Now that you have a concise history of the asylum's first fifty years, this is probably a good time to backtrack and explain exactly why these patients are here and what makes them so unique.

The answer is simple - they're here because of a book.

The explanation is complicated - the book can destroy your mind.

Hard to believe, I know.  This has all the earmarks of an urban legend.  Read on and you'll understand.

The Libri Virum, or "Book of Truth," was not how these collective pages were originally known.  Latin names seem to validate a sense of intelligence to any given subject, hence the popularity of this title over time.  Whether or not this is even a correct translation is debatable.  Regardless, in the early years when the book had no fixed name, it was simply described when referenced.  Where this "manuscript of melancholy" came from and when it all started have been lost to the ages.  What is known for certain is that it has been around for a very, very long time.  There doesn't seem to be a single author, since evidence clearly suggests that pages have been added and subtracted through time, refining the accumulated work into a more potent assembly.  In America, rumors of the book first surfaced in the northeastern towns during the early part of the nineteenth century.  Such tales of "words that could corrupt the soul with sadness and fear" were thought to be nothing more than cultural fables brought over with the immigrants that were heavily populating the land.  Many of the lower-class citizens took the matter more seriously and would destroy any of these books found, too afraid to examine the contents to validate its claim.  "Superstitious fools," the upper-class would laugh.