Two centuries ago , citizenry with mental illness were watch as socially deviant and even possessed . Often incarcerated , homeless , or otherwise cast out , there was niggling fellow feeling — lease alone aesculapian discourse — for people ache from clinical depression , mood upset , or other psychiatric condition .
But in Pennsylvania , people make do with genial unwellness could get hold supporter at the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason , or the Friends Hospital , which opened its doorsMay 15 , 1817 . Although the name of America ’s first private genial infirmary was n’t precisely sensitive ( at least by today ’s standards ) , the “ acquaintance ” part was genuine — it was a acknowledgment to the Quakers , also known as the Religious Society of Friends .
Quakers had a different linear perspective on people with genial sickness . The Quaker religion know what they call the Inner Light — a divine spirit that they believe inhabits every individual , sick or well . As a answer , people are seen as deserving of lordliness no matter what their mental health term . After all , Quakers themselves know what it was like to be treated as Ishmael : After fleeing England for the saki of religious freedom , they face persecutionfrom Puritan colonists who come across them as threats to the social order . Only after William Pennfounded his own colony — Pennsylvania — in 1681 did Quakers find a place of their own .
But genial illness affected the tight - knit Quaker community of interests in both America and England . In the 1790s , a untried Quaker womanhood name Hannah Mills was place in a York , England moonstruck insane asylum and died soon after . Appalled by her treatment , her fellow Quakers decided to set up an mental home of their own in York , one that was flow on Quaker principles and that would treat people with mental sickness “ as much in the manner of a rational being as the body politic of his judgment will perhaps let , " according to anearly account of the refuge .
The York Retreat , as it was called , was an inspiration to an American Quaker parson namedThomas Scattergood , who was no alien to depression . He determine to call for a alike institution in Philadelphia , and in 1813 , local Quakers organise the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason .
Philadelphia already had a lunatic asylum — the country’sfirst hospital , which deal for the physically ghastly as well as those suffering from mental malady . But the Pennsylvania Hospital was crowd , and even though it was apioneerof psychiatric handling in that it check genial illness as a disease , mental patients were often treat as oddity . visitor could make up money for a glimpse of the “ lunaticks ” inside , turning both their distress and their handling into amusement .
The new asylum was dissimilar . Instead of place patients on video display or serve out incarnate penalty , it offered what Quakers call “ moral treatment . ” Patients lived in lustrous , airy way and the windows ’ iron bars were mask as wood . Caretakers treated patients as calmly and respectfully as possible and practiced early frame of talk and occupational therapy . Patients helped start the farm and take part in leisure time activities . The hospital’smission statementfocused on both body and mind , pledge to allow for patients the “ requisite medical aid , [ and ] such ship’s boat , sympathetic attention as may console their agitated mind , and under the Divine Blessing , ease their recovery . ”
Its philosophies were ahead of its time , but the infirmary ’s practice also reflected the aesculapian beliefs of its era . stop dead shower baths , “ blister ” designed to tumesce the skin and distract patients , and phlebotomise — common treatments for strong-arm ailments among patients without mental illness — were used at the infirmary , too [ PDF ] . But by treat its patients as humans , not inmates , the infirmary set a new criterion for psychiatric care .
As the years lead , the infirmary set about to acknowledge non - Quaker patient and even comprise best-loved therapy and a gym . Today , the infirmary treats adolescent , adult , and elder and includesa long - condition residential programdesigned to give affected role access to permanent trapping and psychiatrical resources without confining them to the infirmary .
The hospital nowadmitsover 5000 patient per class . It ’s dropped its old - fashioned name , but it ’s still race by Quakers , and the courtly Scattergood Hall — a National Historic Landmark — is the first thing new patients see as they ’re welcome to the infirmary . The infirmary ’s 1813 commission program line is still in event , too . The definition of “ sore , sympathetic attention ” for people with mental illness may have change , but the purpose of America ’s first secret genial infirmary has not .
