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History

New Tool for Treating Mental Illness, ca. 1817

The NY Times recently reported on “A New Tool in Treating Mental Illness: Building Design.”1 Looking at a couple of mental health facilities in California, one recently completed and one still under construction, the article highlights some of the building and design innovations found at these institutions: private rooms with nice views of the outside, […]

Categories
History

Last Days of Patient 33

In the afternoon of September 26, 1818, a family from Gloucester County, New Jersey arrived at Friends’ Asylum in Frankford, outside Philadelphia. They had brought their relative, a 26-year-old woman, fifteen miles from Woodbury to the asylum because she was suffering “in a violent state of insanity.” They hoped the asylum would be able to […]