The Butcher of Trenton - Henry Cotton | Asylum History

Henry Cotton - Surgeon Psychiatrist | Asylum Horror Stories | Mental Health History Documentary

The incredible but true history of a promising young doctor who was given too much power and who abused that power to literally, carve people up.

Henry Cotton was born in 1876 – he showed great promise and studied with some of the most important figures in world psychiatry in the early 1900s in the US and Germany.

At 30 years of age, he became medical director of the State Lunatic Asylum in Trenton, New Jersey and had absolute control over the lives of his 2000 patients and all of the staff.

He actually started well, instituting progressive ideas such as getting rid of mechanical restraints, but he soon became obsessed with trying to cure mental illness by surgically excising pockets of infection. He and his staff operated on thousands of patients – many of whom died from the major surgery he inflicted on them, yet he claimed an 85% cure rate.

He went on for years despite complaints and investigations. Was he mad? I set out the case for him actually having a narcissistic personality disorder.

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Academic References:
Scull, A. (2005). Madhouse: A tragic tale of megalomania and modern medicine. Yale University Press.
Bouchard, C. (1896). Traité de pathologie générale. Masson. Paris
Cotton, H. A. (1921). The defective, delinquent, and insane: The relation of focal infections to their causation, treatment, and prevention. Princeton University Press.
Cotton, H. A. (1923). The relation of chronic sepsis to the so-called functional mental disorders. Journal of Mental Science, 69(287), 434-465.
Davidson, J. (2016). Bayard Holmes (1852–1924) and Henry Cotton (1869–1933): Surgeon–psychiatrists and their tragic quest to cure schizophrenia. Journal of Medical Biography, 24(4), 550-559.
Kopeloff, N., & Kirby, G. H. (1923). Focal infection and mental disease. American Journal of Psychiatry, 80(2), 149-197.
Meyer, A. (1934). Henry A. Cotton. American Journal of Psychiatry, 90(4), 921-923.
Sheth, N., & Imbroglia, G. (1999). Images in Psychiatry. Am J Psychiatry, 156(12).
Wessely, S. (2009). Surgery for the treatment of psychiatric illness: the need to test untested theories. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 102(10), 445-451.

Copyright Disclaimer
The primary purpose of this video is educational. I have tried to use material in the public domain or with Creative Commons Non-attribution licences wherever possible. Where attribution is required, I have listed this below. I believe that any copyright material used falls under the remit of Fair Use, but if any content owners would like to dispute this, I will not hesitate to immediately remove that content. It is not my intention to infringe on content ownership in any way. If you happen to find your art or images in the video, please let me know and I will be glad to credit you.

Images
Wikimedia Commons
Wellcome Collection
Byron Jennings as Dr Cotton in Boardwalk Empire Season 5
John Hodgman as Dr Cotton in the Cinemax drama The Knick
Snub Pollard in Alfred Goulding’s The Dippy Dentist (1920) Public domain via Internet Archive
Science Museum
Public Domain or used on Fair Use basis for education purpose

Video produced by Professor Graeme Yorston and Tom Yorston.

[fizzao]

I’m not laughing now. This is so grim. My father told me his own father would cling to him and cry as he begged not to be given more electric shock therapy at his psychiatric hospital . It still makes me tear up.

[indigocheetah]

Dr. Cotton, was not only a narcissist, he was cruel and had little awareness of the suffering of the patients under his control.
Why, didn't anyone say anything to advocate for their families.
Even the father who 's daughter he killed, said nothing.
Thank you, Professor Yorston. For bringing awareness of the dark side of medicine.

[daya]

Terrifying story. I can only imagine the fear of those poor people. Nobody made a complain about this sadistic doctor?

[mikaelwester]

Retired family dr and CBT therapist. This video is really important.

[FromTheHeart]

Thank you so much for making this, informative and fascinating at the same time. Good content!!!!

[uberaustin]

Great video! I'm a psych resident (junior doctor as you might say across the pond) in the US. I'm also fascinated by the history of psychiatry. Glad I found your channel!

[cw]

I wonder what current cutting edge medical treatments will seem barbaric 100 years from now?

[kskssxoxskskss]

Bingeing your soothing voice and information while awaiting replacement surgery for painful condition.

[ladytron]

Very interesting, never heard of those types of treatment for the mentally ill.

[marmill_]

I love this channel keep the videos coming, so eloquently done and informative I watched them all already to my dismay😩

[karyannfontaine]

Imagine taking out teeth and body organ removal for mood regulation. Some people, especially women, were sent to Lunatic Asylums for disagreeing with men, or for being elderly. How many people had Henry Cotton butchered and killed? Yes, he seems to have had narcissistic tendencies, never able to admit he was wrong. Even confronted with the truth of control vs surgery, showing the surgical group fared worse than the control group, he prevailed with his butchery. Authorities enabled him to continue mutilating the unfortunate patients. Thank you for featuring this period in the history of mental health, even though Dr. Cotton may give me bad dreams.

[luciacurtis]

I found your videos today. They are interesting you have a good approach.
Golly gee though they have made me think and Lord I'm sure I'll not sleep soundly after binge watching so many.
Thank you. You are a very interesting person

[Leslie.]

Without his credentials his behavior was borderline Jack The Ripper.

[lisablount]

The deluded psychiatrist is an intentional thing. In 1990 my doctor let her gynecologist friend practice medicine on me. I had pain left low belly and was made to get a pelvic laparoscopy to look for endometriosis. I actually had diverticulosis and I still do. I’m currently struggling to extricate my entire life at 64 from the ravages of psychiatry

[julien]

This is very high quality content. Thank you

[PC-tzkb]

Thanks, Professor. Your videos are so well done & enlightening. I love them.

[MBRMrblueroads]

S.F Lamp dentist removed all my teeth as a kid. He said my mouth was to little so he pulled all of them in one day and my mother paid him to do it. The same day my father took me to work to help dig a ditch at the junk yard. To this day I hate all dentist.

[wenthulk]

I’m deeply disturbed by this Cotton fellow

[idaliamartinez]

I worked in this hospital 8 years ago. Its a different world in there.

[AZ-wucv]

Thank you for sharing. A very well researched and well put together YouTube video.

I would say the profession has hardly really moved on. TMS, DBS, ECT and even brain surgery still goes on. Someone wrote about having surgery in Dundee for mental disorder but this still goes on. This despite the scandal of professor eljamel who was struck off but used to carry these out.

My own experience in forensics in training is people were heavily sedated and confined for years. I found adult wards similar but at least people stay a short time. A guilded cage is still a cage.

Plenty of narcissistic personality within the profession but I hope you get some success with this. It's interesting the dark history is still entirely absent in the training. It should be taught to everyone!