Bellevue Place Sanitarium, located in Batavia, Illinois, has a fascinating history. Originally built in 1853 as the Batavia Institute, a private academy, the building was designed in the Greek Revival style using locally quarried limestone. In 1867, Dr. Richard J. Patterson purchased the property and converted it into Bellevue Place, a private sanitarium for women. Its most notable resident was Mary Todd Lincoln, the widow of President Abraham Lincoln, who stayed there briefly in 1875 after being declared insane by a Chicago court.
The sanitarium operated until 1965, after which the building served various purposes, including as a residential facility for unwed mothers and later as apartments. Today, the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places
Insane asylums have a long, unsavory history — but they weren’t originally intended as sites of horror.
The
origins of mental asylums — an antiquated and loaded term that is now
retired from the field of mental health medicine — came from a wave of
reforms that professionals tried to enact in the 19th century.
These
facilities catered to mentally ill people with treatments that were
supposed to be more humane than what was previously available. But
mental health stigmatization coupled with an increase in diagnoses led
to severely overcrowded hospitals and increasingly cruel behavior toward
patients.
These “insane asylums” subsequently turned into
prisons where society’s “undesirable citizens” — the “incurables,”
criminals, and those with disabilities — were put together as a way to
isolate them from the public.
Patients endured horrifying
“treatments” like ice baths, electric shock therapy, purging,
bloodletting, straitjackets, forced drugging, and even lobotomies — all
of which were considered legitimate medical practices at the time. It
wasn’t until the terrifying conditions at these mental health facilities
were revealed through undercover investigations and patient witnesses
that they were brought to light.
Given the severe
overcrowding, patients were no longer given private rooms of their own
and shared a single bedroom with five to six other patients. There were
not enough beds and there was no heating system. Patients deemed unruly
were locked in cages in the open halls, a cruel means to regain order by
the staff while freeing up space in the bedrooms for less troublesome
patients.
Patients at the hospital were locked up, neglected, and lobotomized.
The
staff was vastly outnumbered and overworked, which led to chaos in the
halls as patients roamed free with little supervision. The facilities
were overrun with squalor, the wallpaper was torn, and the furniture was
grimy and dusty. Much like the facilities, the patients were no longer
cared for frequently and sometimes even went without treatment or food.
In
addition to the facility’s declined sanitation and patient care, a new
horror reared its head: an experimental lobotomy laboratory run by
Walter Freeman, the infamous surgeon who was a top proponent of the
controversial practice.
His “ice pick” method involved slipping a
thin pointed rod into the patient’s eye socket and using a hammer to
force it to sever the connective tissue in the brain’s prefrontal
cortex.
The abandoned hospital now hosts ghost tours, which have drawn ghost hunters and fans of the supernatural.
It’s
unclear exactly how many victims suffered at Freeman’s hands, but it’s
estimated that he carried out a total of 4,000 lobotomies in his
lifetime. His lobotomies left many patients with lasting physical and
cognitive damage — and some even died on the operating table.The abuse and neglect of patients inside the Asylum remained largely unknown to the public.
The sanitarium system Guests, staff, and buildings Along
with high numbers of patrons, there was a large number of staff at the
Sanitarium". They comprised of physicians, nurses, helpers etc." There
were physicians on staff. The sanitarium became a destination for both
prominent and middle-class American citizens.
Therapeutic system A
composite physiologic method comprising hydrotherapy, phototherapy,
thermotherapy, electrotherapy, mechanotherapy, dietetics, physical
culture, cold-air cure, and health training. To assist with diagnostics
and evaluation of therapeutic efficacy, various measures of
physiological integrity were utilised to obtain numerous vital
coefficients, "especially in relation to the integrity and efficiency of
the blood, the heart, the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, stomach,
intestines, brain, nerves and muscles.
Physical training Physical
exercise was an important part of the Battle Creek system, facilitating
not just the improvement of muscle tone, but also of posture,
respiration, and of circulation and the facilitation of anabolic and
catabolic functions enabled by circulatory processes. Exercise included
such components as postural, calisthetics, gymnastics, swimming, and
passive methods such as mechanotherapy, vibrotherapy, mechanical
massage.
Food required careful prescriptive
preparation, with care also taken to ensure appetiveness and
palatability were recognized. The diet lists included "scores of special
dishes and hundreds of special food preparations, each of which has
been carefully studied in relation to its nutritive and therapeutic
properties," with the diet lists used "by the physicians in arranging
the diet prescriptions of individual patients.
List of Sanatoria in the United States
Est. Name Location Notes Ref. 1853 Batavia Institute Batavia, Illinois [1] 1866 Battle Creek Sanitarium Battle Creek, Michigan [2] 1881 Brooklyn Home for Consumptives Brooklyn, New York [3] 1881 Rockhaven Sanitarium Crescenta Valley, California [4] 1884 Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids Manhattan, New York [5] 1885 Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium Saranac Lake, New York [6] 1887 Sierra Madre Villa Pasadena, California [7] before 1894 Camp Harding Colorado Springs [8] 1896 River Crest Sanitarium Astoria, New York [9] 1899 National Jewish Health Denver, Colorado [10] 1900 Bromley Sanitarium Sonora, California [11] 1902 Barlow Respiratory Hospital Los Angeles, California 1903 Pottenger Sanatorium Monrovia, California [12] 1904 Temple Sanitarium Temple, Texas 1904 Las Encinas Sanitarium Pasadena, California [13] 1904 Paradise Valley Hospital California National City, California 1905 Swedish Medical Center Englewood, Colorado 1905 Portland Open-Air Sanatorium Milwaukie Heights, Oregon [14] 1905 Oregon State Tuberculosis Hospital Salem, Oregon [15] 1907 Boston Consumptives Hospital Boston, Massachusetts 1907 Missouri State Sanatorium Mount Vernon, Missouri [16] 1907 Maryland Tuberculosis Sanitorium Sabillasville, Maryland 1907 Edward Sanitorium Naperville, Illinois 1907 Minnesota State Sanatorium for Consumptives Walker, Minnesota 1907 Wisconsin State Tuberculosis Sanatorium Wales, Wisconsin [17] 1907 Vermont Sanatorium Pittsford, Vermont [18] 1909 Arkansas Tuberculosis Sanatorium Booneville, Arkansas [10] 1909 Catawba Sanatorium Roanoke, Virginia [19] 1909 La Vina Sanitarium Altadena, California [20] 1909 San Haven Sanatorium Dunseith, North Dakota [21] 1910 Undercliff State Hospital Meriden, Connecticut 1910 Waverly Hills Sanatorium Jefferson County, Kentucky [22] 1910 Pine Camp Tuberculosis Hospital Richmond, Virginia [23] 1911 Firland Sanatorium Seattle, Washington [24] 1911 Lima Tuberculosis Hospital Lima, Ohio 1912 Blackburn Sanitarium Klamath Falls, Oregon [25] 1912 Pine Bluff State Hospital Salisbury, Maryland 1913 Sample Sanitarium Fresno, California [26] 1913 State Tuberculosis Sanitarium Galen, Montana [27] 1914 Belgum Sanitarium Richmond, California [28] 1914 Saratoga County Homestead Providence, New York 1915 Chicago Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium Chicago, Illinois 1915 Enid Government Springs Sanatorium Enid, Oklahoma 1915 Muirdale Tuberculosis Sanatorium Milwaukee County, Wisconsin 1916 Glen Lake Sanatorium Hennepin County, Minnesota 1916 Cresson Tuberculosis Sanatorium Cresson, Pennsylvania 1917 Hot Lake Sanitorium Hot Lake, Oregon [29] 1917 Piedmont Sanatorium Burkeville, Virginia [30] 1918 Bancroft's Castle Groton, Massachusetts 1919 Cranberry Specialty Hospital Hanson, Massachusetts 1919 Fairview Sanatorium Normal, Illinois [31] 1919 Washington County Tuberculosis Hospital Barre, Vermont [32] 1920 Olive View Sanitarium Los Angeles, California [33] 1920 Pureair Sanatorium Bayfield County, Wisconsin 1922 Deborah Heart and Lung Center Browns Mills, New Jersey 1922? El Sausal Sanitarium Salinas, California [34] 1922 Henryton State Hospital Marriottsville, Maryland 1923 Halifax County Home and Tubercular Hospital Halifax, North Carolina 1923 Caverly Preventorium Pittsford, Vermont [35] 1926 National Methodist Sanatorium Colorado Springs, Colorado 1927 Hassler Health Farm San Carlos, California 1928 King County Tuberculosis Hospital Seattle, Washington [36] 1930 Lake View Sanatorium Madison, Wisconsin [37] 1933 Sioux San Hospital Rapid City, South Dakota 1934 Arizona State Tuberculosis Sanatorium Tempe, Arizona [38] 1934 Glenn Dale Hospital Glenn Dale, Maryland 1936 Dr. Hudson Sanitarium Newton County, Arkansas [39] 1939 University Tuberculosis Hospital Portland, Oregon [15] 1940 Edgewood State Hospital Deer Park, New York
Key Words
Hospital Medicine is the fasting growing field of Medicine, and
the importance of hospitalists in the delivery of care and success of
hospitals continues to increase. The practice of hospital medicine is
both rewarding and challenging: hospitalists need to provide
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essential information, this text provides a concise yet comprehensive
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their patients and hospitals. Hospital Medicine provides practical, concise evidence-based
information on the diagnosis and treatment across the spectrum of
illness and injury in the hospital setting. This book features a simple,
accessible template for each subject, and quick and easy references to
the relevant literature
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