A Psychiatric Milestone: Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921

Mr. Sheldon

It is with profound gratification that the Governors welcome your generous presence to-day on an occasion which means so much to us and which has perhaps some general significance. For we are met in honor of what is almost a unique event in our national history, the centennial anniversary celebration of an exclusively psychopathic hospital. A summary of its origin and development may be appropriate.

A hundred and fifty years ago the only institutions on this side of the Atlantic which cared for mental diseases were the Pennsylvania Hospital, chartered in 1751, a private general hospital which had accommodations for a few mental cases, and the Eastern State Hospital for the insane, at Williamsburg, Virginia, a public institution incorporated in 1768. No other one of the thirteen Colonies had a hospital of any kind, general or special. With a view of remedying this deplorable lack in New York, steps were taken in 1769 to establish an adequate general hospital in the City of New York. This resulted in the grant, on June 11, 1771, of the Royal Charter of The Society of the New York Hospital. Soon afterward the construction of the Hospital buildings began on a spacious tract on lower Broadway opposite Pearl Street, in which provision was also to be made for mental cases; but before any patients could be admitted, an accidental fire, in February, 1775, consumed the interior of the buildings. Reconstruction was immediately undertaken and completed early in the spring of 1776. But by that time the Revolutionary War was in full course, and the buildings were taken over by the Continental authorities as barracks for troops, and were surrounded by fortifications. When the British captured the city in September, 1776, they made the same use of the buildings for their own troops, who remained there until 1783. A long period of readjustment then ensued, and it was not until January, 1791, that the Hospital was at last opened to patients. In September, 1792, the Governors directed the admission of the first mental case, and for the hundred and twenty-nine years since that time the Society has continuously devoted a part of its effort to the care of the mentally diseased. After a few years a separate building for them was deemed desirable, and was constructed. The State assisted this expansion of the Hospital by appropriating to the Society $12,500 a year for fifty years. This new building housed comfortably seventy-five patients, but ten years later even this proved inadequate in size and undesirable in surroundings. In the meanwhile a wave of reform in the care of the insane was rising in Europe under the influence of such benefactors as Philippe Pinel in France, and William and Samuel Tuke in England. Thomas Eddy, a philanthropic Quaker Governor of the Society, who was then its Treasurer and afterward in succession its Vice-President and President, becoming aware of this movement, and having made a special study of the care and cure of mental affections, presented a communication to the Governors in which he advocated a change in the medical treatment, and in particular the adoption of the so-called moral management similar to that pursued by the Tukes at The Retreat, in Yorkshire, England. This memorable communication was printed by the Governors, and constitutes one of the first of the systematic attempts made in the United States to put this important medical subject on a humane and scientific basis. To carry out his plan, Mr. Eddy urged the purchase of a large tract of land near the city and the erection of suitable buildings. He ventured the moderate estimate that the population of the city, then about 110,000, might be doubled by 1836, and quadrupled by 1856. In fact, it was more than doubled in those first twenty years, and sextupled in the second twenty. He was justified, therefore, in believing that the hospital site on lower Broadway would soon be surrounded by a dense population, and quite unsuited for the efficient care of mental diseases. The Governors gave these recommendations immediate and favorable consideration. Various tracts of land, containing in all about seventy-seven acres, and lying on the historic Harlem Heights between what are now Riverside Drive and Columbus Avenue, and 107th and 120th Streets, were subsequently bought by the Society for about $31,000. To aid in the construction and maintenance of the necessary hospital buildings, the Legislature, by an act reciting that there was no other institution in the State where insane patients could be accommodated, and that humanity and the interest of the State required that provision should be made for their care and cure, granted an additional annual appropriation of $10,000 to the Society from 1816 until 1857. The main Hospital, built of brownstone, stood where the massive library of Columbia University now is, and the brick building still standing at the northeast corner of Broadway and 116th Street was the residence of the Medical Superintendent. The only access to this site by land was over what was known as the Bloomingdale Road, running from Broadway and 23d Street through the Bloomingdale district on the North River to 116th Street, and from that fact our institution assumed the name of Bloomingdale Asylum, or, as it is now called, Bloomingdale Hospital. This beautiful elevated site overlooking the Hudson River and the Harlem River was admirably fitted for its purpose. The spacious tract of land, laid out in walks and gardens, an extensive grove of trees, generous playgrounds and ample greenhouses, combined to give the spot unusual beauty and efficiency. This notable work finished, the Governors of the Society issued on May 10, 1821, an "Address to the Public"[1] which marks so great an advance in psychiatry in our country that it deserves study. The national character of the institution was indicated in the opening paragraph, where it announced that the Asylum would be open for the reception of patients from any part of the United States on the first of the following June. Accommodation for 200 patients was provided, and to these new surroundings were removed on that day all the mental cases then under treatment at the New York Hospital on lower Broadway.

In this retired and ideal spot the work of Bloomingdale Hospital was successfully prosecuted for three-quarters of a century. But the seven miles that separated it from the old hospital was steadily built over, and before fifty years had gone the growth of the city had passed the asylum grounds. Foreseeing that they could not maintain that verdant oasis intact for many years longer, the Governors, in 1868, bought this 300-acre tract on the outskirts of the Village of White Plains. After prolonged consideration of the time and method of development of the property, final plans were adopted in December, 1891, construction was begun May 1, 1892, and two years later, under the direction of our Medical Superintendent, Dr. Samuel B. Lyon, all the patients were moved from the old to this new Bloomingdale. The cost of the new buildings was about $1,500,000. From time to time the original Bloomingdale site was sold and now supplies room, among other structures, for Columbia University, Barnard College, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, St. Luke's Hospital, the Woman's Hospital, and the National Academy of Design. With the proceeds of those sales of the old Bloomingdale, not only was the cost of the new Bloomingdale met, but the permanent endowment of the Society was substantially increased, and Thomas Eddy was proved to have been both a wise humanitarian and a far-sighted steward of charitable funds.

In their "Address to the Public" to which I have referred, issued when Bloomingdale Hospital was opened in 1821, the Governors of the Society spoke of the new conception of moral treatment of the mentally afflicted which had been established in several European hospitals and which was supplanting the harsh and cruel usage of former days, as "one of the noblest triumphs of pure and enlightened benevolence." In that same spirit those founders dedicated themselves to the conduct of this institution. Their devotion to the work was impressive. Looking back on those early days we see a constant personal attention to the details of institutional life that commands admiration. The standards then set have become a tradition that has been preserved unbroken for a hundred years. Humane methods of care, the progressively best that medical science can devise, the utilization of a growingly productive pursuit of research, have consistently marked the administration of this great trust. The Governors of to-day are as determined as any of their predecessors to maintain that ideal of "pure and enlightened benevolence." New paths are opening and larger resources are becoming available. Under the guidance of our distinguished Medical Superintendent, with his able and devoted staff of physicians, a broader and more intensive development is already under way. Animated by that resolve and cheered by that prospect, we may thus confidently hope, as we begin the second century of Bloomingdale's career, for results not less fruitful and gratifying than those which we celebrate to-day.