Alabama insane asylum (a.k.a. Bryce Hospital) patient-journalists recorded their treatment in the 18

By Kelly Kazek | kkazek@al.com AL.com

Tuscaloosa, AL

A newspaper called The Meteor published at the Alabama Insane Hospital in the late 1800s was one of only three in the nation written by mental patients. The first buildings of the Tuscaloosa hospital, which would later be renamed after its first director Peter Bryce, are now largely abandoned, although Bryce continues to treat some people today as outpatients in more modern facilities.

The Insane Hospital opened on the eve of the Civil War in April 1861 with a mission of humane treatment and rehabilitation of mental patients, as well as those with addictions or suffering a variety of other ailments that were misunderstood at the time. Over the course of a century, however, the hospital was filled to well beyond capacity until its crowded conditions led to complaints in the 1970s of mistreatment. At that time, more than 5,000 patients were housed at Bryce and staff, equipment and space were in short supply.

In 1872, patients began publishing The Meteor as a means of keeping patrons informed of asylum activities. It was published sporadically through 1881 without input of the administration.

The publication, datelined "Tuskaloosa," was the subject Friday of an article in The Atlantic. Click here to read more.

Origins of The Meteor

According to the Alabama Department of Archives and History, the publication was so named "because meteors come as a surprise, appear at irregular intervals, and have brilliant though short, temporary careers," as the paper likely would. "The paper was also meant 'to glow with a kindly and generous sentiment to all mankind.'"

ADAH writes on its website that The American Journal of Insanity reported in 1873 that The Meteor was the third paper published by U.S. mental patients.

The most notable thing about The Meteor and its content is that the writers were aware of the comic potential of asylum patients writing a newspaper, and they often referred to the situation with humor.

For instance, the motto at the top of the newspaper was "Lucus a non lucendo," a Latin phrase meaning, "an illogical or absurd derivation," or "something of which the qualities are the opposite of what its name suggests."

We have a troop of the craziest sane folks the world ever knew, so also we can boast some of the sanest crazy ones.

According to a 1999 article called "The Meteor: The 'Remarkable Enterprise' at the Alabama Insane Hospital, 1872-1881," published in The Alabama Review, Burt Rieff wrote that the editor of the paper once humorously refuted accusations that Dr. Bryce was the true author of the paper's content. The unnamed patient-editor wrote that although "we have a troop of the craziest sane folks the world ever knew, so also we can boast some of the sanest crazy ones." It was the "sanest crazy" people who were responsible for the paper's content, Rieff said.

When the newspaper publishers decided after four years to stop being a public newspaper and charging a subscription rate, which had been 10 cents per copy, they humorously explained: "The Meteor will be printed in future solely for the use of patients of the Hospital. If a copy fall into the hands of persons not attached to the institution, they may discover if they have an equitable right to read it, by asking themselves the following query: 'Have I a thoroughly sound and well-balanced mind, free from quips and cranks of every kind?' If yes, return the paper to the Hospital, as an estray."

Content included jokes, recaps of activities, philosophical articles

The authors recorded everything from philosophical treatises on Darwinism and "What is insanity?" to details of campus activities. For instance, the newspaper included the tidbit that male patient activities most often included ten-pins, or bowling, billiards and marbles, while women had a reading club.

Volume 5, No. 17 included this printers' joke as a filler: "Why are printers such excellent Christians? Because they attach so much importance to 'justification.'"

In an 1876 edition that discussed the treatment of "inebriates," the authors also wrote of a rare co-ed dance. Male and female patients were housed in separate wings and did not often mingle.

An article headlined "A Notable Event," said a "novel and unexpected" event took place: "The occupants of the East Wing came over in a huge body to roll ten-pins. We were so impressed with the appearance of a crowd of pretty women in the men's airing-court that we had hardly the self-possession to note details ... after studying the throng from a distance we ventured nearer, and gaining courage in proportion to the attractive power ... we were very soon forced into the mass of beauty crowding the upper fourth part of the alley."

An 1874 edition described a surprise visit to the hospital from members of an Alabama Press Association convention. The edition says Peter Bryce "had all his show-wards thrown open, and bidding them go wherever they wish," welcomed the group to the campus. The group of journalists, of course, visited The Meteor office.

Another 1874 edition described that discipline was required of both patients and staff at the mental hospital. "As regards the patients, the discipline best adapted to Insane Hospitals is unquestionably paternal, for to no class do the insane bear so close a resemblance as to children. Like them, they are ignorant, whimsical, irritable, dangerous to themselves and others, and requiring a close supervision in the simplest acts of their daily lives."

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