Old shackles for the mentally ill

"These shackles, originally used to confine the mentally ill, in the dungeons of the Castle of Gerard the Devil or Mansweeshuys of the city of Ghent, were forced open in 1815 by the Brothers of Charity.

The Brothers thus followed in the footsteps of Tuke and Pinel who had started a more humane treatment of the mentally ill a few years earlier in England and France"1.

The shackles are now displayed in the Museum Dr. Guislain.

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  • Photo by Luca Borghi ti.supmacinu|ihgrob.l# | (August 2009), courtesy of Museum Dr. Guislain.


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