In 1875, Judy B., a Black woman, was admitted to St. Elizabeths, the Government Hospital for the Insane in Washington D.C. Except for her initial diagnosis of chronic dementia, her medical file remained sparse until the early 1900s, when she was in her 80s. After that time, doctors noted that she sometimes spoke out loud to long lost relatives. Once, she conversed with the man who had enslaved her. Many of the notes pertained to Judy B.’s attempts to catch witches.
Judy B.’s case was included in an article by a white doctor at the hospital, who considered the patient’s belief in witches a sign of a primitive spiritual