Proceedings on the occasion of opening the New Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, at Philadelphia : published by order of the Collecting Committee.

  • Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Proceedings on the occasion of opening the New Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, at Philadelphia : published by order of the Collecting Committee. 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.

    10/34 (page 6)
    and four years ago), the corner-stone of the present institution was laid, in the site procured for the pur- pose on Delaware Eighth Street, the population of the then infant city, in the Province of Pennsylvania, being only about twenty thousand souls. This building was opened for the reception of pa- tients, in the twelfth month, 1756, the first meeting of the Managers being held in it on the 27th day of the same month. A corresponding building, or west wing, facing Ninth Street, was commenced in 1795, and completed so as to be occupied by insane patients in the twelfth month, 1796, which continued to be used for this purpose until the Managers, believing that benefit would result from the removal of the patients to a separate building, and more retired, as the original one which had stood almost isolated on the confines of the city, was now being surrounded by a dense population; and thereby also increase the accommo- dations, as well as the comforts of the sick, and those suffering by recent accidents, it was deemed advisable to erect a building in all respects adapted to the wants of the insane; and while remote from the populous portions of the city, to be at the same time easy of access at all seasons of the year; and the proposition meeting with the approval of the contributors, autho- rity was given to dispose of the two lots of ground lying east and west of the Hospital, between Seventh and Eighth and Ninth and Tenth Streets, and on the west side of Ninth between Pine and Lombard Streets, the proceeds of which were appropriated to the pur- chase of this farm, containing more than one hundred acres, and the erection of the Hospital on the adjacent