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

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|Title= St. Joseph State Hospital
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|Title= Allentown State Hospital
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|Image= AllentownSH_2010.jpg
 
|Width= 150px
 
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|Body= The story begins in 1872 when Missouri’s State Legislature approved $200,000 for the building of a Lunatic Asylum and St. Joseph citizens convinced the legislature to locate it just east of their city. Opening its doors on November 9, 1874, the hospital was called the State Hospital for the Insane No.2, or more familiarly named the Lunatic Asylum #2. Beginning with 25 patients, the first hospital superintendent described the institution as "the noble work of reviving hope in the human heart and dispelling the portentous clouds that penetrate the intellects of minds diseased.” And so it was for the next 127 years.
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|Body= The first step for the establishment of a homeopathic state hospital for the insane in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was taken by the Germantown Homeopathic Medical Society of Philadelphia, which appointed a committee of twelve of its members, of which Isaac W. Heysinger, M. D., was chairman, for the purpose of introducing and furthering a bill before the State Legislature to provide for the selection of a site and the construction of a state hospital for the care of the insane to be under homeopathic management and control. After several unsuccessful attempts a bill was finally passed by both houses of the Pennsylvania Legislature, June 25-26, 1901, entitled, " An Act to Provide for the Selection of a Site and the Erection of a State Hospital for the Treatment of the Insane Under Homeopathic Management, to be Called the Homeopathic State Hospital for the Insane, and Making an Appropriation Therefor."
  
In no time at all the hospital’s 275 beds filled when relatives could no longer handle the special needs of family members with mental illness. Soon, an additional 120 beds were added, then another 250, then more and more over the years, as the hopelessly mental ill poured through their doors. In the hospital’s early years, the asylum was a self-sufficient institution where the patients worked on a farm, raising crops and livestock, to provide food for the facility. Allegedly, the hospital needed only to purchase salt and sugar to supplement their food provisions.
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On July 18, 1901, the bill was approved by Gov. Wm. A. Stone, except as to Section 5, which provided for an appropriation of $300,000 to enable the commissioners to purchase land and commence the erection of buildings, from which the Governor withheld his approval in the sum of $250,000 because of insufficient state revenue. The commission received several propositions from places within the territory of the twelve counties comprising the hospital district. During December, 1902, they visited a number of the sites offered to them in Lehigh, Northampton, Monroe, Bradford and Wayne counties. Three places in Lehigh County were under consideration aid finally the section in Hanover Township, near Allentown, was chosen upon which to locate the new hospital, the tract secured by the state comprising 209 acres. The corner-stone was laid June 27, 1904. The failure of the Legislature to appropriate, and of the Governor to approve what the Legislature did appropriate, the moneys that were necessary to expeditiously proceed with the erection and construction of the buildings caused a great deal of needless delay in the completion of the institution for its estimated capacity of 1000 patients.  [[Allentown State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
 
The hospital continued to be referred to as the State Lunatic Asylum #2 until 1899, when it gained the name the St. Joseph State Hospital. By the early 1950s, the facility had grown to nearly 3,000 beds and housed some of the most criminally insane individuals in the state, as well as those that could be rehabilitated, and others who were merely depressed. According to the museum, a few of these patients were just mildly depressed individuals who were dumped there by annoyed relatives. With modern medications, more and more patients began to return to society. Throughout its history, the hospital underwent a series of experimental treatments for its patients, some of which sound more like a cause rather than a cure for insanity.  [[St. Joseph State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
 
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Revision as of 06:57, 30 July 2017

Featured Article Of The Week

Allentown State Hospital


AllentownSH 2010.jpg

The first step for the establishment of a homeopathic state hospital for the insane in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was taken by the Germantown Homeopathic Medical Society of Philadelphia, which appointed a committee of twelve of its members, of which Isaac W. Heysinger, M. D., was chairman, for the purpose of introducing and furthering a bill before the State Legislature to provide for the selection of a site and the construction of a state hospital for the care of the insane to be under homeopathic management and control. After several unsuccessful attempts a bill was finally passed by both houses of the Pennsylvania Legislature, June 25-26, 1901, entitled, " An Act to Provide for the Selection of a Site and the Erection of a State Hospital for the Treatment of the Insane Under Homeopathic Management, to be Called the Homeopathic State Hospital for the Insane, and Making an Appropriation Therefor."

On July 18, 1901, the bill was approved by Gov. Wm. A. Stone, except as to Section 5, which provided for an appropriation of $300,000 to enable the commissioners to purchase land and commence the erection of buildings, from which the Governor withheld his approval in the sum of $250,000 because of insufficient state revenue. The commission received several propositions from places within the territory of the twelve counties comprising the hospital district. During December, 1902, they visited a number of the sites offered to them in Lehigh, Northampton, Monroe, Bradford and Wayne counties. Three places in Lehigh County were under consideration aid finally the section in Hanover Township, near Allentown, was chosen upon which to locate the new hospital, the tract secured by the state comprising 209 acres. The corner-stone was laid June 27, 1904. The failure of the Legislature to appropriate, and of the Governor to approve what the Legislature did appropriate, the moneys that were necessary to expeditiously proceed with the erection and construction of the buildings caused a great deal of needless delay in the completion of the institution for its estimated capacity of 1000 patients. Click here for more...