A Psychiatric Milestone: Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921
History
A Psychiatric Milestone: Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921
Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane; Mental illness
I have read with much pleasure your pamphlet giving the history of
Bloomingdale Hospital. The reproduction in facsimile of Thomas Eddy's
communication[20] is especially interesting and it will be placed with
the records of the early days of the Retreat.
We have looked through the Minutes, which are complete from the opening
of the Retreat in 1796, and also examined a large number of original
letters of William and Samuel Tuke respecting the Institution, but have
not succeeded in tracing the letter from S. Tuke to William Eddy, to
which you refer. As you are probably aware, S. Tuke was the grandson of
William Tuke, the founder, and when he published the History of the
Retreat in 1812 he was but twenty-eight years of age. This book had a
far-reaching influence on the treatment of the insane, and it is
remarkable that a man untrained in medicine and without university
education should have been able to write it. The book is now very rare,
but as we have three duplicate copies, I am authorized by the Directors
of the Retreat to present your Hospital with one of them. I have already
sent you a copy of an address of my own dealing with Psychiatry in
England at about the time your Hospital was instituted.
The use of the term "moral treatment" as opposed to treatment of
physical disease has in recent years become especially interesting. It
is clear that Tuke and Pinel foresaw that psychotherapeutic treatment is
necessary, and their efforts were directed towards providing effective
"sublimation" of misdirected psychical energy.
One is pleased to see in your report the extent to which organized
occupations are developed at Bloomingdale--a pleasure not unmixed with
envy at seeing the picture of the men's occupational pavilion, and the
prospective erection of a similar building for women.
In the early days of the Retreat large numbers of visitors came from all
parts of the world. There is a gap in the Visitors' Book between
1800-1815, and the list of visitors is not complete.
We have copied out the names of the American Visitors, together with an
entry by John W. Francis, M.D., in 1815. It is interesting to note that
an American woman Friend, Hannah Field, was accompanied to the Retreat
by Elizabeth Fry. In 1818 a party of North American Indians visited the
Retreat and signed the Visitors' Book with pictorial representations of
their names. These we have had photographed and I send the prints
herewith.
May I congratulate you on the centenary of your Hospital and also
congratulate you and the Governors on its remarkable development and
progress. Here at the Retreat we carry on using the original buildings
still, striving to give our patients modern treatment in premises now
almost ancient, but which do not appear so out of date in this City of
York. York congratulates New York upon its wonderful prosperity, and we
gladly recognize its development in the practice of psychiatry fully
corresponds with its development in other directions.
I remain,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account