In the 1800s, Dorothea Dix fought against the bad treatment of patients in mental asylums. She started a "mental hygiene" group to encourage politicians to change the treatment of mental patients in the United States. When people became aware of the wrongdoing in mental asylums, money was raised to improve the treatment of patients and the asylums. Dix is thought to have helped to create 32 mental hospitals. By 1940 there were more than 400,000 patients living in mental asylums.