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

From Asylum Projects
Jump to: navigation, search
(386 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
 
{{FAformat
 
{{FAformat
−
|Title= St Elizabeths Hospital
+
|Title= Larned State Hospital
−
|Image= St_Elizabeth_SH_Kirkbride.jpg
+
|Image= Oldcampus.gif
 
|Width= 150px
 
|Width= 150px
−
|Body= In November of 1852 a tract of land overlooking the Anacostia River was purchased for $25,000 from Thomas Blagden. Construction began almost immediately on the center building, a red brick fortress designed in Gothic revival style by Thomas U. Walter, who also designed the dome of the Capital Building. The hospital was built following the Kirkbride Plan, most of the construction of the center building was done by slaves. It opened in 1855 as the Government Hospital for the Insane. The Hospital's early mission, as defined by its founder, the leading mental health reformer Dorothea Dix, was to provide the "most humane care and enlightened curative treatment of the insane of the Army, Navy, and District of Columbia." During the Civil War, wounded soldiers treated here were reluctant to admit that they were in an insane asylum, and said they were at St. Elizabeth's, the colonial name of the land where the Hospital is located. Congress officially changed the Hospital's name to St. Elizabeth's in 1916. By the 1940s, the Hospital complex covering an area of over 300 acres. At its peak, 4,000 people worked and 7,000 patients lived there. It was the first and only federal mental facility with a national scope. The first appropriation towards building the Government Hospital for the Insane was of $100,000, and was made by Congress in 1852 for the purchase of land. The organic act creating the institution and outlining the duties of its officers and providing for the admission of various classes of insane patients was not approved until March 3, 1855. The hospital, however, had been opened for the reception of patients on January 15,1855.
+
|Body= Larned State Hospital was first opened on April 17th, 1914. The hospital was opened to ease overcrowding in two other established state hospitals in Kansas which were located in the eastern part of the state, Osawatomie State Hospital and Topeka State Hospital. The new ‘insane asylum’ at Larned was a preferred location because of the plentiful water supply. ‘Useful employment’ (farming) was the method of treatment to be used at LSH. In fact, early criteria critical to the selection of the first patients to populate the new hospital were being male, possessing the ability to work on the farm and being diagnosed as never becoming well enough to be discharged. No female patients were admitted until 1916. In an effort to ease the overcrowding, an annex was opened at the Army Air Force base in Great Bend which housed approximately 300 patients in 1947. The unit was designed to exclusively deal with elderly and custodial patients.The farming operation continued until the 1950’s. Adolescents and children were not admitted until the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.
  
−
The creation of the hospital was due very largely to the activity of Dorothea L. Dix. She drew up with her own pen the outlines of the organic act establishing the institution, and virtually named its first superintendent , Dr. C. H. Nicholas. During the latter part of her life Miss Dix spent much of her time at the hospital, where quarters were always reserved for her, and the little desk upon which she drew up the original act creating the hospital stands in the board room in the main building.  [[St Elizabeths Hospital|Click here for more...]]
+
The Adult Treatment Center building opened in 1990 to house the general psychiatric population on what is now called the Psychiatric Services Program, serving individuals admitted from the LSH catchment area as a voluntary or civilly committed patients.  [[Larned State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
}}
 
}}

Revision as of 04:19, 12 May 2024

Featured Article Of The Week

Larned State Hospital


Oldcampus.gif

Larned State Hospital was first opened on April 17th, 1914. The hospital was opened to ease overcrowding in two other established state hospitals in Kansas which were located in the eastern part of the state, Osawatomie State Hospital and Topeka State Hospital. The new ‘insane asylum’ at Larned was a preferred location because of the plentiful water supply. ‘Useful employment’ (farming) was the method of treatment to be used at LSH. In fact, early criteria critical to the selection of the first patients to populate the new hospital were being male, possessing the ability to work on the farm and being diagnosed as never becoming well enough to be discharged. No female patients were admitted until 1916. In an effort to ease the overcrowding, an annex was opened at the Army Air Force base in Great Bend which housed approximately 300 patients in 1947. The unit was designed to exclusively deal with elderly and custodial patients.The farming operation continued until the 1950’s. Adolescents and children were not admitted until the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

The Adult Treatment Center building opened in 1990 to house the general psychiatric population on what is now called the Psychiatric Services Program, serving individuals admitted from the LSH catchment area as a voluntary or civilly committed patients. Click here for more...

Retrieved from "http://asylumprojects.org/index.php?title=Portal:Featured_Article_Of_The_Week&oldid=44070"