Code of rules and regulations for the government of those employed in the care of the patients of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane : at Philadelphia / by Thomas S. Kirkbride.

  • Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane.
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Code of rules and regulations for the government of those employed in the care of the patients of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane : at Philadelphia / by Thomas S. Kirkbride. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    11/86 (page 5)
    INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. The history of the institution for which this code of rules an 1 regulations has been prepared, extends back to the year 1751, when a number of the benev- olent citizens of Philadelphia founded in that cit}-, the Pennsylvania Hospital, which, besides its ad- mirable provision for the indigent sick, is distin- guished as being the first establishment for the care and treatment of the insane, in America. With the exception of a short period immediately after the foundation of the institution, till the first day of 1841, the insane were received and treated in one wing of the original hospital at Eighth and Pine Streets; but its position in the midst of a flourishing metropolis, its contracted buildings, its limited extent of ground, its want of privacy, and, above all, its having no distinct medical organization for the department for the insane, rendered it obvious that a different arrangement, with a more rural lo- cation, would have many important advantages. Fortunately, the wise foresight of the early man- agers of the hospital had secured a number of vacant lots around their original structure, and the ■2