But on the other hand how many people are truly truly crazy locked in the asylum then? Same number probably or lesser as totally off the rails people today, who are living in institutions and need to be taken care off full time.

Surely 100 years ago we didn't have luxury of claiming 25% of the USA mentally ill (but given that Trump is running for president... maybe there is something about it) or obsessing about "I am ill, it's not my fault".

A lot of people who run around with diagnosis would just have to live with it 100 years ago. Was it good? Bad? There had been plenty of people were melancholic or weird. Today they would be diagnosed... again... is it good? Bad?

It's been a different world back then. We didn't have social media, women weren't expected to work all life, life was not so fast and busy, colonialism was considered perfectly okay... lots changed. Hard to compare to world of back then.