill in America: A History of their care and Treatment from Colonial