Dorothea L. Dix, Remarks on Prisons and Prison Discipline in the United States. Boston: Munroe and Francis, 1845.

Dix, who undertook a survey of places where the mentally ill were housed in the early 19th century, found that many were in jails and prisons. “Feeble minds, too infirm of purpose to keep the straightest path, too incapable of reasoning out their truest good and best interests, and many, of constitutionally depraved propensities, these, chiefly, fill the cells of our Penitentiaries.” When she asked a prison inspector at Sing Sing Prison how many mentally ill were among the inmates in 1844, the inspector responded, “As to the insane, it is difficult to give you any satisfactory answer. The line of demarcation between the sane and the insane is not easily defined.” In her testimony to state legislators in Massachusetts about the care provided to the mentally ill, Dix stated, “I proceed, gentlemen, to call your attention to the present state of insane persons confined within this Commonwealth in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens; chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience.” Dix is credited with helping to get the mentally ill out of jails and almshouses and into institutions designed for their care.