Thursday, May 15, 2008

list of mental ailments from admissions records of lunatic asylum west of the alleghenys, 1864


Asthma. Bad Company. Bad Whisky. Bite of Rattlesnake. Business Nerves. Carbuncles. Cold. Death of Sons in War. Doubt of Mother's Ancestors. Fever and Loss of Lawsuit. Gathering in the Head. Grief. Imaginary Female Trouble. Intemperance. Indigestion. Jealousy. Kicked in Head by Horse. Novel Reading. Parents Were Cousins. Political Excitement. Rumor of Husband's Murder or Desertion. Seduction & Disappointment. Sunstroke. Softening of the Brain. Snuff Eating for Two Years. Vicious Vices in Early Years. Women.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

No Consumption or The Complaint? Must have been a quiet season in the asylum.

Where did you find these, they're priceless. I wonder what Rosemary Kennedy had that brought the lobotomy on....

Ad Broad, oldest working writer in advertising said...

Found in hard copy while cleaning out files. Given to me (recorded in typewriter type) sometime in the 80s. I forget by whom. So no proof that they're real (no google record) but my hunch is, they are. Who could make up "Doubt of Mother's Ancestors" or "Kicked in Head by Horse," right, Auntie?

BOB HOFFMAN said...

"Kicked in Head by Horse" struck a chord.

In the 1960's there was a US Senator from Oregon named Wayne Morse. Morse was a Republican and a staunch opponent of the war in Vietnam. The New York Daily News, strong supporters of the war, used to refer to him as Wayne "Kicked in the Head by a Horse" Morse.

Ad Broad, oldest working writer in advertising said...

@bob hoffman--Thanks for this. A Horse is a Horse of Course of Course, etc. My favorite ailment: Parents Were Cousins. First thing you know ol' Jed's a millionaire, kinfolk said Jed, move away from there...Were all 60s sitcoms birthed in asylums?

Chris Ogunlowo said...

First time here... and I'm lovin' it.

Hi

Ad Broad, oldest working writer in advertising said...

@aloofar-nice to meet you, thanks for dropping in.

Rob Buccino said...

Hey, AB, between "Bad Whisky", "Business Nerves", "Cold" (I'm sniffling right now), "Doubt of Mother's Ancestors", "Imaginary Female Trouble" (and I always thought fantasies were harmless!), "Intemperance", "Vicious Vices in Early Years" (OK, I did inhale), and "Women", I'm clearly over-qualified for involuntary institutionalization. They're coming to take me away, ha-ha... (Where's that Miltown when you need it?)

Ad Broad, oldest working writer in advertising said...

Rob--sorry to hear of your many afflictions. Lucky for you West of Alleghenies Lunatic Asylum closed in the mid-1990s.

Joker said...

A little gift from me to you. Cheers luv

Kim was having complications with her Asthma as it was rounding up with Bad Company. After a hellish coughing fit that lasted 7 hours, she said screw it, unscrewed a bottle and chugged half a liter of liquid before realizing it was Bad Whisky. “Oh No!” She screamed as she realized that with three strikes your out and ran out of the house only to be bitten by a rattlesnake oil salesman with a terrible case of Business Nerves. “Mamy… Mamy… he whimpered” but cold carbuncles had sprouted while sons had died in the war. No doubt it was all to do with the origins of the mother, her ancestors she would constantly mope about. Then the girl with the freshly blooming bite mark from the salesman had a high fever, lost a lawsuits and felt Grief and Intemperance gathering in her head. She suddenly had an urge to read a novel about indigestion, jealousy and how political excitement would peak after two years of snuff eating, a definite bout of early year vicious vices if ever there were any and to top it all off, her parent’s cousin’s counsin’s parents, slept together even though it was a Pythagorean bout of incest that often terminated in a husband’s murder or desertion, though more often than naught, they were vile rumors propagated by sunstroke, that made people’s brains get soft which was doubly dangerous if you passed by Chuck Norris’ horse. Of course, she didn’t really suffer from this since it was all a bout of Imaginary Female Trouble because as we all know, women don’t have problems and the 19th century was dominated by ignorant men.

Ad Broad, oldest working writer in advertising said...

Joker, you are totally awesome. You could be a writer. No, I mean a REAL one. Thanks for this prose poem which you should submit to somewhere more literary than Ad Broad.

Joker said...

As I've mentioned before, I hold you in high esteem. On another note, I'm clear than I'm a writer working as a copywriter but I'm doing my part to get on my possible chosen path (on chapter 31 of my first book and loving every page of it). Feel free to forward the comment where you please but if it got a chuckle from you, that's all I need luv.

cheers ;)