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

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|Title= Western Maine Sanatorium
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|Title= Westborough State Hospital
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|Body= When the Maine State Sanatorium on Greenwood Mountain in Hebron opened in 1904 to treat people with tuberculosis, it was only the fourth facility in the nation operating as a statewide sanatorium. Officially, it was the Maine Sanatorium Association that created the new institution, but Dr. Estes Nichols provided the expertise in tuberculosis treatment and the energy and vision behind the new venture.
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|Body= The Brigham Farm, later the Peter Farm, was purchased in 1846 for the State Reform School, later the State Hospital (1885). The Westborough State Hospital was established by Chapter 322 of the Acts of 1884 as the Westborough Insane Hospital. In a major departure from other state hospitals, its trustees were not directed to find a new site and make plans for new buildings, but rather to develop a scheme to reuse the structures recently vacated by the State Reform School for Boys. The site, which by then totaled 275 acres, had been developed around the 180-acre former farmstead of Lovett Peters, Esq., and adjacent acreage owned by the Rice family.
  
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Nichols claimed to have visited all the sanatoriums in the United States and Canada and planned to build one on a mountain in rural Maine that would surpass any he had seen. He and the Association hired Portland architects John Calvin Stevens and John Howard Stevens, planned the farm that would feed patients and spread the word about what constituted effective treatment for the disease that had been known as consumption. The climate on Greenwood Mountain was as important as the design of the buildings and the methods of treatment.
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George Clough of Boston was engaged to remodel the building which had housed 400-500 boys and had been declared unfit for reform school purposes due to its large size and jail-like appearance. To adapt the building for occupancy by 325 "insane" patients, Clough demolished the center of the existing building, which dated from 1876, and replaced it with a gambrel roof section housing a congregate dining room on its first floor with a chapel above. The alterations began on May 18, 1885, and were apparently complete by December 1, 1886, when a reception was held for Governor George D. Robinson. A few days later, the first 204 patients (almost all chronic cases who were able to pay for their treatment) were received from Worcester, and then Danvers, Taunton, and Northampton. In the meantime, Dr. N. Emmons Paine, formerly assistant physician at the State Homeopathic Asylum for the Insane in Middletown, New York, had been appointed Superintendent and had begun to formulate the hospital's unique program of treatment along with the Board of Trustees. Two years later, Dr. Paine was appointed as lecturer in insanity at the Boston University Medical School.  [[Westborough State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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Until 1915 when the state took over control of the sanatorium, Dr. Nichols continued to raise money, oversee care of patients, deal with the Legislature, correspond with potential patients, and handle the day-to-day operations of the ever-growing facility. In 1915, the state passed a law to provide for the care and treatment of tubercular persons in three state-operated state sanatoriums. The state took over the private hospitals in Hebron and Fairfield and built a new facility in Presque Isle. The sanatoriums were given geographical designations -- Western Maine Sanatorium, Central Maine Sanatorium, and Northern Maine Sanatorium. The state capped patient bills at $5 per week.  [[Western Maine Sanatorium|Click here for more...]]
 
 
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Revision as of 04:17, 17 March 2024

Featured Article Of The Week

Westborough State Hospital


hop017.jpg

The Brigham Farm, later the Peter Farm, was purchased in 1846 for the State Reform School, later the State Hospital (1885). The Westborough State Hospital was established by Chapter 322 of the Acts of 1884 as the Westborough Insane Hospital. In a major departure from other state hospitals, its trustees were not directed to find a new site and make plans for new buildings, but rather to develop a scheme to reuse the structures recently vacated by the State Reform School for Boys. The site, which by then totaled 275 acres, had been developed around the 180-acre former farmstead of Lovett Peters, Esq., and adjacent acreage owned by the Rice family.

George Clough of Boston was engaged to remodel the building which had housed 400-500 boys and had been declared unfit for reform school purposes due to its large size and jail-like appearance. To adapt the building for occupancy by 325 "insane" patients, Clough demolished the center of the existing building, which dated from 1876, and replaced it with a gambrel roof section housing a congregate dining room on its first floor with a chapel above. The alterations began on May 18, 1885, and were apparently complete by December 1, 1886, when a reception was held for Governor George D. Robinson. A few days later, the first 204 patients (almost all chronic cases who were able to pay for their treatment) were received from Worcester, and then Danvers, Taunton, and Northampton. In the meantime, Dr. N. Emmons Paine, formerly assistant physician at the State Homeopathic Asylum for the Insane in Middletown, New York, had been appointed Superintendent and had begun to formulate the hospital's unique program of treatment along with the Board of Trustees. Two years later, Dr. Paine was appointed as lecturer in insanity at the Boston University Medical School. Click here for more...

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