Here are some of the reasons a person could be committed to the state psychiatric hospital in Utah around the turn of the century: having epilepsy, financial embarrassment, disappointment, softening of the brain, death of a child, poverty, jealousy, unreciprocated love, studying prize fighting, ovarian trouble, reading novels, solar heat exposure, overwork, litigation, sedentary life, hypnotism, having girl trouble, being sheep herder, and smoking cigarettes.

Image: Utah State Mental Hospital in about 1920. From Utah Department of Health and Human Services.