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<DIV>For a shamefully long time mental health issues remained in the dark
ages. I'm not so certain we've come all that far even today. Women's
mental health seemed always to attributed to hormones, and hysterectomy was the
panacea for everything that ailed a woman. I did get kind of a kick out of
the one of the listers who wrote that since men made the decisions, women were
the only ones treated that way. My immediate response was...well,
actually, only women <EM>can </EM>have hysterectomies... There were,
however, plenty of barbaric treatments given to men as well. Lobotomies
done by inserting a steel rod through the back of the eye socket and stirring it
around willy-nilly were done up to the mid-1950's by certain doctors. This
was the procedure done on President Kennedy's sister so it wasn't just poor and
uneducated families who had this happen.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>You do see in the old records, a larger number of elderly women ending up
in asylums (now there is a misnomer if I've ever heard one) or state hospitals,
but this is logical because women lived longer, and if an elderly woman became
slightly senile and no longer had a husband living, she would be at the mercy of
well-intentioned (?) neighbors and family members. A lot of people who in
this day would be in an assisted living facility, or would have home health care
assistance, were sent to the the state hospital. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Carla</DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>