Description : Exterior image of the Paris Mental Asylum. Pitié-Salpêtrière was the dumping grounds for women who received the dreaded diagnosis of "hysterical". Female beggars, prostitutes, crazies, orphans, libertines, protestants, cripples, Jews, criminals, alcoholics, moribunds, witches, blind, girls born of adultery, lesbians, epileptics, thieves, sorcerers, seniles, and others. Parisian women of the 1700s could be labeled any one of those things, true or false, branded hysterical, and regardless of her social status could be sent away into the dingy halls of the asylum forever. France.