Embedded Files
Pilgrim State Hospital
Located in Brentwood, NY (scroll down for photos)
Originally designed to house 12,500 patients on 1,900 acres of land, Pilgrim still holds the record of being the largest psychiatric hospital in the world - its peak patient population at one time was 16,000. The original hospital constructed from 1930-1941 consisted of four large continued treatment groups, each having about six separate buildings. The hospital also included a large medical building where patients and employees with acute diseases would be diagnosed, as well as housing laboratories, consultation rooms, a nursing school, and the pathology department. This building was flanked by two large reception buildings, where new patients would stay for an average of one month to be examined and diagnosed. These two buildings were kept separate by gender, and connecting corridors on each floor allowed patients and staff to work closely and quickly between the common medical facility.
Also on campus was a tall hospital building for chronic patients, a theater, employee and nurses' homes, a bakery, laundry, firehouse, power plant, and a farm which included a horse barn and piggery. Doctors and their families lived a small community on campus, but separated from the hospital by a major road (and later the Sagitkos Parkway). A ten acre cemetery lies behind a brick water tower, where unclaimed bodies were buried with a simple headstone engraved with a patient number. In the late 1930s Pilgrim averaged one death per day.
Treatments at Pilgrim included many types of shock therapy; methods that were risky, but the only kind of relief that science could offer at the time before Chlorpromazine (Thorazine) was developed in the 1950s. They include:
Insulin shock therapy: The patient is injected with large doses of insulin, which causes convulsion and coma. Introduced at Pilgrim in 1936.
Metrazol shock therapy: Injections of Metrazol (or commercially known as cardiazol) quickly induces powerful seizures.
Electric shock therapy: Currents of electricity are passed through the brain to induce grand mal seizures, commonly used to treat schizophrenia and mood disorders. Pilgrim State started using this technique in 1940, and has recently been under investigation for forcing this treatment onto patients.
Pre-frontal lobotomies were performed at Pilgrim starting in 1946, and by 1959 as many as 1,000 to 2,000 lobotomies were performed here;
Citation for the article excerpt above:
Kirsch, Tom. “Pilgrim State Hospital.” Opacity.us, opacity.us/site23_pilgrim_state_hospital.htm.
Ben Cosgrove writes in his 1994 Time Magazine article:
"Even today, three-quarters of a century after they were shot, Alfred Eisenstaedt's photographs from the grounds of Pilgrim State Hospital on Long Island are remarkable for the way they blend clear-eyed reporting with an almost palpable compassion. But what is perhaps most unsettling about the images is how terribly familiar they look.
The treatment of mental illness—in all its confounding varieties and degrees—has come a long, long way since the 1930s, and in most countries is now immeasurably more humane, comprehensive and discerning than the brutal approaches of even a few decades ago. Advancements in psychiatric medications alone have helped countless people lead fuller lives than they might have without drugs. And yet . . . the grim, desolate tone of the pictures in this gallery will feel eerily contemporary to anyone familiar with psych wards in countless large hospitals today.
The tone struck by LIFE, meanwhile, in its introduction to the Pilgrim State article—while employing language that might seem overly simplified to our ears—is at-once earnest and searching:
The day of birth for every human being is the start of a lifelong battle to adapt himself to an
ever-changing environment. He is usually victorious and adjusts himself without pain. However, in one case out of 20 he does not adjust himself. In U.S. hospitals, behind walls like [those] shown here, are currently 500,000 men, women and children whose minds have broken in the conflict of life. About the same number, or more, who have lost their equilibrium, are at large. Their doctors say they have mental diseases. Their lawyers call them insane.
Mentally balanced people shun and fear the insane. The general public refuses to face the terrific problem of what should be done for them. Today, though their condition has been much improved, they are still the most neglected, unfortunate group in the world. [This photo essay features] pictures showing the dark world of the insane and what scientists are doing to lead them back to the light of reason."
Citation for the article excerpt above:
Cosgrove, Ben. “Strangers to Reason: LIFE Inside a Psychiatric Hospital, 1938.” Time, Time Life, Inc., 30 Sept. 1994, time.com/3506058/strangers-to-reason-life-inside-a-psychiatric-hospital-1938/.
Citation for the photos:
Eisenstaedt, Alfred. “Untitled photo from Pilgrim State Hospital, 1938.” Time, Time Life, Inc, New York, 30 Sept. 2014, time.com/3506058/strangers-to-reason-life-inside-a-psychiatric-hospital-1938/.
Photos taken in the hospital by Alfred Eisentaedt for Life Magazine in 1938.
Report abuse