Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 3 to 9.
Dorothea Dix was born in the tiny village of Hampden, Maine, in 1802. She was brought up by her grandmother in Boston. When only nineteen years old, she established the Dix Mansion School for girls in Boston. There was no lack of students, and the school provided a good source of income for her and her two brothers. In 1836, however, her health failed. She suffered most of her life from "lung trouble" and depression. She was forced to stop teaching and had to close her school.
Later that same year, having partially recovered, Dix set off for Italy but never reached her destination. She had to halt her journey in England. During this time, she became friends with Samuel Tuke, from whom she learned new methods for taking care of the mentally ill.
Returning to the United States, Dix volunteered to teach classes at a prison for women in Massachusetts. When she went to the lower level of the jail where the mentally ill were housed, she was shocked to see that they were treated far worse even than ordinary criminals, living in miserable conditions. She vowed to spend the rest of her life improving conditions for the mentally ill. Dix spent the next eighteen months touring Massachusetts prisons and local jails, documenting and exposing inhumane conditions. Her reports led to legislative reforms in Massachusetts, setting the stage for her nationwide advocacy.
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Dix volunteered to form the Army Nursing Corps. At first, military authorities, who were not accustomed to female nurses, were skeptical, but she convinced them that women could perform this work acceptably. She recruited over 3,000 women and raised money for medical supplies for the troops. Under her leadership, army nursing care greatly improved.
After the war, Dix returned to her life's work and resumed her travels. Her work in support of better care for the mentally ill resulted in the restructuring of many hospitals both in the United States and abroad. She asked the federal government to use the income from public lands to help poor mental patients, and although both houses of Congress approved this bill, President Pierce vetoed it. Even though this plan failed, Dix was able to arouse concern for the problem of mental illness all over the United States as well as in Canada and Europe.
