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

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|Title= Nevada State Asylum
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|Title= Norwich State Hospital
|Image= Nevada_State_Hospital.jpg
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|Body= The Nevada Insane Asylum opened its doors to 1481 Nevada citizens on July 1, 1882. The "poor unfortunates" arrived by train at 4:30 AM2 from Stockton, California. Prior to their arrival at Reno, they were housed and cared for by Doctors Langdon and Clark at their Woodbridge asylum near Stockton. The patients were welcomed back to Nevada to a brand new facility, the pride of the State.
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|Body= Experts in the psychological field would never have predicted we would medicate people rather than have them in controlled environments. The Norwich State Hospital opened its doors in 1904 to the insane with ninety-five patients in one building on over 100 acres.
  
From the beginning, due to its great distance from Reno (three miles out of town and no Sparks until 1905) and in keeping with the times, the "Asylum" was a working farm and remained so through the 1960s. They grew alfalfa, fruit trees and vegetables, raised cattle, pigs, and chickens, and had a dairy. Irrigation was provided via ditches from the Truckee River and domestic water was pumped to a water tower on the grounds (see the wooden water tank on above roof in the photo above). You can still find remnants of the irrigation ditches if you walk the grounds. Later on, the river powered a generator for electricity for the site. Most of the product from the farm operation was used to feed the patients and staff, with occasional surplus being sold. Since the facility was principally self-sufficient, there were numerous support buildings as well, including barns, maintenance shops, a boiler plant, laundry, a morgue, and, of course, a cemetery.
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One of the hospital’s first superintendents believed that mechanical restraint of patients was preferable to medication and believed in hydrotherapy as a treatment measure. The Board of the hospital quickly realized the population was exceeding what was safe. In 1905, two patient buildings were built with a third opening in 1907.
  
Who were the people at the Asylum in the early days? First of all, there were the patients (called inmates at the time) who came from all walks of life. The majority of the male population were farmers, laborers, and miners (makes sense) and the females were mostly housewives. Patients who were able, were given the opportunity to participate in the chores that kept the place running.  [[Nevada State Asylum|Click here for more...]]
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Thirteen buildings were erected for patients during the next eight years and in 1913 with a population of 998, an administration building, three cottages for physicians, a carpenter and maintenance shop, a main kitchen, garage, laboratory, staff house, and an employees’ club house had been erected and the inebriate farm and the Colony had been established.
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Seven new buildings were built between 1920 and 1930 and another building was purchased for patients’ use. In 1929, the hospital peaked with 1,115 patients while in 1930 the average daily census reached 2,422. At this point, in addition to new patient facilities, two more cottages were erected for physicians, a female employees’ home, a paint shop, a greenhouse, a superintendent’s residence, and two garages were built.  [[Norwich State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
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Revision as of 03:05, 8 August 2016

Featured Article Of The Week

Norwich State Hospital


Nsh.jpg

Experts in the psychological field would never have predicted we would medicate people rather than have them in controlled environments. The Norwich State Hospital opened its doors in 1904 to the insane with ninety-five patients in one building on over 100 acres.

One of the hospital’s first superintendents believed that mechanical restraint of patients was preferable to medication and believed in hydrotherapy as a treatment measure. The Board of the hospital quickly realized the population was exceeding what was safe. In 1905, two patient buildings were built with a third opening in 1907.

Thirteen buildings were erected for patients during the next eight years and in 1913 with a population of 998, an administration building, three cottages for physicians, a carpenter and maintenance shop, a main kitchen, garage, laboratory, staff house, and an employees’ club house had been erected and the inebriate farm and the Colony had been established.

Seven new buildings were built between 1920 and 1930 and another building was purchased for patients’ use. In 1929, the hospital peaked with 1,115 patients while in 1930 the average daily census reached 2,422. At this point, in addition to new patient facilities, two more cottages were erected for physicians, a female employees’ home, a paint shop, a greenhouse, a superintendent’s residence, and two garages were built. Click here for more...