What is a mental institution and a Sanitarium?

What is a mental institution and a Sanitarium and what is the difference between a mental institution and a Sanitarium?

Answer #1

A mental institution is for the long-term treatment of mental illness or, occasionally, for the incarceration of people who have cognitive or personality problems severe enough that they pose a risk to themselves or others.

A sanitarium is (or was, anyway; the term is not really used that much anymore) for the treatment of physical illness, usually those that warranted removal of an individual from the general population, like TB or leprosy, so they would not infect others. These days, we understand how contagion spreads enough to render sanitariums obsolete.

Answer #2

eh… My answer wasn’t as good as Mikeh’s.

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