The Story Of The Athens Lunatic Asylum and the Death Of Margaret Shilling

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Athens Lunatic Asylum.

Cemetery At the asylum.

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Blog Created: 8-28-2025

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The Athens Lunatic Asylum, now a mixed-use development known as The Ridges, was a Kirkbride Plan mental hospital operated in Athens, Ohio, from 1874 until 1993. During its operation, the hospital provided services to a variety of patients including Civil War veterans, children, and those declared mentally unwell. After a period of disuse the property was redeveloped by the state of Ohio. Today, The Ridges are a part of Ohio University and house the Kennedy Museum of Art as well as an auditorium and many offices, classrooms, and storage facilities.

The former hospital is perhaps best known as a site of the infamous lobotomy procedure, as well as various supposed paranormal sightings. After the hospital's original structure closed, the state of Ohio acquired the property and renamed the complex and its surrounding grounds The Ridges. According to The Guide of Repository Holdings, the term "The Ridges" was derived from a naming contest in 1984 to re-describe the area and its purpose.

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History

Design and architectural features ~

The architect for the original building was Levi T. Scofield of Cleveland. The hospital grounds were designed by Herman Haerlin of Cincinnati. Some of Haerlin's other landscape designs are seen in Cincinnati's Spring Grove Cemetery and the Oval on the campus of Ohio State University in Columbus.

Levi Scofield.

The design of the buildings and grounds were influenced by Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride, a 19th-century physician who authored an influential treatise on hospital design called On the Construction, Organization and General Arrangements of Hospitals for the Insane. Kirkbride Plan asylums are most recognizably characterized by the staggered "bat-wing" floor plan of their wards, High Victorian Gothic architecture, and their sprawling grounds.

Thomas Story Kirkbride.

An 1848 lithograph of the Kirkbride design of Trenton State Hospital in Trenton, New Jersey.

In accordance with the Kirkbride Plan, the main building was to include a central administration building with a wing for men on one side and a wing for women on the other, each with their own separate dining halls. There was room to house 572 patients in the main building, almost double Kirkbride's recommendation. The main building itself was 853 feet long and 60 feet in width.

Construction ~

The land where the hospital was built originally belonged to the Arthur Coates and Eliakim H. Moore farms. Ground was broken on November 5, 1868. The first iteration of the asylum consisted of only 141 acres (57 ha) and over the years, grew to occupy over 1,000 acres (400 ha) of land and 78 buildings.

Operating years (1874-1993) ~

Athens Lunatic Asylum began operation on January 9, 1874. Within two years of its opening, the hospital was renamed The Athens Hospital for the Insane. Later, the hospital would be called the Athens Asylum for the Insane, the Athens State Hospital, the Southeastern Ohio Mental Health Center, the Athens Mental Health Center, the Athens Mental Health and Mental Retardation Center, the Athens Mental Health and Developmental Center, and then (again) the Athens Mental Health Center.

The original hospital was in operation from 1874 to 1993. Although not a wholly self-sustaining facility, many Kirkbride Plan asylums functioned as cloistered communities, and for decades the hospital had livestock, farm fields and gardens, an orchard, greenhouses, a dairy, a physical plant to generate steam heat, and even a carriage shop. A large percentage of the work it took to maintain the facility was originally carried out by patients. Labor, especially skilled labor, was seen by the Kirkbride Plan as a form of therapy and was economically advantageous for the state.

One of the dairy cows at thee asylum. This one needs milking very soon.

The asylum expanded to include specialized and ancillary buildings such as the Dairy Barn (now an arts center), Beacon School, Athens Receiving Hospital, Center Hospital and the Tubercular Ward ("Cottage B"). Also built onto the main building were a laundry room and a boiler house. Seven cottages, including Cottage B, were constructed to house even more patients. While they had a smaller capacity than the main wards, they allowed for constructive grouping of patients in dormitory-like rooms.

By the 1950s the hospital was the town's largest employer, with 1,800 patients on a 1,019-acre, 78-building campus. At its peak the Athens Lunatic Asylum served Adams, Athens, Gallia, Highland, Hocking, Jackson, Lawrence, Meigs, Morgan, Perry, Pike, Ross, Scioto, Vinton and Washington counties.

Decline and closure ~

The mental healthcare industry in the United States underwent a sea change in the 1950s. Research began to show that the mentally ill did not pose an inherent danger to their communities. The public became increasingly aware of procedures like electroshock therapy and the lobotomy, which would come to be seen as cruel, unnecessary, and inhumane. The availability of psychoactive drugs for the treatment of mental illnesses, as well as the increasing prevalence of psychological therapy, allowed for most patients to be treated without the need for internment in a prison-like institution. The asylum, among many others, declined throughout the latter half of the 20th century and eventually closed in 1993. However, the state hospital continued to function in Athens, with some patients and staff relocating to a newly constructed facility which, at the time of the transition in 1993, was called the Southeast Psychiatric Hospital. The psychiatric hospital in Athens - visible from the asylum - is now named Appalachian Behavioral Healthcare.

Modern history and present day

1990s ~

By the early 1990s, many of the original buildings had fallen into disrepair, following a similar pattern of decline and neglect among Kirkbride Plan asylums. As the mental healthcare industry transitioned away from large, centralized institutions, the will to support sprawling hospital complexes diminished. Large asylums were slowly phased out, with most operations shifting to small outpatient centers scattered throughout the community. Because the asylums were typically located on a hill outside of the nearest municipal center, their degradation was able to occur out of sight and out of mind. Under private ownership, abandoned Kirkbrides often languished unmaintained and unsecured, slowly being reclaimed by nature, as with Hudson River State Hospital in New York. Since abandoned structures represent a serious insurance liability, there is incentive for the property owner to secure them, and abandoned property owned by colleges and universities may be especially easy targets for urban exploration, squatting, or vandalism by members of the student body or the general public.

In 1993 the Athens Lunatic Asylum's property was deeded over to Ohio University in a land swap with the state's Department of Mental Health. Under the ownership of Ohio University, the property was kept in relatively good shape and was maintained for reuse.

2000s and 2010s ~

With urban exploration and modern ruins occupying a growing niche of public consciousness through entertainment and media, Kirkbride Plan asylums have enjoyed renewed public attention in the 2000s and 2010s. Two historically significant Kirkbrides, Danvers State Hospital in Massachusetts and the aforementioned Hudson River State Hospital in New York, fell into dangerous disrepair in the 1990s and 2000s and eventually underwent partial demolition to make way for new development.

At Athens, the ownership of a stable funding authority (Ohio University) has ensured restoration of much of the original grounds, as envisioned by the original planners, in a mixed-use university development called The Ridges.

Most buildings have been renovated and turned into classrooms and office buildings. The administration building is now the home of Kennedy Museum of Art, showcasing paintings and artwork of all different types of artists. The Dairy Barn Southeastern Ohio Cultural Arts Center, a nonprofit arts organization, is located in the old hospital's remodeled dairy barn; it is privately owned and operated. The Dairy Barn operates a calendar for sculpting and exhibits. The George V. Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs is also located at The Ridges, in a set of three separate buildings across the area.

Athens State Hospital Cow Barn.

The old tubercular ward, "Cottage B", which sat on a hill separated from the other buildings, was demolished by Ohio University in 2013 due to the large number of college students exploring the dangerous structure. Cottage B was designed to early 1900s fireproofing standards and incorporated copious asbestos lining inside the walls, making it difficult to remediate.

Tuberculosis Ward.

Members of the Athens, Ohio, chapter of NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, have worked to restore the three graveyards located on the grounds of The Ridges. School organizations provide tours of the facility around Halloween time each year. The preserve is also regularly used by the school's Army ROTC battalion.

Athens Asylum cemetery courtesy Encyclopedia of Forlorn Places.

Treatment and quality of care ~

As one prisoner carved on their sandstone windowsill 'I was never crazy,' today the Ridges reminds intrepid souls of the honest horrors of mental health gaslighting, politics, and past practices.

The first patient of the Asylum was a 14-year-old girl with epilepsy, thought to be possessed by a demon. Epilepsy was considered a major cause of "insanity" and reason for admission to the hospital in the early years. The first annual report lists thirty-one men and nineteen women as having their insanity caused by epilepsy. General "ill health" accounted for the admission of thirty-nine men and forty-four women in the first three years of the hospital's operation.

Ailments such as menopause, alcohol addiction, and tuberculosis were cause for enrollment in the hospital. For the female patients hospitalized during these first three years of the asylum's operation, the three leading causes of insanity are recorded as "puerperal condition" (51 women), "change of life" (32 women), and "menstrual derangements" (29 women). Women with postpartum depression or "hysteria" were labeled insane and sent to recover in the institution. Women were often institutionalized for unnecessary or outright fallacious reasons.

The second-most common cause of insanity, as recorded in the first annual report, was "intemperance and dissipation". In the hospital's first three years of operation, according to the annual report of 1876, eighty-one men and one woman were diagnosed as having their insanity caused by masturbation. Fifty-six men and one woman were diagnosed as having their insanity caused by "intemperance and dissipation" during this same period of time.

Records from the asylum document some of the now-discredited theories of the causes of mental illness, as well as the practice of harmful treatments, such as lobotomy. The Ohio University archives collection information regarding employees' background training, which ranged from full training and qualification to a complete lack thereof. Most disturbing is the documentation of hydrotherapy, electroshock, lobotomy, and early psychotropic drugs, many of which have been discredited today as extremely inhumane ways of treating a patient.

Cemeteries ~

Myths and mystery surround a well-known site in southern Ohio, The Athens Lunatic Asylum. The mystery is fueled, perhaps, because the public cannot access a majority of the information about patients who were treated and lived at the asylum. With special permission and filling out paperwork that is required by the state of Ohio, some of the information can be accessed, however, those interested in finding out about the patients that walked through the doors of the Asylum can satisfy their curiosity by looking to the cemeteries.

"There are 1,930 people buried at the three cemeteries located at the Ridges. Of those, 700 women and 959 men lay under the headstones marked only with a number." There were some patients who had died that were reunited with their families and buried in cemeteries around their homes. By 1943, the State of Ohio began putting names, births, and deaths, on the markers of the patients who died.(Friends of Asylum, McCabe) It is unknown as to why the state switched from using only numbers to using names in order to verify who the deceased were, but this practice remained constant through the remainder of time that patients were buried at the asylum. Although the newer stones had names, births, and deaths, the older stones that remained had not been replaced until recently.

By the 1980s the state no longer took care of the cemeteries which made it easy for outsiders to vandalize them. Natural occurrences also caused damage. The stones marking where patients were buried were in desperate need of repair. They were left to the elements and "hundreds of stones were left uprooted and broken."

Beginning in 2000, the Athens, Ohio, chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) started the reclamation for the cemeteries, taking on the work that was once the responsibility of the Ohio Department of Mental Health." NAMI, Athens worked to help restore the cemeteries at the Asylum to its original state. The organization got "involved with other groups and organizations in a major effort to restore, beautify and demystify the three mental health grave yards located on the grounds of the old psychiatric hospital complex on The Ridges. Since nearly the time of the opening of the cemeteries the State of Ohio has allowed families to erect private markers at the graves of their loved ones, There are very few graves marked in such a way, most likely because descendants are unaware of the opportunity.

Since the take over, more information has been found out about the patients that are buried in the three cemeteries. A large portion of the information that has been recovered is about the veterans that had spent the remaining days of their lives at the Asylum. Many of these veterans did not receive honors and only 19 have had any recognition. There are 80 veterans that are buried at the Ridges. Of these veterans two fought in the Mexican War, sixty-eight fought in the Civil War, one was a member in the Confederate Army and another two veterans served with the United States Colored infantry. There are three veterans who served in the Spanish–American War, and seven fought in World War I. Some of the other veterans that are buried here were active duty in the late 19th century and the early 20th century.

NAMI has also done other things to honor those who have served our country as well as the other patients who are buried in the cemeteries at the Ridges. Besides helping replace grave stones and keeping the grounds in proper condition, in 2005, the Ridges Cemeteries Committee has been organizing Memorial Day Ceremonies for the many veterans buried at the asylum. "Prior to 2005, the veterans had never received such honors. Indeed, neither they nor the others in those cemeteries had received more than a very austere burial - no personalized service whatsoever." NAMI started the Memorial Day Ceremonies to help restore dignity to the patients on the Ridges and to help recognize the sacrifice of the veterans, many who had probably suffered through post traumatic stress disorder as well as other post war symptoms.

"To find these "lost" veterans, they were found "through a special search within a broader research project to find background information on the over 1,900 patients buried in the Asylum's three cemeteries. With the Help of the Athens County Veterans Service Office and a special appropriation from the Athens county Commissioners flag stands and flags have been placed at the graves of all the veterans in the three cemeteries."

Trivia ~

Kirkbride Plan asylums occupy a unique niche in the culture. As more than 70 were built across the nation (with 25 surviving as of 2019) they are a uniquely accessible and idyllic representation of the allures of urban exploration. Kirkbride Plan asylums have appeared in films and television, been the subjects of notable photographers, and inspired fictional locations such as Arkham Asylum in Batman and Parsons State Insane Asylum in Fallout 4.

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FROM:

The Lost Lady at the Haunted Athens Asylum, Ohio ~

Haunted HistoryOhioMythGhosts, Sep 20

Written By Hector Navarro

On December 2nd, 1978, alarms went off at the Athens Mental Health and Development Center, police arrived as the staff gathered to draw up a plan to find a missing patient, Margaret Shilling. It would be six long weeks in the grueling winter before she was found, her body frozen in the attic of the same asylum where she was lost.

Margaret Shilling.

But Margaret’s story wouldn’t be lost to history for when she was moved, a clear outline of her body was left in the concrete underneath. Try as they might, no one was able to remove the stain her body left. Where Margaret spent the last six weeks of her life would be ingrained in the building forever.

After the asylum closed stories began to spread that the outline of her body wasn’t the only thing the building had entrapped within its walls and now Margaret would be doomed to wander the halls with the other spirits living in the Athens Asylum.

PART 1 - The Asylum Opens ~

History has not been kind to those suffering from mental illness, during the middle ages many believed those suffering were beyond help or reason. Evil spirits were often thought to be the cause with a popular solution being trephination, a procedure where a piece of the patient's skull was removed in order to let the bad spirits out. It was not uncommon for patients to die from hemorrhaging or infection, others who lived now had to add brain injury to their list of ailments.

Exorcisms became common as the devil and demons were also thought to be behind such quote wicked illnesses, those that responded well to the treatment would get to live, and those that didn’t would be thought too far gone and executed, burned at the stake, or hanged, sometimes accused as witches.

During the Enlightenment the idea of mental illness being a by-product of the supernatural began to fall out of favor, unfortunately, it was replaced by the thought that those suffering were valued less than the rest of society. Many were thrown into hospitals and chained to walls or beds in less than sanitary conditions. Those who had committed crimes were tossed into prisons and left to die without help.

Between the 17th and 19th centuries, the idea of hospitals solely dedicated to housing those considered mad or insane gained popularity. Here, doctors tried various forms of treatment, among those attempting music or talk therapy a growing number believed there was nothing that could be done to help those they called lunatics.

In the mid-19th century, the focus was placed on where to house those suffering, Doctor Thomas Story Kirkbride would develop a design for these asylums with the intention of providing natural sunlight and fresh air to patients. The buildings were spacious, extending outward from a central administration building. From above the building would have the appearance of a bat extending its wings.

The Athens Lunatic Asylum ~

After the United States Civil War, with many casualties and battles causing post-traumatic stress in the population, many new asylums were built using Kirkbride’s design. One of which was the 141-acre Athens Lunatic Asylum opening on January 9th, 1874. Within two years the asylum was renamed “The Athens Hospital for the Insane” and would go on to have several different names in the following 120 years.

From the outside the asylum would appear to be operating efficiently as intended, men and women were separated into different wings and would be taught skills to help in making the asylum as self-sufficient as possible.

Doctor Kirkbride believed an effective form of therapy was doing skilled labor out in the fresh air leading to the asylum having livestock, greenhouses, a dairy barn, and a steam plant to generate its own heat. The asylum grew from 141 acres to over a thousand.

But as the decades went on and the treatment of those with mental illness became more inhumane the asylum gained a new reputation. By the mid-20th century, the asylum was overcrowded, containing an occupancy over three times its intended amount with almost 2 thousand patients at any given time. Rumors began to spread of the understaffed asylum resorting to violence and torture to maintain order and dish out punishments.

Malpractice and Murder ~

Reports of malpractice and murder loomed over the asylum, yet many still admitted their suffering family members into its walls. Men, women, and children were thrown in and forgotten by their families.

Even when they died their bodies went unclaimed and their names were lost to history. The grounds contained three graveyards but due to budget cuts the stones contained only numbers until the 1940s, of the two thousand buried, three hundred are still unknown today.

Within the asylum, the treatments also reflected the inhuman punishments, over 200 transorbital lobotomies were performed in the asylum in just four years. The procedure involved inserting a long metal pick between the eyeball and eyelid of a patient until it reached the bone of the eye socket.

Then with a mallet, the pick would be pounded, breaking through the bone and allowing it to enter the frontal lobe of the patient’s brain. A sweeping motion with the pick would sever and destroy the frontal lobes, with some patients later experiencing pieces of their brain draining through their nose. All of this was done without anesthesia.

Although many patients survived the lobotomy, many lost memories and aspects of their personalities, some could no longer experience intense emotion, others were left unable to speak or move, and others eventually took their own lives.

With all the stories and rumors along with the changing understanding of mental illness in the 1950s, the asylum began to drop in patient numbers. For some time it appeared the history of the Athens Asylum would be overshadowed by the depravity of other mental asylums in the country, that is until one patient went missing in the winter of 1978.

PART 2 - The Story of The Lost Lady ~

Not much is known about Margaret Shilling prior to 1978, being a patient for some time at the Athens Asylum, she was known to be friendly but a loner. Often she would be found at the top of the stairs standing and waving at the staff and patients who walked by.

Margaret even had open privileges, meaning she was allowed to roam the grounds freely as long as she didn’t leave the asylum. So when several of the staff didn’t see her at her usual spot on the morning of December 2nd, 1978 no one sounded the alarm. But when dinner time rolled around and Margaret didn’t show up, the staff now knew they now had a missing patient.

Margaret Shilling.

Within the hour the staff had alerted police and begun searching the thousand acres. By the next morning, the headlines told of the missing patient. Police conducted searches outside the grounds while the staff searched every room from the attic to the basement for Margaret.

Meanwhile, temperatures dropped as Ohio prepared for one of the coldest winters in its history.

Over the course of the next 6 weeks, snow and freezing temperatures hit the Athens area, and as much as thirty inches of snow forced the police to call off the search for Margaret, considering her an escaped patient in their book. On January 12th, 1979 when the staff at the asylum had just about given in to the same conclusion, a vile smell permeated through the buildings.

Following it, they were led back to an attic they had searched several times over the last 6 weeks always finding it empty. But this time in the center of the room, laying naked was the decomposing body of Margaret Shilling, next to her lay her clothes neatly folded into a pile.

Police were immediately called to the scene where they determined Margaret had somehow found herself stuck in the room at some point in the last six weeks. Being unable to escape and left without food or water in the freezing cold temperature she disrobed in an attempt to get as much of the heat of the sun on her body as possible.

Although this was a flimsy explanation for the circumstances, the public at large accepted it as the room where she was found, was in the middle of the construction and had to be kept propped open in order to prevent it from locking. Many believed she somehow found her way in, got stuck, and with construction stopping during the winter, no one found her. The staff was also considered to have neglected to look in the room as it was thought she wouldn’t have wandered in to begin with.

The Curse of The Stain ~

But Margaret Shilling's story wouldn’t end there. When her body was moved the staff discovered a clear outline had embedded itself into the concrete. A crew worked for several hours to remove the stain and try as they might with all different types of cleaners, the stain and the last moments of Margaret Shilling's life remained.

The stain.

As the years went on and the asylum changed, closing officially in 1993 one of the only things that remained was the outline of Margaret’s body. The land was donated to Ohio University and eventually renamed the “Ridges” in 2001 but almost immediately after Margaret Shilling’s death whispers of hauntings and talks of curses began to spread.

Students of the nearby Ohio University claimed to have seen glimpses of a woman staring down from the attic window where Margaret was found. Others said they saw the shadowy figure of a woman attempting to escape the room giving looks of despair as she realized she could never leave. Stories of the staff at the asylum having seen Margaret standing on her usual spot at the staircase smiling, and waving before vanishing were passed around.

Stories of a curse imprinted in the outline of Margaret’s body also drew students' attention. Many claimed the grief she experienced of her impending death caused the stain to become cursed, just touching it would drive you insane in a matter of days. Groups of students would dare each other to spend the night in the attic, but only one, Debbie Southall, agreed.

On Halloween night 1979, Debbie gained entry to where Margaret died and even touched the stain left by her body. The next day something came over Debbie, her personality changed dramatically becoming distant and enraged at the slightest provocation. Her friend Susan Herrington later claimed to have witnessed items moving around on their own and an inhuman shadowy figure appearing to her and Debbie.

After this, Debbie became even more distant, locking herself in her room and refusing to come out for days at a time. After an especially long session locked away, Susan broke into her room only to find Debbie had taken her own life, her body decomposing leaving its own stain on the floor.

As the story of Debbie’s possession spread, others started to see more spirits inhabiting the old asylum. Today many claim to see strange lights and figures roaming the graveyards along with hearing disembodied voices coming from the empty halls and terrifyingly the sounds of patients screaming in pain echoing at night.

But by taking a closer look at the stories surrounding the patients at the Athens Asylum and the curse of Margaret Shilling we can start to reveal the true stories underneath.

PART 3 - The Truth of the Lost Lady ~

The records for the patients who stayed at the Athens Asylum are legally sealed for fifty years after their deaths meaning we can’t know exactly why Margaret Shilling was in the asylum or the finer details of her death.

Many sources state Margaret was deaf alluding to the reason why she didn’t hear anyone calling for her while she was missing, others claim Margaret didn’t want to be found. Based on newspaper articles reporting her death, we know neither of these are true. What we do know is Margaret was fifty-three at the time of her death, married, had a son, and had been at the asylum for some time.

Just prior to her death, there was construction going on but the construction was not just in the one room where she was found but in an entire ward. The complex at the time included 78 buildings in total, and Margaret found herself locked in not just a faraway room but in an entire building.

The staff at the asylum don’t know why Margaret entered that building of the asylum but she did have privileges to go anywhere in the 1,000-acre facility as long as she returned by curfew. This meant once she entered that room and accidentally locked herself in, no one was going to be able to hear her screams for help.

Because she wasn’t a dangerous patient and wasn’t considered high-risk, many of the staff and police believed she had simply left the asylum for good to be with her family, something that wasn’t uncommon for some low-risk patients to do at the time.

Paradoxical Undressing ~

When construction restarted in the building in January, a construction worker found her in the room, naked, dead, and decomposing. The coroner determined Margaret’s cause of death was heart failure due to having to endure the freezing temperatures which helps explain why Margaret was found naked. A common but bizarre effect of hypothermia is called paradoxical undressing.

When you’re in cold temperatures the blood vessels in your body contract in an attempt to prevent loss of heat in your core as that is the most important part of your body needed for survival. It’s why your hands and feet get cold first before the rest of your body. In cases of extreme hypothermia, those muscles contracting your blood vessels fatigue and fail causing warm blood to rush to other parts of your body.

The person experiencing this feels a hot flash as if they were burning from the inside, with the confusion created by hypothermia, the victim believes undressing is the only solution. It’s believed Margaret Shilling experienced paradoxical undressing shortly before dying from the extreme cold.

After she passed, she laid in a position where the sunshine covered her entirely, the heat amplified by the glass caused her body to decompose onto the exposed concrete leaving a perfect outline of her body. A 2008 microscopic analysis of the stain published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences found the type of cleaner used in an attempt to remove the stain actually contributed to the stain being etched permanently into the concrete.

The Truth About Debbie Southall ~

As for the story of possession of Debbie Southall after touching the stain, that story can be traced back to an actual claim from Debbie Southall and Susan Herrington wherein they claimed to see objects moving around while at Ohio University.

But in tracing the story through newspaper articles, it turns out that the first time it was reported, the story did not include anything about Margaret Shilling or the stain, especially since the story first appeared in 1976, years before Margaret died.

Throughout the years those at, and surrounding Ohio University heard the stories of Margaret Shilling and the story of Debbie Southall mixing them together as the decades passed, creating a false link between a tragedy and a ghost story. In reality, none of the stories of ghosts, shadowy figures, or the spirit of Margaret Shilling appearing in the building appear to be true.

Along with the common trope of haunted asylums, the stories stuck easily and helped create this aura of a haunted terrifying place. Unfortunately, these stories end up ignoring or downplaying the real horror that occurred in these asylums.

The treatment of patients, bound, gagged, shackled, and tortured along with the prevalent use of inhumane procedures like lobotomies is the true terror that haunts the halls of the former Athens Asylum.