On November 30, 1893, the state-run Asylum for Epileptics and Epileptic Insane opened. Additional blocks for children with mental health difficulties and for epileptics were completed in 1887. Monks has been criticized as portraying all epileptics as evil. The "indiscriminate use" of bromides was considered dangerous to epileptics. The Craig Colony for Epileptics at Sonyea was a former Shaker colony. At the end of the 19th century, the state opened a facility epileptics here.