This Day in History: 1802-04-04

Dorothea Dix, a tireless advocate for mental health and the first superintendent of US Army nurses, is born on this day in 1802.  Investigating conditions among mental patients in Massachusetts, Dix wrote the state legislature that she found people “… in cages, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience.”  Dix became one of the most prominent reformers and advocates of the 1840s and 50. Her time as  chief of Army nurses during the Civil War was marked by compassion for the wounded of both sides and by bureaucratic infighting with the military establishment.