‘The Island of Madness’
Poveglia Island is one of many island in the lagoons of Venice, Italy but instead of being a place of beauty, the island is a festering blemish in the shimmering sea and is not only regarded as one of the most haunted locations on the planet, but also one of the most evil places in the world. Today no one visits save to harvest the vineyards. Fishermen even steer clear of the island for fear that they will catch human bones in their nets.
As the plague tightened its grip, the population began to panic and those residents showing the slightest sign of sickness were taken from their homes and to the island of Poveglia kicking and screaming and pleading. They were thrown onto piles of rotting corpses and set ablaze. Men, women, children… all left to die in agony. It’s estimated that the tiny island saw as many as 160,000 bodies during this time.
As if the story was not disturbing enough, it gets worse. In 1922 the island became home to a psychiatric hospital complete with a large and very impressive bell tower. The patients of this hospital immediately began to report that they would see ghosts of plague victims on the island and that they would be kept up at night hearing the tortured wails of the suffering spirits. Because they were already considered mad by the hospital staff, these complaints were largely ignored.
To add to the anguish of the poor souls populating this island hospital, one doctor there decided to make a name for himself by experimenting on his subjects all to find a cure for insanity. Lobotomies were performed on his pitiable patients using crude tools like hand drills, chisels, and hammers. Those patients and even the ones who were not privy to the doctor’s special attentions were taken to the bell tower where they were tortured and subjected to a number of inhumane horrors.
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