Difference between revisions of "Portal:Featured Article Of The Week"

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|Title= Blue Ridge Sanatorium
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|Title= Haverford State Hospital
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|Image= Haverford 01.jpg
 
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|Body= The Blue Ridge Sanatorium began life in 1902 when a group of Charlottesville area physicians lead by Dr. D.M. Trice[1] purchased 106 acres of land in the Blue Ridge foothills including farm structures, a spring, and the Lyman Mansion from Mrs. J.E. Lyman.[2] The company soon acquired a charter from the state allowing them to hold voluntary and legally committed patients for treatment of nervous and mental disorders plus drug and alcohol problems. Boasting steam heat, gas lighting, and indoor plumbing the Moore's Creek Sanitarium had a twenty-three patient capacity. Men were housed on the second floor, and women on the first. Typical of contemporary sanitariums the patients were engaged in outdoor activities on the former farm or in crafts indoors.
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|Body= Philadelphia was a pioneer in mental health care in the late 19th century, offering "moral treatment" at the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital. Patients were treated for grief and anxiety, as well as for inflictions such as "religious excitement...prolonged lactation, metaphysical speculation ... and exposure to the sun's direct rays," according to the Pennsylvania Hospital Web site. From the late 19th century to the 1950s, mental hospitals proliferated around the country. In 1962 there were 526,000 people in state and county mental hospitals, according to the Center for Mental Health Services of the U.S. Public Health Service. When the Haverford State mental hospital was built in the early 1960s, it was designed to be a model of luxury care. Haverford State was known as the "Haverford Hilton" when it was built, boasting bowling alleys and private rooms. But over the next decade the hospital became over-crowded, and conditions declined. Patients slept in hallways or dayrooms, and were subjected to restraints, heavy sedation and disciplinary shock treatments.
  
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Trice's company dissolved in 1914 and the property lay unused until 1919. In that year the Commonwealth of Virginia was looking for another tuberculosis sanatorium site to complement the original Catawba Sanatorium (for whites) and the Piedmont Sanatorium (for blacks). Several factors made the former Moore's Creek site attractive to the Commonwealth. Not only was the University of Virginia Medical School located nearby, but paved road access, mountain scenery plus money and water connections offered by the city made it a hard location to pass up. The Lyman Mansion became the Administration (Davis) Building, central facility of the sanatorium. Even as the facility expanded it maintained the connection to the land begun by Moore's Creek. The Sanatorium largely subsisted on the produce it raised and a surplus of milk produced by the dairy farm on the property was sold in the city.
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In 1986, a rash of escapees brought the hospital into the media spotlight. About 80 patients had managed to escape by June of 1986, including some who were potentially dangerous, according to NEWS of Delaware County coverage. The county was shaken when 25-year-old mental patient Raymond Tillger walked off the hospital grounds and disappeared on June 6. Tillger was found not guilty of slaying his girlfriend in 1979, due to mental illness, but was considered potentially dangerous by the police. He was arrested eight days after his escape at the La Casa Pasta restaurant in New Castle. "It is not an understatement to say that Haverford State Hospital presents a time bomb waiting to explode," wrote State Rep. Stephen Freind, after the incident. "It is only a matter of either divine providence or complete luck that thus far one of the walkaways has not seriously harmed or killed one of my constituents residing in the area or, for that matter, in any other area." Freind was appalled that as a minimum security institution, Haverford State was housing potentially dangerous patients, and began pushing the state for stronger security measures.  [[Haverford State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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The first addition to the property were the three pavilions, designed to the then modern concept of providing as much fresh air as possible to help cure patients. Built to the same plans as the Morton pavilion at the Piedmont Sanatorium they were two story buildings of frame construction with wings off the sides of a central core housing the main facilities.  [[Dorothea Lynde Dix|Click here for more...]]
 
 
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Revision as of 04:27, 28 November 2011

Featured Article Of The Week

Haverford State Hospital


Haverford 01.jpg

Philadelphia was a pioneer in mental health care in the late 19th century, offering "moral treatment" at the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital. Patients were treated for grief and anxiety, as well as for inflictions such as "religious excitement...prolonged lactation, metaphysical speculation ... and exposure to the sun's direct rays," according to the Pennsylvania Hospital Web site. From the late 19th century to the 1950s, mental hospitals proliferated around the country. In 1962 there were 526,000 people in state and county mental hospitals, according to the Center for Mental Health Services of the U.S. Public Health Service. When the Haverford State mental hospital was built in the early 1960s, it was designed to be a model of luxury care. Haverford State was known as the "Haverford Hilton" when it was built, boasting bowling alleys and private rooms. But over the next decade the hospital became over-crowded, and conditions declined. Patients slept in hallways or dayrooms, and were subjected to restraints, heavy sedation and disciplinary shock treatments.

In 1986, a rash of escapees brought the hospital into the media spotlight. About 80 patients had managed to escape by June of 1986, including some who were potentially dangerous, according to NEWS of Delaware County coverage. The county was shaken when 25-year-old mental patient Raymond Tillger walked off the hospital grounds and disappeared on June 6. Tillger was found not guilty of slaying his girlfriend in 1979, due to mental illness, but was considered potentially dangerous by the police. He was arrested eight days after his escape at the La Casa Pasta restaurant in New Castle. "It is not an understatement to say that Haverford State Hospital presents a time bomb waiting to explode," wrote State Rep. Stephen Freind, after the incident. "It is only a matter of either divine providence or complete luck that thus far one of the walkaways has not seriously harmed or killed one of my constituents residing in the area or, for that matter, in any other area." Freind was appalled that as a minimum security institution, Haverford State was housing potentially dangerous patients, and began pushing the state for stronger security measures. Click here for more...

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