For centuries, the mentally ill have been treated with a combination of fear, disgust and shame. In many cultures throughout history, a person who was mentally ill was believed to be evil or possessed; punishment, not humane treatment, typically followed.

The earliest known mental hospitals were found in the Middle East in Baghdad and Cairo. By 1247, the notorious British madhouse known as Bedlam was built, in which the mentally ill were routinely shackled and treated as a sort of sideshow for the general public.

As witchcraft hysteria grew and spread throughout Europe and colonial North America between the 15th and 17th centuries, the widespread general suspicion of the times did not bode well for the mentally ill. During this period, their cruel treatment was based on the conviction that the mentally ill were surely possessed. In Bedlam and in the French asylum Bicetre during this time, inmates were...