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

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|Title= Boston State Hospital
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|Title= Kalamazoo State Hospital
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|Body= The Boston State Hospital opened in 1839 in South Boston, then known as Boston Lunatic Asylum. In 1884 84 patients were transferred to Austin Farm in Roxbury, which was organized under the name "Retreat for the Insane". In 1893 it was made part of the hospital & in 1895 new buildings were constructed on Pierce farm. By 1897 the name had been changed to Boston Insane Hospital.
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|Body= The choice of Kalamazoo as the location for the Michigan Asylum at Kalamazoo was helped by the fact that the governor was Epaphroditus Ransom, who once resided in Kalamazoo. Although the asylum was originally planned for a site in what is now the Stuart neighborhood, it was decided that this location was too close to downtown. So planners instead chose to place the hospital far out in the country, where they would never be bothered by these people. That location was on what is now Oakland Drive, where the hospital is still located.
  
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In May 1895, Boston's Industrial Aid Society devised a plan whereby the poor would raise vegetables on vacant City land. Families in the Mattapan and Dorchester community began growing their produce on the old planting fields of the Hospital along American Legion Highway in 1968. At that time, the use of abandoned public land or vacant lots for community gardens was quite novel, but in actuality, it was simply repeating history...The growing recession in the 1970s made community gardening at Boston State Hospital not only a social and recreational activity, but an economic one, helping people supplement family food budgets" (Heath, R, "The Great Meadows of Canterbury: Boston State Hospital Urban Wilds," 1993, p11).
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The asylum was on the cutting edge of many forms of treatment. Through its close proximity to town, it was able to establish an innovative outpatient clinic in 1916 as well as a unique "family-care" program that placed patients in certified homes. The hospital also made use of colony farms, adjunct properties on which patients with milder illnesses — and those who today might be considered developmentally delayed — lived in familial farm settings. (One of these was near Kalamazoo's Asylum Lake.) They often raised livestock and produce for use at the hospital. The farms are examples of the limited treatment options for the mentally ill that were available before the 1950s. Electroshock therapy, insulin-induced comas and some barbiturate drugs resulted in limited reversals in thoughts and behavior of patients, he said. [[Kalamazoo State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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In 1996, with the unanimous approval of the Community Advisory Committee for the Boston State Hospital planning process, the Massachusetts Audubon Society bought the Boston State Hospital land from the City at a price of $10 per acre. Mass Audubon then established a community adversary board of 30 people, more than half of whom came from surrounding communities (The Boston Nature Center and Wildlife Sanctuary, 1996). [[Boston State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
 
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Latest revision as of 04:27, 22 September 2024

Featured Article Of The Week

Kalamazoo State Hospital


10-18-2007-09a.jpg

The choice of Kalamazoo as the location for the Michigan Asylum at Kalamazoo was helped by the fact that the governor was Epaphroditus Ransom, who once resided in Kalamazoo. Although the asylum was originally planned for a site in what is now the Stuart neighborhood, it was decided that this location was too close to downtown. So planners instead chose to place the hospital far out in the country, where they would never be bothered by these people. That location was on what is now Oakland Drive, where the hospital is still located.

The asylum was on the cutting edge of many forms of treatment. Through its close proximity to town, it was able to establish an innovative outpatient clinic in 1916 as well as a unique "family-care" program that placed patients in certified homes. The hospital also made use of colony farms, adjunct properties on which patients with milder illnesses — and those who today might be considered developmentally delayed — lived in familial farm settings. (One of these was near Kalamazoo's Asylum Lake.) They often raised livestock and produce for use at the hospital. The farms are examples of the limited treatment options for the mentally ill that were available before the 1950s. Electroshock therapy, insulin-induced comas and some barbiturate drugs resulted in limited reversals in thoughts and behavior of patients, he said. Click here for more...

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