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

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|Title= Topeka State Hospital
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|Title= Austin State Hospital
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|Image= Austin04382lg.jpg
 
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|Body= Legislature appropriated $25,000 in 1875 "for the purpose of building an asylum for the insane at some convenient and healthy spot within two miles of the state capitol building in the city of Topeka." One condition was that the land would be acquired at no cost to the state. So the city of Topeka and Shawnee County each contributed $6,000 to purchase the original 80 acres.
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|Body= Austin State Hospital was the first state facility of its kind built west of the Mississippi. In 1856, the governor of Texas signed a bill providing for the establishment of the Texas State Lunatic Asylum. Construction started in 1857, and the first patients were admitted in 1861. The facility was renamed the Austin State Hospital (ASH) in 1925.
  
The first two ward buildings, accommodating 135 patients, opened in 1879. Dr. Barnard Douglass Eastman resigned as superintendent of the asylum at Worcester MA to become the first superintendent at TSH. The institution was called the Topeka Insane Asylum until 1901 when the Legislature officially changed the name to Topeka State Hospital. Eastman told legislators that patients who were being released to make room for more patients were "well enough to be in a measure useful. All were of a quiet and harmless character."
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Today, this original building serves as the administration building for a modern, innovative facility providing psychiatric care to a 38-county region in Central Texas. ASH admitted over 4400 patients in the fiscal year 2006, with about the same number of discharges, and has an average daily patient census of 292. The focus of treatment is stabilization of acute psychiatric illness and return to the community.
  
He described the treatment process this way: "Removal from the worriment, the overwork, the unsanitary conditions and the unsuitable food of many homes ... occupying body and mind in the new employment, cheering the drooping and melancholy and soothing the excited and irritable, are some of the elements of treatment of the greatest value, sometimes working rapid cures with but little medication." [[Topeka State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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The old Texas State Lunatic Asylum, which now houses the administrative staff of the Austin State Hospital, is the third oldest standing public building our state. With its completion in 1861 in the lush countryside north of Austin, the hospital stood as a beacon of hope and tolerance for the treatment of the mentally ill.  [[Austin State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
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Revision as of 03:54, 22 March 2020

Featured Article Of The Week

Austin State Hospital


Austin04382lg.jpg

Austin State Hospital was the first state facility of its kind built west of the Mississippi. In 1856, the governor of Texas signed a bill providing for the establishment of the Texas State Lunatic Asylum. Construction started in 1857, and the first patients were admitted in 1861. The facility was renamed the Austin State Hospital (ASH) in 1925.

Today, this original building serves as the administration building for a modern, innovative facility providing psychiatric care to a 38-county region in Central Texas. ASH admitted over 4400 patients in the fiscal year 2006, with about the same number of discharges, and has an average daily patient census of 292. The focus of treatment is stabilization of acute psychiatric illness and return to the community.

The old Texas State Lunatic Asylum, which now houses the administrative staff of the Austin State Hospital, is the third oldest standing public building our state. With its completion in 1861 in the lush countryside north of Austin, the hospital stood as a beacon of hope and tolerance for the treatment of the mentally ill. Click here for more...