They don’t make insanity like they used to it. Now a days, it’s all bipolar this and split-personality disorder that. But back in the glory days of locking people up in the cuckoo’s nest for vague reasons, you could be in there for “gathering in the head” or “kick of horse” or “imaginary female trouble.” Imaginary females: can’t live with them, can’t live without them, because they’re always following you, haunting your dreams.
Dangerous Minds came across a wonderful list of the “reasons for admission to an insane asylum from the late 1800s,” which also serves as a reminder that the 1800s were the worst. If everyone who suffered from “deranged masturbation” was sent to the looney bin, Denise Richards’s Google presence would be non-existent.