Before the construction of dedicated state-run institutions, most people with mental illnesses and disabilities were housed privately.

A "counting of the insane" (Irrenzählung) in 1851 found that less than 10 percent of the 1281 individuals identified in the canton of Zurich were in the care of hospitals, most of which lacked dedicated psychiatric wards.

In 1817, the city of Zürich had established such a ward in its "Old Hospital" (Altes Spital) in the centre of the old town.

From 1870 until 1879, the hospital had three directors, Bernhard von Gudden, Gustav Huguenin and Eduard Hitzig.

While the cited indications at the time were of a therapeutic nature, he later wrote that this had been a "pretense", and that the only true purpose of these procedures had been a social one.

[1][2] In addition to Jung, many renowned psychiatrists spent part of their career at the Burghölzli, including Karl Abraham, Ludwig Binswanger, Eugène Minkowski, Hermann Rorschach, Franz Riklin, Constantin von Monakow, Eugen Bleuler, Ernst Rüdin, Adolf Meyer, Abraham Brill and Emil Oberholzer.