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

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|Title= Blue Ridge Sanatorium
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|Title= Mendota Mental Health Institute
|Image= Charlottesville view.jpg
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|Image= Mendota03.jpg
 
|Width= 150px
 
|Width= 150px
|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= 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.
  
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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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.
  
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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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...