Photographing The Insane

I read a scholarly article on Hugh Welch Diamond who was born into a wealthy family at Goudhurst in Kent. Diamond’s father opened an insane asylum in 1820. By this time “madhouses” were growing to be extremely popular. In 1819 there were 40 licensed madhouses in all of England and whales and the total number of patients in the hundreds but as the years progressed numbers increased at rapid rates. As the patient numbers increased by hundreds and then thousands, Diamond became more and more involved. Growing up around the asylum he witnessed the horrors that took place inside the lock down facilities. Little is known about Diamonds education or how he became a doctor but he did. Diamond sought out information on asylums all over Europe and his mind was like a sponge. He absorbed information about the mentally ill, and how they were being treated and viewed as animals more and more every day by society. But he also read and researched other doctors concerns about this. Diamond found information from doctors in Paris who were trying to stop the dehumanization of the patients and start treating them with moral treatments. Fascinated with other’s ideas, Diamond came up with ideas of his own. Diamond had a passion for photography and he put it to use taking photographs of the patients, some of who had been mistreated and others who were lonely. Then he added the prints to his papers and shared them with doctors, scientists and lawmakers. The reactions were unbelievable. It was amazing how much the photographs helped pick up the pace to change the way asylums were run. Diamond eventually opened his own asylum for women where eh treated them morally and helped improve their lives greatly the photographs can still be viewed today.