Psychiatric hospital

An asylum (TV: The Vault of Secrets), psychiatric institution, (PROSE: Bad Therapy) madhouse, (TV: Ghost Light, The Shakespeare Code) or home for the insane (PROSE: Wolfsbane) was a type of hospital. (TV: The Vault of Secrets)

Bedlam was a notorious asylum in London. In 1599, patients there were whipped for the entertainment of the gentry. The madhouse was a place which was feared by many. (TV: The Shakespeare Code)

In 1970, Fate began reporting that asylum inmates around the world were having strange visions. This climaxed in June when a psychopath in an Indian asylum began developing strange physiological symptoms: his skin became scaly and stretched out of shape; his body temperature fluctuated; his hips rotated as if he had four legs; and finally, his back split open to reveal wings. This condition spread among the inmates and the staff until, one night, the whole asylum transformed. One doctor used a gun to start euthanising the victims, having to shoot each one in the head multiple times until they stopped screaming. After each individual died, however, they returned to human form. Christine Summerfield linked to the sphinx invasion, though she cast doubt on the veracity of the story. (PROSE: Dead Romance)

In 1994, a number of asylums were closed in England. Hawthorne was originally to be one of them but it remained in operation, which drew the suspicion of Liz Shaw and thus drew the attention of P.R.O.B.E. (HOMEVID: The Zero Imperative)

The Dalek Asylum was, according to legend, a planet where the Daleks locked up all of their kind which went wrong, including the battle-scarred and the insane. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks)