Typhoid victims locked up for life in mental institution
More than 40 women typhoid sufferers were locked up for life in a mental asylum to prevent them spreading the disease, according to newly-found records.
By Graham Tibbetts
Last Updated: 4:02PM BST 28 Jul 2008
The patients, all women, were taken to Long Grove in Epsom, Surrey, between 1907 and its closure in 1992.
Although they were sane when admitted many went mad as a result of their incarceration, nursing staff said.
Virtually all had recovered from typhoid but were still considered a public health risk because they continued to excrete the bacterium.
Most of the institution's archives were destroyed after it closed but researchers at the Surrey County Council History Centre in Woking found two volumes of records in the derelict building.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2465208/Typhoid-victims-locked-up-for-life-in-mental-institution.html