In the 1940s Dr. Walter Freeman gained fame for perfecting the lobotomy, then hailed as a miracle cure for the severely mentally ill. But within a few years, lobotomy was labeled one of the most barbaric mistakes of modern medicine.
In 1936, the Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz introduced a surgical operation, prefrontal leukotomy, which after an initial period came to be used particularly in the treatment of schizophrenia. The operation, later called lobotomy, consisted in incisions that destroyed connections between the prefrontal region and other parts of the brain… The treatment became rather popular in many countries all over the world and Moniz received the Nobel Prize in 1949.
…by this time the treatment had had its most successful period and in 1952 the first drug with a definite effect on schizophrenia was introduced, chlorpromazine, our first neuroleptic drug. Since about 1960 lobotomy, with a strongly modified technique (more discrete incisions), has been used only when there are very special indications such as in severe anxiety, and compulsive syndromes which have proved to be resistant to other forms of therapy. Perhaps about five operations a year are now being performed in Sweden. . .
. Here is a link to the 1946 Life Magazine article mentioned in Part 3 of 5 above in which Pennsylvania’s Byberry State Hospital and Ohio’s Cleveland State Hospital are featured (page 102 – 118).
Motts at Opacity recently posted a new set of photos of an abandoned psychiatric hospital, which he’d previously named the “Verden Psychiatric Hospital“ (a pseudonym). This is his fourth set of photos at “Verden” and although he posted the prior three photo sets in 2005, 2008 and 2010, all four sets were shot in September and October of 2005.
Have I mentioned before that Opacity is one of my favorite sites? I love his subject matter but especially appreciate his talent for photography, his ability to artistically capture visual elements (color, shadow, texture) and to suggest mood and emotion.
Seclusion
Operating Room
So as I did with the last anonymous hospital I posted (Hudson River State Hospital in Poughkeepsie, NY), I wanted to try and find out what the actual name and location of this abandoned hospital was. After some searching, I think it has to be the Greystone Park State Hospital in Morris Plains, NJ.
Wikipedia: Greystone opened on August 17, 1876, the hospital was known as the New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum at Morristown. …New Jersey’s state-funded mental health facilities were exceedingly overcrowded and sub par compared to neighboring states that had more facilities and room to house patients. Greystone was built… in part to relieve the only – and severely overcrowded – “lunatic asylum” in the state, which was located in Trenton, New Jersey.
In just four years after Greystone opened, it was already accommodating around 800 patients in a facility designed for 600. …Patient numbers are believed to have peaked in 1953 with an impressive 7,674 people packed into spaces designed for significantly fewer. An explanation for this dramatic increase can be found in the fact that World War II had ended and left many soldiers requiring treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, which included procedures such as insulin shock therapy and electroconvulsive therapy.
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Opacity: Although the hospital still functions, large portions of it were closed as it downsized in the 1970s. The original hospital building was partly decommissioned in 1988, then entirely emptied of people in 2008 to move to a new building nearby. That same year, other buildings on the campus were demolished after they were deemed “irreparable.” The future of the remaining buildings is uncertain, and they are currently vacant and deemed state surplus.
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Woodie Guthrie was a patient at Greystone from 1956 – 1961. Kirkbride Buildings: On May 28, 1956, Morristown police discovered legendary singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie wandering aimlessly in a daze. After a night in jail, Guthrie was sent to Greystone Park State Hospital and would eventually be diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease—an incurable illness characterized by involuntary movements and a deterioration of mental faculties. For about five years, Guthrie lived at Greystone where Pete Seeger and a very young Bob Dylan were among his many visitors. With some humor, Guthrie referred to the hospital as “Gravestone” and the ward he stayed on as “Wardy Forty” (it being, of course, Ward 40). In 1961, he was transferred to Brooklyn State Hospital, and then to Creedmore Psychiatric Center in Queens, NY five years later. Guthrie remained at Creedmore until his untimely death in 1967.
From Motts: Riverside State Hospital [closed in 2003]: This insane asylum, as it was once called, sits hidden amidst green rolling hills, with a grand view of the mountainous landscape and a nearby river. The main building on the campus is a Kirkbride design in Gothic-revival style, where male and female patients were separated by the two wings on either side of a central administration section. Construction began in 1868, and finished in 1871. [Read more here]
Opacity / Motts is one of my favorite sites. Here are a few photos from his “Delicate” series posted 14 March 2010 of the “Riverside State Hospital”
As with many of the abandoned places he photographs, Motts gave this hospital the pseudonym Riverside State Hospital. [NOTE: see bottom of this post]:
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I think it’s the Hudson River State Hospital in in Poughkeepsie, New York. Compare:
