I asked my dad about that picture, he said it was actually pretty common for some of the patients to do that if they got a hold of a marker, they were usually diagnosed with some form of OCD.

By the time he worked there it was very humane and nothing like it was in the early days of course, but at one point he'd read ledgers from way back when. He said what disturbed him most was that they would have the patients name and a brief history then write if there were any changes in behavior---at first he saw 'no change' written a number of times and didn't think much of it-until he saw the dates, some of them had years between one note and the next. When he worked there they were required to make notes of behaviour on a daily basis.