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

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|Title= Willard State Hospital
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|Title= Norristown State Hospital
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|Body= In 1853, the site was acquired for the state's first agricultural college. The college - on 440 acres of farmland in the town of Ovid, "the geographical centre and Eden of the Empire State" - opened in December 1860, but it didn't last long. Within months, its president and most of the teachers and students marched off to fight in the Civil War, and the college never reopened. It was superseded by the new state university, established in Ithaca on land donated by state Senator Ezra Cornell.
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|Body= Norristown State Hospital, formally the 'State Lunatic Hospital at Norristown', is an active psychiatric hospital run by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and has been operational since its opening in the spring of 1880. At its height in the 1940s, it maintained a clinical population of about five thousand patients and was nationally renowned for its modern psychiatric practices. In more recent years, Norristown State's population has declined significantly to about 150 civilian beds. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania continues to maintain the site, but at a greatly reduced size and clinical capacity. It is currently the only remaining state psychiatric facility in southeastern Pennsylvania, following the closures of Philadelphia State Hospital in 1990, Haverford State Hospital in 1998, and Allentown State Hospital in 2010. It continues to serve the five surrounding Pennsylvania counties of Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery, Delaware, and Chester. [[Norristown State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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Soon afterward, the site was earmarked for the Willard Asylum for the Insane, which would represent a second and major step toward transferring responsibility for the care of the mentally ill to the state. From colonial times, the care of insane persons had been a local function. Each county operated a poorhouse, or almshouse, wherein was indiscriminately lodged a hodgepodge of dependant persons: the mad, the feebleminded, the aged and crippled, drunks, epileptics and beggars. The almshouses provided custody and shelter, but "treatment" was not in their vocabulary.
 
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The first step toward state assumption of responsibility was the opening of the Utica Lunatic Asylum in 1843. Utica was established as a treatment facility. It was reserved for new, acute eases and was required by law to return to county custody any patient who was not discharged as recovered within two years. Still condemned to the almshouse were the incurables, who, contrary to the unreal expectations of early asylum enthusiasts, were the norm among the pauper lunatic class. Dorothea Dix, among others including the underfunded county superintendents of the poor, drew the Legislature's attention to the unspeakable plight of the chronically ill. [[Willard State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
 
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Latest revision as of 10:32, 4 January 2026

Featured Article Of The Week

Norristown State Hospital


Norristown 17.jpg

Norristown State Hospital, formally the 'State Lunatic Hospital at Norristown', is an active psychiatric hospital run by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and has been operational since its opening in the spring of 1880. At its height in the 1940s, it maintained a clinical population of about five thousand patients and was nationally renowned for its modern psychiatric practices. In more recent years, Norristown State's population has declined significantly to about 150 civilian beds. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania continues to maintain the site, but at a greatly reduced size and clinical capacity. It is currently the only remaining state psychiatric facility in southeastern Pennsylvania, following the closures of Philadelphia State Hospital in 1990, Haverford State Hospital in 1998, and Allentown State Hospital in 2010. It continues to serve the five surrounding Pennsylvania counties of Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery, Delaware, and Chester. Click here for more...

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