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

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|Title= Bryce Hospital
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|Title= Manhattan Psychiatric Center
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|Body= The planning for a state hospital for the mentally ill in Alabama began in 1852. The new facility was planned from the start to utilize the "moral architecture" concepts of 1850's activists Thomas Kirkbride and Dorothea Dix. Architect Samuel Sloan designed the imposing Italianate building after Kirkbride's model plan. The construction was an important source of employment in Reconstruction-era Tuscaloosa. The facility was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.
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|Body= In 1871 when the new branch of the New York City Insane Asylum opened Ward's Island already was home to the Verplank State Emigrant Hospital, on the north eastern side, as well was the New York City Inebriate Asylum on the Southwestern part of the island, just below the new Insane Asylum. The new hospital building was built constructed of brick and Ohio free-state in the English Gothic Style with a Mansard roof. It was built in the Kirkbride style, with a three story central building with wings staggered back en echelon on either side. The cost of this structure was $700,000, and its overall frontage was 475 feet, with accommodation for 500 patients.
  
Dix's reformist ideas, in particular, are credited as the driving force behind the construction of the "Alabama Insane Hospital," which was later renamed for its first superintendent, Peter Bryce, a 27-year-old psychiatric pioneer from South Carolina. His tenure was marked by absolute discipline among the staff of the hospital. He demanded that patients be given courtesy, kindness and respect at all times. The use of shackles, straitjackets and other restraints was discouraged, and finally abandoned altogether in 1882. Various work programs and other activities were encouraged, including farming, sewing, maintenance and crafts. Between 1872 and the early 1880s, some of the patients wrote and edited their own newspaper, called The Meteor. These writings provide a rare inside look at life in a progressive mental institution in the late 19th century. At that time, Bryce's management and commitment to "scientific treatments" was recognized around the country as in a class of its own.   [[Bryce Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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Upon opening the Ward's Island Asylum became the Male Department of the New York City Insane Asylum system, and it operated independently from the original Asylum, now the Female Department, on Blackwell's Island. Immediately all male patients were shipped up river to this new building. Regrettably this new hospital was no real improvement and suffered from many defects. The eating and lighting proved to be inadequate, the furniture was crude and many patients did not even have eating utensils to use at meal time. The nurse to patient ratio was one to 30 while the physicians proved inexperienced, only serving at the Asylum until they had enough experience to move on. Attendants proved similarly inadequate, as did treatment of patients, with many being locked in their rooms. The patients often were mingled with no regard to disease annd with no treatment. On top of this it was almost immediately the hospital found itself again overcrowded and looking for more space. [[Manhattan Psychiatric Center|Click here for more...]]
 
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Revision as of 04:35, 14 August 2022

Featured Article Of The Week

Manhattan Psychiatric Center


manhattan5.png

In 1871 when the new branch of the New York City Insane Asylum opened Ward's Island already was home to the Verplank State Emigrant Hospital, on the north eastern side, as well was the New York City Inebriate Asylum on the Southwestern part of the island, just below the new Insane Asylum. The new hospital building was built constructed of brick and Ohio free-state in the English Gothic Style with a Mansard roof. It was built in the Kirkbride style, with a three story central building with wings staggered back en echelon on either side. The cost of this structure was $700,000, and its overall frontage was 475 feet, with accommodation for 500 patients.

Upon opening the Ward's Island Asylum became the Male Department of the New York City Insane Asylum system, and it operated independently from the original Asylum, now the Female Department, on Blackwell's Island. Immediately all male patients were shipped up river to this new building. Regrettably this new hospital was no real improvement and suffered from many defects. The eating and lighting proved to be inadequate, the furniture was crude and many patients did not even have eating utensils to use at meal time. The nurse to patient ratio was one to 30 while the physicians proved inexperienced, only serving at the Asylum until they had enough experience to move on. Attendants proved similarly inadequate, as did treatment of patients, with many being locked in their rooms. The patients often were mingled with no regard to disease annd with no treatment. On top of this it was almost immediately the hospital found itself again overcrowded and looking for more space. Click here for more...