Editing Gallipolis Epileptic Hospital

| current_status = [[Demolished Institution|Demolished]]

The first appropriation for $40,000 was passed March 4, 1891, with which three stone residence buildings were begun, the cornerstone of the first being laid November 12, 1891, with appropriate ceremonials. In 1892 the General Assembly passed an act changing the name of the institution from " The Asylum for Epileptics and Epileptic Insane " to " The Ohio Hospital for Epileptics." The three cottages begun in 1891 were completed and opened :orthereception of patients November 30, 1893. Dr. H. C. Rutter, an alienist of reputation, was appointed superintendent, and under his skillful management the hospital made rapid progress.

In November, 1894, there were 351 patients, nine stone residence cottages, a kitchen and bakery building and boiler house completed, ind a dining room and two cottages in course of construction, at aggregate cost of $376,341. Since 1894 the institution has had J steady growth. The acreage has been increased to 459 acres, <bont one-third of which is in farm land, and buildings have been tdded until the hospital now consists of 42 buildings, exclusive of small structures. The buildings are divided into five main groups, consisting of the administrative group, the east group, the west group, the insane wards and the farm group. The administrative group consists of the administration building, two congregate dining rooms, two industrial buildings, power, heating and lighting plant, ice plant, kitchen and bakery, and cold storage.

The east group consists of 13 cottages containing 15 wards for 805 male patients and is subdivided into an inner colony accommodating those patients evidencing the advance of dementia and those needing hospital or custodial care, and an outer colony for those patients who have a better mental and social status; who crave more homelike surroundings and greater privacy, and in whom the benefits of such surroundings would favor their contentment and possible recovery. The west group consists of 10 cottages containing 12 wards accommodating 670 female patients, and is also subdivided into inner and outer colonies, corresponding in classification to those of the east group. The north group, removed one-half mile from other residence cottages, accommodates 200 insane; 100 of each sex.

Until August 15, 1911, the hospital had been controlled by a board of five trustees appointed by the Governor for terms o: from one to four years. By an act of the Legislature of 1910-11 this board was abolished, and a Central Board of Administration created having control of all state benevolent institutions.

As of April 1912 there was an enrollment of 1475 patients with a daily average of 1421 present; including officers and administrative assistants, there are 236 employees variously in charge of patients and work. The institution is filled to its capacity and further crowding would create unhygienic conditions. A plan for the erection of additional buildings should be adopted, as it would be an economical measure to provide for those epileptics now confined in insane hospitals of the state, as well as those on the waiting list of the hospital.

As the institution grows in years and numbers, the number annually discharged as recovered becomes fewer, owing to the fact that the hospital has no longer selected cases alone to deal with; that many of those longest on the hospital register have progressed to an epileptic dementia, the final goal to which epilepsy tends; that many cases previously discharged were those in which correct methods of living had resulted in a temporary cessation of attacks, or were questionable cases of idiopathic epilepsy and should have been classified as hysteria, malingering, renal or cardiac affections or functional or organic changes in the nervous system with epileptic seizures.

At the inception of the institution those most closely interested in it, as well as the medical profession in general, and most of all, the unfortunate epileptic people of the state, were optimistic of the benefits which were to follow and with reason. It was hoped that the opportunity for observation and careful, painstaking examination of the epileptic under all circumstances might result in discovering a cause for this obscure disease and suggesting methods for combating it. To this end Dr. C. H. Clark and Dr. Richard O'Connell were appointed to the medical staff to direct the medical work, and Dr. B. M. Bolton, associate professor of bacteriology of Johns Hopkins University, was placed in charge of the laboratory to cooperate with the physicians. Later Dr. Bliele, of the Ohio State University, assumed the directorship of the laboratory and much valuable work was done on the excreta of epileptics. No definite variations in the proportion of urinary constituents symptomatic of epilepsy were found, but from the excreta following seizures a body or bodies were obtained which, when administered to animals in small quantities, produced convulsive seizures.

[[Category:Demolished Institution]]