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Danvers State Hospital

Danvers State Hospital, which was opened in 1878 in Danvers, Massachusetts, has acquired many names over the years. Many know it as State Lunatic Hospital, Danvers Insane Asylum, and Hell House on the Hill. It was a psychiatric hospital whose design was created by physician Thomas Story in an attempt to provide the best views to all patients and allow plenty of air to circulate through the buildings in an attempt to improve the health of the patients. As the years went on many additions were made to the original structure which allowed staff to live on the grounds, tuberculosis patients to stay and air out, there were nursing homes, and overall the hospital became completely self sufficient.

Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride'''

Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride was a physician who believed in the moral treatment of patients in mental institutes. He believed that it did not matter where a patient came from or what they had been through, the only thing that mattered is that they all be treated with the same dignity and respect as everybody else. He believed that treating patients this way would benefit them and help cure them or at the very least help alleviate their symptoms. He was responsible for designing not only Danvers State Hospital, but also many other hospitals and was very involved in meeting with other physicians, which eventually led to the creation of the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane, which today is known as the American Psychiatric Association.

Treatment of Patients

Although the hospital was opened with the purpose of housing and caring for many patients suffering from mental illnesses, over time the hospital became over populated and it slowly turned into a dirty, cruel, inhumane place to live. At first patients were treated with respect and dignity but then in 1939 there was a large demand for housing for the “insane” and unfortunately Danvers State Hospital became a spill over for many patients. Danvers Hospital was only meant to house 500 patients but when patients had nowhere else to go Danvers patients rose to 2,600. The overcrowding forced many patients to sleep on the floors, and the conditions of the asylum became very unsanitary and dangerous for not only the patients but also for the employees as well. Many patients were not properly cared for and lived in their filth and became victims of other patient’s attacks. In the 1940’s a neurologist by the name of Walter Freeman was brought to Danvers State Hospital in an attempt to help solve the problems they were having with violence and overcrowding. While he was there Walter Freeman perfected what is now called a lobotomy. He would take a long metal pick, stick it into the corner of his patient’s eyes and move it around until he was sure that the tissue connecting the pre-frontal lobe to the cerebral cortex had been severed. He performed this procedure over and over again and as a result the violence in Danvers State Hospital dropped drastically which is why many say that Danvers State Hospital was the birthplace of the lobotomy.

History

Constructed at a cost of $1.5 million, with the estimated yearly per capita cost of patients being $3,000 the hospital originally consisted of two main center buildings, housing the administration, with four radiating wings. The administration building measured 90 by 60 feet (18 m), with a 130 feet (40 m) high tower. The kitchens, laundries, chapel, and dormitories for the attendants were in a connecting 180 by 60 feet (18 m) building in the rear. In the rear was the boiler house of 70 feet (21 m) square, with boilers 450 horsepower (340 kW), used for heating and ventilation. Middleton Pond supplied the hospital its water. On each side of the main building were the wings, for male and female patients respectively, connected by small square towers, with the exception of the last ones on each side, which are joined by octagonal towers. The former measured 10 feet (3.0 m) square, and were used to separate the buildings. The outermost wards were reserved for extreme patients. West side was male, east was female. ,

Over the years, newer buildings were constructed around the original Kirkbride, as well as alterations to the Kirkbride itself, such as a new gymnasium/auditorium on the area of the old kitchens and multiple solaria added onto the front of the wards.

Most of the buildings on campus were connected by a confusing labyrinth of underground tunnels, also constructed over the years. Many of the Commonwealth institutions for the developmentally delayed and the mentally ill at the time were designed with tunnel systems, to be self-sufficient in wintertime. There was a tunnel that ran from a steam/power generating plant (which still exists to provide service to the Hogan Regional Center) located at the bottom of the hill running up to the hospital, along with tunnels that connected the male and female nurses homes, the "Gray Gables", Bonner Medical Building, machine shops, pump house, and a few others. The system of tunnels branched off like spokes from a central hub behind the Kirbride building (in the vicinity of the old gymnasium) leading to different wards of the hospital and emerging up into the basements. This hub was also an underground maintenance area of sorts. Some nicknamed it "The Wagon Wheel" due to its design. These older brick and cobblestone tunnels were used in the production of the movie Session 9. The original plan was designed to house 500 patients, with 100 more possible to accommodate in the attic. However, by the late 1930s and 1940s, over 2,000 patients were being housed, and overcrowding was severe. People were even held in the basements of the Kirkbride.

While the asylum was originally established to provide residential treatment and care to the mentally ill, its functions expanded to include a training program for nurses in 1889 and a pathological research laboratory in 1895. In the 1890s, Dr. Charles Page, the superintendent, declared mechanical restraint unnecessary and harmful in cases of mental illness. By the 1920s the hospital was operating school clinics to help determine mental deficiency in children. Reports were made that various, and inhumane shock therapies, lobotomies, drugs, and straitjackets were being used to keep the crowded hospital under control. This sparked controversy. During the 1960s as a result of increased emphasis on alternative methods of treatment, deinstitutionalization, and community-based mental health care, the inpatient population started to decrease.

Massive budget cuts in the 1960s played a major role in the progressive closing of Danvers State hospital. The hospital began closing wards and facilities as early as 1969. By 1985, the majority of the original hospital wards were closed or abandoned. The Kirkbride administration building closed in 1989. Patients were moved to the Bonner Medical Building across the campus. (http://historyofmassachusetts.org/history-of-danvers-state-hospital/) The entire Danvers State Hospital campus was closed on June 24, 1992. After abandonment, the wards and buildings were left to decay and rot for many years until some demolition. As of December 2013, the buildings have been renovated and are now apartments.[2] [3] [4]