For most people, the idea of being judged insane and held in a 1950s asylum is the stuff of nightmares. But to be locked up when you are sane would be regarded as an appalling injustice.
And yet a BBC investigation has revealed that nearly 50 women were locked in an isolation ward in a mental asylum in Surrey - not because they had a mental illness - but because they carried typhoid and were deemed a public health risk.
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They were held at Long Grove Hospital - a mental asylum in Surrey - which started admitting carriers of typhoid as early as 1907 and continued through the 1940s and 1950s. Once admitted, those women never left.
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One former nurse says that many of those women - admitted sane - deteriorated mentally, driven mad by the conditions they lived in. Others remained in full possession of their senses, despite enduring conditions such as solitary isolation.
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It was 1992 when Long Grove finally closed.
The woman pictured above is Rosina Bryans, who was locked up for 60 years. SIXTY YEARS!There's a twenty minute video at the BBC site that has a lot more information.
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