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

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|Title= Trenton State Hospital
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|Title= Mendota Mental Health Institute
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|Image= Trenton1.png
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|Image= Mendota03.jpg
 
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|Body= The Trenton Psychiatric Hospital Historic District occupies much of the Hospital’s approximately 100acre campus in Trenton and Ewing Township. The hospital was founded in 1848 at the urging of Dorthea Dix and was first know as the New Jersey Lunatic Asylum. It was the first institution established in New Jersey for the mentally ill. The hospital today includes an extensive campus with large, primarily stone buildings constructed from the mid-19th throughout the 20th centuries amid beautifully landscaped grounds. Noted Philadelphia architect John Notman and nationally significant landscape designer Andrew Jackson Downing were responsible for the property’s original plan. The historic district buildings include the main hospital, a cafeteria, a laundry, a firehouse, a shop, a laboratory, a powerhouse, the gatehouse and several residences for the Superintendent, the Commissioner, 12 doctors and a nurse’s dormitory. The New Jersey State Historic Preservation Office has determined that the site is eligible for inclusion on the State and National Registers of Historic Places. The primary threat to the complex is demolition, although neglect is also taking its toll on the district.
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|Body= Mendota opened on July 14, 1860 when it admitted a patient who had been brought all the way from Oconto County...a long trip by horse and wagon. Even though the hospital was not yet ready to open, that Saturday it was decided that, because of the distance the patient had been brought, he should be received. Thus began Mendota's ready response to the needs of patients and communities, which has been its tradition.
  
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The first of New Jersey’s public mental hospitals, Trenton Psychiatric Hospital, began providing services on May 15, 1848. The hospital was founded by Dorothea Lynde Dix, the renowned pioneer and advocate for humane care and treatment of the mentally ill. Ms. Dix always looked upon Trenton Psychiatric Hospital as her "firstborn child." She spent her declining years as a guest of the hospital and died there in 1887. [[Trenton State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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Mendota has gone through many changes since then, some of them dramatized in the changes in its name. It opened as an "Asylum", appropriate in an era when little could be done for the mentally ill except to house and care for them...i.e. to give them asylum...when their families and communities could no longer cope with their needs.
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In a later era, when patients were recognized as having an illness...mental illness...the name was changed to Mendota State Hospital, reflecting its responsibility for providing treatment.
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In more recent times, with the discovery of psychiatric medications and with new approaches (some of which resulted from research at Mendota itself) it became possible for the mentally ill to be treated in community hospitals and clinics. But there remained a need for a place for those who required more specialized treatment than most community hospitals and clinics could provide, and where the tradition of research, education, and consultation that Mendota had already established could continue. Mendota was then changed to its present name of Mendota Mental Health Institute. [[Mendota Mental Health Institute|Click here for more...]]
 
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Revision as of 04:45, 2 August 2020

Featured Article Of The Week

Mendota Mental Health Institute


Mendota03.jpg

Mendota opened on July 14, 1860 when it admitted a patient who had been brought all the way from Oconto County...a long trip by horse and wagon. Even though the hospital was not yet ready to open, that Saturday it was decided that, because of the distance the patient had been brought, he should be received. Thus began Mendota's ready response to the needs of patients and communities, which has been its tradition.

Mendota has gone through many changes since then, some of them dramatized in the changes in its name. It opened as an "Asylum", appropriate in an era when little could be done for the mentally ill except to house and care for them...i.e. to give them asylum...when their families and communities could no longer cope with their needs.

In a later era, when patients were recognized as having an illness...mental illness...the name was changed to Mendota State Hospital, reflecting its responsibility for providing treatment.

In more recent times, with the discovery of psychiatric medications and with new approaches (some of which resulted from research at Mendota itself) it became possible for the mentally ill to be treated in community hospitals and clinics. But there remained a need for a place for those who required more specialized treatment than most community hospitals and clinics could provide, and where the tradition of research, education, and consultation that Mendota had already established could continue. Mendota was then changed to its present name of Mendota Mental Health Institute. Click here for more...

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