s [MacDonald 2]. The worse hospital of this kind was Bethlem Hospital. The inmates there suffered for years in poor living conditions without sophisticated medical treatment
             [MacDonald 4]. It was noted that most former violence in these insane asylums erupted from malnourishment, inhumane treatment, and painful restraints [Woodward 225].
             Solid facts about the insane and how government institutions treated them were unknown to the majority of people until the efforts of Dorothea Dix. She sought to inform the public of the conditions in mental asylums in America and around the world, and strived to have them improved ["Dorothea" American]. In the early to mid eighteen hundreds, the mentally ill were imprisoned and degraded ["Dorothea" DISCovering]. Dix wrote reports about the cruelty she saw in many institutions.
             "...Many of the unfortunate crazed were impounded in cabins, cages, closets, stalls, and other pens of one kind or another, often chained and then abandoned to filth and neglect, or else brutally beaten – a horrifying picture."
             ["Dorothea" DISCovering].
             Her uphill struggle resulted in the founding of new mental hospitals in 9 states ["Dorothea" DISCovering]. Dix attempted to pass an act in 1854 for the federal government to sell land and use the profits for mentally ill and poverty stricken people. Unfortunately President Franklin vetoed the act and it was not undertaken again ["Dorothea" DISCovering]. Dix jumpstarted a revolutionary view of the insane and established a foundation for the future.
             Nineteenth century English doctors, licensed by "the Council," decided to analyze various mental conditions [Windholz 165]. They determined that lunatics were not of sound mind and therefore could not make important decisions concerning their future, such as contract marriage [MacDonald 5]. Some patients were treated by humanistic physicians who ...