Ten Days in a Madhouse by Nellie Bly

Ten Days in a Madhouse

by Nellie Bly

Hi everyone :) Here I am with another review. This book has been recommended by the same friend that gave me Purple Hibiscus in the previous  review :)

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The short novel I'll talk about today is Ten Days in a Madhouse by the American journalist Nellie Bly.

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The novel was really easy to read because there weren't any hard words that could have been used in the old English of those times, or maybe I'm just to used to read classic book from those days :'D

It was published as a series of articles from the personal experience of the writer that played to be insane to show the people how the patients were really treated in those facilities and what they had to go through on a daily basis. 

She investigated the brutality on women in the Women Asylum of Blackwell's Island. 

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I must say that so far it has been my favourite of this year, also thanks to the fact that I already knew her story that was drew in the graphic novel book Brazen (Culottées in French) by the French illustrator Pénélope Bagieu, which I already did my review about. (Go check it out if you'd like to know more ;) )

Some of the scenes portrayed were, of course, disturbing, because you never realise how much can people be cruel to others until it's not shown. 

The cruelty of the doctors and nurses on the patient, which most of them weren't even really insane, was just too much too handle. 

A particularly memorable scene were the baths that the patients received. The water was way too cold for them to stay healthy, and buckets of water were literally poured over their heads while the other patients were rubbing and washed the other in the tub. The bath water was almost never changed, with many patients bathing in the same dirty water. When the water was changed, rarely, the staff didn't even take care to wash off the bathtub, but just throwing the next patient right into the filthy tub. The most disturbing part was, for sure, the fact that they all shared towels and healthy patients were forced to dry themselves with the ones previously used by others with skin inflammations, boils, or open sores.

The ending part was what I liked the least, because it made me really annoyed by how the facility acted when Nellie finally got the court to investigate into it, but I'm not going to spoil you more, so if you're interested go check this little masterpiece out :)