The Trenton Psychiatric Hospital is a state run
mental hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociative ...
located in
Trenton and
Ewing
Ewing may refer to:
People
* Ewing (surname)
* Ewing (given name)
Places
;United States
* Ewing Township, Boone County, Arkansas
* Ewing, Illinois, a village
* Ewing Township, Franklin County, Illinois
* Ewing, Indiana, an unincorporated co ...
,
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...
. It previously operated under the name New Jersey State Hospital at Trenton and originally as the New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum.
Founded by
Dorothea Lynde Dix
Dorothea Lynde Dix (April 4, 1802July 17, 1887) was an American advocate on behalf of the indigent mentally ill who, through a vigorous and sustained program of lobbying state legislatures and the United States Congress, created the first gene ...
on May 15, 1848, it was the first public mental hospital in the state of New Jersey, and the first mental hospital designed on the principle of the
Kirkbride Plan
The Kirkbride Plan was a system of mental asylum design advocated by American psychiatrist Thomas Story Kirkbride (1809–1883) in the mid-19th century. The asylums built in the Kirkbride design, often referred to as Kirkbride Buildings (or si ...
. The architect was the Scottish-American
John Notman.
Under the hospital's first superintendent, Dr. Horace A. Buttolph, the hospital admitted and treated 86 patients. In 1907, Dr.
Henry Cotton became the medical director. Believing that infections were the key to mental illness, he had his staff remove teeth and various other body parts that might become infected from the hospital patients. Cotton's legacy of hundreds of fatalities and thousands of maimed and mutilated patients did not end with his leaving Trenton in 1930 or his death in 1933; in fact, removal of patients' teeth at the Trenton asylum was still the norm until 1960.
['' Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine'', Andrew Scull, Yale University Press, 2005. ]
See also
*
John Forbes Nash
John Forbes Nash Jr. (June 13, 1928 – May 23, 2015) was an American mathematician who made fundamental contributions to game theory, real algebraic geometry, differential geometry, and partial differential equations. Nash and fellow g ...
(1928–2015), patient
*
Nathan Trupp
Nathan Nicholas Trupp (born 1947) is an American serial killer. He murdered at least five victims in New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe, New Mexico, Santa Fe
...
(born 1947), patient
*
Howard Unruh
Howard Barton Unruh (January 21, 1921 – October 19, 2009) was an American mass murderer who shot and killed thirteen people during a twelve-minute walk through his neighborhood in Camden, New Jersey, on September 6, 1949 in an incident that b ...
(1921–2009), patient
*
Human experimentation in the United States
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, a ...
*
Willowbrook State School
Willowbrook State School was a state-supported institution for children with intellectual disabilities located in the Willowbrook neighborhood on Staten Island in New York City from 1947 until 1987.
The school was designed for 4,000, but by 1965 ...
*
Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital
Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital (also known as Greystone Psychiatric Park, Greystone Psychiatric Hospital, or simply Greystone and formerly known as the State Asylum for the Insane at Morristown, New Jersey State Hospital, Morris Plains, and M ...
, the second "lunatic asylum" opened in New Jersey (1876).
*''
Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine''
References
External links
Trenton Psychiatric Hospital New Jersey Department of Human Services, Division of Mental Health Services
*http://www.rootsweb.com/~asylums/trenton_nj/
*http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/156/12/1982
*http://www.forgottenphotography.com
{{authority control
Psychiatric hospitals in New Jersey
Hospitals established in 1848
Buildings and structures in Mercer County, New Jersey
Kirkbride Plan hospitals
Psychiatry controversies
Buildings and structures in Trenton, New Jersey