Category Archives: Buildings

Excellence for the Entitled

Leave a reply
Sidis Psychotherapeutic Institute, courtesy Sidis Archives

Sidis Psychotherapeutic Institute, courtesy Sidis Archives

Early asylum care was dramatically better than what families could provide at home (see last post), but institutional care began to fail once asylums became popular enough to be overcrowded. Legislators were aghast at the public’s demand for more admissions, which consequently meant more available rooms, buildings, staff–and public funding. State governments typically met this challenge by insisting that asylums make their money go further, which often meant skimping on amenities and staff.

Dining Room at Sidis Psychotherapeutic Institute

Dining Room at Sidis Psychotherapeutic Institute

This didn’t need to happen at private establishments where patients could pay for the level of care they wanted, or for private-pay patients at public institutions. Boris Sidis, who opened his private institution, the Sidis Psychotherapeutic Institute in New Hampshire in 1910, knew to emphasize the luxurious accommodations available. “Palatial rooms, luxuriously furnished private baths, green houses, sun parlors, and private farm products” were just some of the amenities sure to delight his patients and set their families’ minds at rest.

Boris Sidis, courtesy Atlantic Monthly, 1922

Boris Sidis, courtesy Atlantic Monthly, 1922

Sidis charged between what would be (in today’s dollars) $1,000 – $2,000 a week for his services. One can only imagine how nice life could have been there, and what a pleasant retreat his institute was for  patients who went there voluntarily, as many did.

Dangerous Confinement

Leave a reply
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 1866, Showed A Doctor Making His Rounds at Blackwell's Island Lunatic Asylum

Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, 1866, Showed A Doctor Making His Rounds at Blackwell’s Island Lunatic Asylum

The attendants working in insane asylums often had deservedly poor reputations. However, many were dedicated and capable, and performed their duties admirably. We can only imagine the outcome of any number of harrowing situations if attendants had not remained calm and committed to the people who depended on them.

An article in an 1879 issue of the New York Times reported on a fire that had broken out in a large building beside the main asylum on Blackwell’s Island. The building held about 100 female patients, who were locked in rows of cells on each floor. Smoke began pouring out of the cellar late in the evening and attendants gave the alarm. The Medical Superintendent had them unlock each cell and release the patients, but getting them outside to safety could have been quite a task given the unusual circumstances and mental state of the patients.

An Asylum Dance at Blackwell's Island

An Asylum Dance at Blackwell’s Island

However, to calm patients’ fear and excitement, the attendants told the women “there was to be a dance in the Amusement Hall, a building in which concerts and balls were given to the inmates of the asylum,” the paper reported.

The patients exited via fire escapes, and to keep up the pretense that all was well, someone played “a merry air” on the piano in the Amusement Hall. Some of the patients began to dance on the lawn as employees and others fought the fire, and every life was saved.

New York City Asylum for the Insane on Blackwell's Island

New York City Asylum for the Insane on Blackwell’s Island

Paying the Bills

Leave a reply
Many Eager Dreamers Rushed to California in 1849

Many Eager Dreamers Rushed to California in 1849

The idea that asylums were necessary had been widely accepted in America by the middle of the nineteenth century. Even far-flung regions like California provided for the care of the insane; it established an asylum at Stockton in 1853, only a few years after the 1849 gold rush.

Creating an asylum called for relevant legislation, and California’s first general law regarding the insane gave the responsibility for proper commitment to county judges:

“. . . [the judge shall] upon the application of any person under oath, setting forth that any person by reason of insanity was unsafe to be at large, or was suffering from mental derangement, forthwith cause the said person to be brought before him and cause to appear two reputable physicians, to examine the alleged insane person . . . .”

Though it seems that just about anyone prepared to swear to another’s insanity could begin the application process for commitment, this young state (created just three years earlier in1850) commendably included some practical safeguards. First, the initiator’s desire was not enough to force a commitment, and that person had to go through government channels to continue the process–surely a deterrent to some cases of spite or malice.

Second, not only did the two required physicians have to examine the proposed patient and declare him/her insane, they had to certify under oath that the diagnosis was correct. Then, it was still the judge’s decision to commit the person, based largely on the premise that the suspected person was not safe to be at large. The expenses incurred by any person so committed would be born by the state–and that even included expenses for the patient’s travel to the asylum. The latter may not have been an extremely powerful deterrent against frivolous commitments, but presumably judges in a newly functioning state would be careful about committing people to Stockton without considering the drain on public funds.

Most state institutions were designed primarily to help the poor, though many did take paying patients. California followed this pattern and allowed the non-indigent into its state asylums. However, the State Commission in Lunacy was to collect any appropriate charges for these latter patients, and could “bring action to recover such charges.”

Building at Stockton State Hospital

Building at Stockton State Hospital

Old Photo of Stockton State Hospital

Old Photo of Stockton State Hospital

When Johnny Came Marching Home

Leave a reply
Soldiers Could Never Escape the Suffering Imposed by the Civil War, courtesy Library of Congress

Soldiers Could Never Escape the Suffering Imposed by the Civil War, courtesy Library of Congress

People today understand the after-effects of war on veterans better than previous generations did (though that doesn’t diminish its trauma). Soldiers in previous eras were much more on their own, since medical personnel didn’t recognize the emotional damage and scarring they often suffered. Civil War soldiers in particular faced a changed war environment that greatly contributed to their later trauma.

These young men suffered death and injury on the grandest scale experienced in American history. They endured horrific wounds inflicted by new weapons and then went on to suffer just as intently afterward from assembly-line-style amputations. Many soldiers saw the ground seem to crawl and shift with wounded, struggling bodies after a great battle, or heard cries for help they could never forget. They often carried this trauma back to the battlefield and then home.

ivil War Soldier Angelo Crapsey, 1861, Who Committed Suicide in 1864 After a Period of Mental Illness, courtesy Kutztown University of Pennsylvania

Civil War Soldier Angelo Crapsey, 1861, Who Committed Suicide in 1864 After a Period of Mental Illness, courtesy Kutztown University of Pennsylvania

Physicians did recognize that some symptoms occurred specifically to soldiers they saw: heart palpitations, sweating, and/or rapid breathing, and other symptoms of panic attacks. These manifestations were identified by Jacob Mendes Da Costa and called “Da Costa’s Syndrome” or more commonly, “soldier’s heart” or “irritable heart.” Some physicians sympathized with men suffering from it, while others thought they were merely shirking their duty. At home, men who suffered from the after-effects of war trauma were similarly misunderstood.

The Government Hospital for the Insane (later known as St. Elizabeths) had been built specifically for soldiers, sailors, and the indigent of Washington, DC, but many other asylums also saw an influx of veterans who could not cope with their post-war trauma. Most did not get much help beyond the security of three meals a day and a bed to sleep in, along with occupational therapy–usually in the form of work–to help them pass their days.

Brevet Brigadier General Newell Gleason Was Committed to the Indiana State Hospital for the Insane in 1874 andCommitted Suicide in 1886 Some Time After His Release, courtesy Library of Congress

Brevet Brigadier General Newell Gleason Was Admitted to the Indiana State Hospital for the Insane in 1874 and Committed Suicide in 1886 Some Time After His Release, courtesy Library of Congress

These veterans were often traumatized one last time by family members and a society ashamed by the idea of mental illness and the “weakness” of the man suffering from it.