The Weirdest Ways Children Were Treated in History

1. A Vile Politician and Vile Clergymen Deliberately Misdiagnosed Unfortunate Orphans as Psychiatric Patients to Make Money

To exploit the Canadian federal government’s subsidy program, Maurice Duplessis and Quebec’s Catholic Church conspired to turn unfortunate orphans into psychiatric patients. To implement their idea, they set up a system to falsely diagnose orphans as mentally deficient, in order to siphon more federal subsidy dollars into the Church’s coffers. As a first step, Duplessis signed an order that instantly turned Quebec’s orphanages into hospitals. That entitled their religious order administrators – and ultimately the Catholic Church of Quebec – to receive the higher subsidy rates for hospitals.

It took decades before the scandalous state of affairs was finally uncovered. By then, over 20,000 otherwise mentally sound Quebecoise orphans had been misdiagnosed with psychiatric ailments. Once they were misdiagnosed, the orphans were declared “mentally deficient”. It was not just a paperwork technicality. Once they were misdiagnosed as “mentally deficient”, the orphans’ schooling stopped, and they became inmates in poorly supervised mental institutions. There, the unfortunate children were often subjected physical, mental, and other abuse by nuns and lay monitors.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Bingen, Jean – Hellenistic Egypt: Monarchy, Society, Economy, Culture (2007)

Cassius Dio – Roman History

Encyclopedia Britannica – Valeria Messalina

Exberliner, November 22^nd, 2010 – Third Reich Poster Child

Factinate – 42 Bizarre and Disturbing Facts About the Ancient World

Guardian, The, December 9^th, 2001 – ‘Spin’ on Boer Atrocities

Harvey, Brian K. – Daily Life in Ancient Rome: A Sourcebook (2016)

History Undressed – Keeping it in the (Ptolemaic) Family: When Incest is Best

Jewish Virtual Library – The Lebensborn Program

Judd, Denis, and Surridge, Keith – The Boer War: A History (2013)