Straitjackets. Sedatives. Bars on the windows. In 1900, patients at mental hospitals in the United States faced inhumane treatment, often because doctors could not identify the cause of their melancholy or mania. Officials at psychiatric hospitals in the 1900s, known at the time as lunatic asylums or insane asylums, locked patients up against their will, with few ideas on how to properly treat their problems. As Nellie Bly witnessed when she went undercover at Bellevue Hospital in New York, patients were beaten and choked, and their living quarters often looked more like prison cells than hospital rooms.