Page:American journal of insanity volume 1.djvu/15

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1844.]
New York State Lunatic Asylum.
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tion. The Medical Repository for 1807, published in New York, says it was built "expressly for the reception and accommodation of maniacs, and in its construction the best information was sought, and the most instructive precedents followed." "This noble edifice," it added, " is ninety feet long, and contains about sixty separate cells; they are made strong, and the confinement rigorous in proportion to the violence of mental derangement. Their walls are lime-washed without being plastered. This building was erected at an expense of at least $50,000. Its architecture is well suited to the intended purpose, both as to the design and execution, and it may be affirmed with truth, that the Lunatic Asylum of New York does honor to the city in which it stands, and the country to which it belongs. It is believed that the proper discipline can be established among the maniacs, without the use of the whip."

But this establishment, so much lauded, was soon found inadequate to meet the wants of this class of patients, and legislative aid was again sought, and an act was passed in 1816, granting to the Hospital in New York ten thousand dollars annually, until the year 1857, to enable the Governors to purchase land near the city, and to erect suitable buildings for the accommodation of the insane. This $10,000 was in addition to $12,500 which had formerly been given to the Hospital for the same period, and both of which are still paid by the State.

A site was selected about seven miles from the city of New York, where an Asylum now known as the Bloomingdale Lunatic Asylum, was completed in 1821, and to it were removed all the insane from the old Hospital in the city. From that period until the present time, twenty-three years, there have been admitted into it 2,769 patients, of whom 1,304 have recovered.

On a careful examination of the records of the Legislature of the State, it will be found that $550,000 have been appropriated to enable the Governors of the New York Hospital to accommodate insane patients.

When to this is added the munificent appropriations made for the erection and furnishing of the State Asylum, at Utica, it will be