Psychiatric Hospital

Treatment methods

At the Volterra Psychiatric Hospital, various treatment methods were used at different times. Treatment through malaria infection. The patients were infected with mosquitoes, which led to fever and an artificial increase in body temperature. It was believed that this would help the synthesis of antibodies that were supposed to cure the underlying disease. Insulin-comatose therapy. The patient was put into an artificial coma using insulin. It was assumed that trauma from hypoglycemic shock or coma would have a healing effect. Electroshock therapy. Electrodes were connected to the patient's head and an electric current was applied. Psychopharmacotherapy. The patients were administered controlled poisons and psychotropic substances. Nurses should not keep in touch with the families of patients, tell them the news, take out letters, objects, messages, congratulations outside the routine; they also cannot bring patients any news from outside, no objects, no photographs, no notes. Lobotomy Edit – Cutting off one of the lobes of the brain from the others or its complete/partial removal, that is, plugging the awl into the brain through the eye. Erasure of identity. Patients were forbidden to have personal belongings, to correspond, they were addressed only by number/ surname. Stuffing the wards with people. 1.5 washbasins with cold water for hundreds of people and access to the bathroom once every 3 months were the norm. The tub could have been filled with ice. They kept me there for hours. Being locked in an isolation cell with bare walls and no windows. VIP punishment cells were equipped with buckets with a toilet function. Force-feeding with suffocation (so that the suffocating person opens his mouth and anything can be poured in). Tying up patients on a permanent basis — during the day they just lay all over the plot from morning to evening (after which labor slavery probably looked like a blessing), at night they were chained to their beds.

Volterra Psychiatric Hospital. Description.

The Psychiatric Hospital of Volterra (Ospedale Psichiatrico di Volterra) is a former psychiatric hospital in the city of Volterra in the Italian region of Tuscany. It was founded in 1888 and closed in 1978. The hospital consisted of not one building, but several pavilions located in a wooded area on a hill near the city center. Some of them are: "Verga." Built in 1908, it was intended for quiet but dangerous patients. It housed more than 100 beds for women with various pathologies and girls from orphanages. "Zaccias." The main men's observatory department was built in 1911. It is known for the first elevator in the hospital. "Livy." The women's ward, known as the "Screaming Ward." It underwent regular renovations, as a result of which it turned into a C-shaped building with 3 floors. "Charcot." It was located at the highest and most remote point of the hospital at the time of construction. At first, it was a women's agricultural colony with vegetable gardens, designed for 500 patients of varying degrees of danger. "Ferry." The 2-storey building, at the time of its opening, was one of the first "criminal departments" in Italy based on a psychiatric hospital.