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

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|Title= Philadelphia State Hospital
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|Title= Ray Brook State Hospital
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|Image= Raybrook.jpg
 
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|Body= In 1903, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania enacted the "Bullitt Bill", which required each county to build an maintain a facility exclusively for the care of the insane of the area. Private facilities, such as those at Friends Hospital and the Institute of the Pennsylvania Hospital had existed for some time. Regional state facilities, like Norristown State Hospital, were active and standing, but were found to be overcrowded and unable to accommodate the growing need. In response to this, the City of Philadelphia purchased farmland in the northeast section of the county, in a rural district then known as Byberry. There, as a measure of expanding the public welfare, they established a city-funded, inmate run farm, known simply as "Byberry Farms". This facility was intended to supply food for other public institutions in the city, such as Eastern State Penitentiary and the Philadelphia Almshouse (then known as Old Blockley Almshouse). Shortly after the purchase of the land, six inmates from the overcrowded Blockley Almshouse in the city were chosen to work at the agricultural facility. This program was done in cooperation with the physicians at Blockley Almshouse, then headed by Dr. Jeffrey A. Jackson MD, and would thereafter become known as the "colony plan". The site of Byberry was originally intended for patients suffering from Consumption (Pulmonary Tuberculosis), who would be sent from Old Blockley, and thus free additional space for patients suffering from chronic and undifferentiated insanity. As it happens, this medical dogma coincides with the early 20th century perception that Consumption could be treated with "fresh air" and exercise.  [[Philadelphia State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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|Body= The New York State Hospital for Incipient Pulmonary Tuberculosis (as it was originally named), was commonly known simply as "Ray Brook." Opened in 1904, Ray Brook was the first New York State-operated tuberculosis sanatorium, and the second in the United States, after Massachusetts. After a protracted study of alternative sites, New York State chose to establish its hospital in the highly-regarded fresh air of the Adirondack Mountains, near the critical mass of tuberculosis experts in Saranac Lake.
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Although medical developments made sanatoria obsolete starting in the mid-1950s, the State Hospital at Ray Brook continued to operate until the mid-1960s. The property was then transferred from the Department of Health to the new Drug Addiction Control Commission, combining enforcement and treatment; in 1971 the new facility opened as the Ray Brook Rehabilitation Center, housing 70 to 130 women addicts. However, it was judged a failure, and closed within five years. It was succeeded by a camp program for adult inmates, "Camp Adirondack". Working with the Department of Environmental Conservation, "campmen", as inmates were known, were employed in logging, sawmill, wildlife preservation, construction of campsites and snowmobile and cross-country ski trails, and construction of a toboggan run at the Mount Pisgah ski area. The camp also constructed the Ice Palace each winter for the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival.  [[Ray Brook State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
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Revision as of 02:21, 2 October 2022

Featured Article Of The Week

Ray Brook State Hospital


Raybrook.jpg

The New York State Hospital for Incipient Pulmonary Tuberculosis (as it was originally named), was commonly known simply as "Ray Brook." Opened in 1904, Ray Brook was the first New York State-operated tuberculosis sanatorium, and the second in the United States, after Massachusetts. After a protracted study of alternative sites, New York State chose to establish its hospital in the highly-regarded fresh air of the Adirondack Mountains, near the critical mass of tuberculosis experts in Saranac Lake.

Although medical developments made sanatoria obsolete starting in the mid-1950s, the State Hospital at Ray Brook continued to operate until the mid-1960s. The property was then transferred from the Department of Health to the new Drug Addiction Control Commission, combining enforcement and treatment; in 1971 the new facility opened as the Ray Brook Rehabilitation Center, housing 70 to 130 women addicts. However, it was judged a failure, and closed within five years. It was succeeded by a camp program for adult inmates, "Camp Adirondack". Working with the Department of Environmental Conservation, "campmen", as inmates were known, were employed in logging, sawmill, wildlife preservation, construction of campsites and snowmobile and cross-country ski trails, and construction of a toboggan run at the Mount Pisgah ski area. The camp also constructed the Ice Palace each winter for the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival. Click here for more...

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