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

From Asylum Projects
Jump to: navigation, search
Line 1: Line 1:
 
{{FAformat
 
{{FAformat
−
|Title= Springfield State Hospital
+
|Title= Willowbrook State School
−
|Image= Springfield_SH_04.jpg
+
|Image= 1980_20b.jpg
 
|Width= 150px
 
|Width= 150px
−
|Body= In 1894, the Legislature of the State of Maryland addressed the issue of overcrowding of the one state operated psychiatric hospital by creating a search committee charged with finding a site for the erection of the “Second Hospital for the Insane of Maryland”. This legislation was proposed by John Hubner of Baltimore County.
+
|Body= In 1938, plans were formulated to build a facility for mentally retarded children on a 375 acres (1.5 km²) site in the Willowbrook section of the Staten Island. Construction was completed in 1942, but instead of opening for its original purpose, it was converted into a United States Army hospital and named Halloran General Hospital, after the late Colonel Paul Stacey Halloran. After the war, proposals were introduced to turn the site over to the Veterans Administration, but in October, 1947 the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene opened its facility there as originally planned, and the institution was named Willowbrook State School.
  
−
After reviewing a number of potential sites, the committee selected Springfield, the estate of the Patterson-Brown? family. At the time of this selection, Springfield was owned by Governor Frank Brown, a descendant of the William Patterson family, a wealthy colonial era farmer and merchant. William Patterson’s daughter, Elizabeth, or “Betsy”, gained international fame and notoriety when she married Jerome Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. This courtship, and the ill-fated marriage that followed has been the subject of numerous books and at least one movie. Information about the Patterson and Brown families can be found in the Springfield Hospital Center Museum and the Maryland Historical Society.
+
Throughout the first decade of its operation, outbreaks of hepatitis were common at the school. This led to a highly controversial medical study being conducted there between 1963 and 1966, in which healthy children were intentionally injected with the virus that causes the disease. These studies were designed to gain an understanding of the natural history of infectious hepatitis and subsequently to test the effects of gamma globulin in preventing or combating the disease.
  
−
The first patients were received at the hospital in July 1896. Existing farm houses were renovated to accommodate those first patients while the hospital buildings were being constructed. The first phase of the building program was the Men’s Group, located in the northern section of the hospital grounds. A Women’s Group, located at the southern end of the campus was completed in 1900. As the hospital population rapidly expanded, additional buildings were erected, including the John Hubner Psychopathic Building, the Epileptic Colony, and significant expansions to the Men’s and Women’s Groups.  [[Springfield State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
+
The subjects, all children, were deliberately infected with the hepatitis virus; early subjects were fed extracts of stools from infected individuals and later subjects received injections of more purified virus preparations. Investigators defended the deliberate injection of these children by pointing out that the vast majority of them acquired the infection anyway while at Willowbrook, and perhaps it would be better for them to be infected under carefully controlled research conditions.  [[SWillowbrook State School|Click here for more...]]
 
}}
 
}}

Revision as of 02:50, 14 March 2016

Featured Article Of The Week

Willowbrook State School


1980 20b.jpg

In 1938, plans were formulated to build a facility for mentally retarded children on a 375 acres (1.5 km²) site in the Willowbrook section of the Staten Island. Construction was completed in 1942, but instead of opening for its original purpose, it was converted into a United States Army hospital and named Halloran General Hospital, after the late Colonel Paul Stacey Halloran. After the war, proposals were introduced to turn the site over to the Veterans Administration, but in October, 1947 the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene opened its facility there as originally planned, and the institution was named Willowbrook State School.

Throughout the first decade of its operation, outbreaks of hepatitis were common at the school. This led to a highly controversial medical study being conducted there between 1963 and 1966, in which healthy children were intentionally injected with the virus that causes the disease. These studies were designed to gain an understanding of the natural history of infectious hepatitis and subsequently to test the effects of gamma globulin in preventing or combating the disease.

The subjects, all children, were deliberately infected with the hepatitis virus; early subjects were fed extracts of stools from infected individuals and later subjects received injections of more purified virus preparations. Investigators defended the deliberate injection of these children by pointing out that the vast majority of them acquired the infection anyway while at Willowbrook, and perhaps it would be better for them to be infected under carefully controlled research conditions. Click here for more...

Retrieved from "http://asylumprojects.org/index.php?title=Portal:Featured_Article_Of_The_Week&oldid=31643"