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Featured Article Of The Week
Institute of the Pennsylvania Hospital
By 1832 the Board of Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital recognized the necessity of opening a separate asylum with the sole purpose of caring for psychiatric patients. The Pennsylvania Hospital purchased a 101-acre farm in West Philadelphia in 1835 from Matthew Arrison, on which the cornerstone for a new facility was laid on July 26, 1836. The new hospital would be known as The Institute of the Pennsylvania Hospital. It was a psychiatric hospital located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at 49th and Market St., which operated from 1841 till it closed in 1997. Thomas Story Kirkbride, its first superintendent, developed a more humane method of treatment for the mentally ill that became widely influential. Today, the former Institute campus exists as a multi-purpose social-service facility. The new hospital, located on a 101-acre (0.41 km²) tract of the as yet unincorporated district of West Philadelphia, offered comforts and a “humane treatment” philosophy that set a standard for its day. Unlike other asylums where patients were often kept chained in crowded, unsanitary wards with little if any treatment, patients at Pennsylvania Hospital resided in private rooms, received medical treatment, worked outdoors and enjoyed recreational activities including lectures and a use of the hospital library. The hospital featured two "Kirkbride Plan" buildings, which were separated by a creek and pleasure grounds.
The first building was a long thin building located west of the Schuylkill River. This building would eventually become the female department. Though the building does reflect the Kirkbride Plan it was actually constructed before Dr. Kirkbride was given full supervisory duties. Construction began under the control of architect Isaac Holden but later illness forced Issac to return to his home country of England. The building was then finished by a young Samuel Sloan, who worked as a carpenter on the Eastern State Penitentiary. Click here for more...
