Dr. John Minson Galt and The Eastern State Insane Asylum
Dr. John Galt started to work for the Eastern State Insane Asylum when he was twenty-two years old. He worked as the superintendent for the hospital and was a brilliant physician who introduced Moral Management therapy to his patients, Galt said this therapy taught the mentally ill "differ from us in degree, but not in kind" and they are entitled to human dignity. He also brought therapeutic activities and talk therapy. Galt used restraints very rarely. He went a whole year working at the asylum not having to use restraints on any patient. Instead of restraints, he used a calming medication. Galt was the first to encourage de-institutionalization. He wrote, "A large number of insane, instead of rusting out their lives in the confines of some vast asylum, should be placed...in the neighboring community." Nobody agreed to what Galt said, the Hospital's Court of Directors prevented him to accomplish his plans to de-institutionalization his patients three times. This was most likely a factor of why Galt later succumbed to depression and committed suicide five years later in 1862. During his period of time working at the insane asylum he had gotten the opportunity to meet Dix and work with her in reforming patients.