Eloise Psychiatric Hospital:1832-1982

I'm reading a book about a family secret, and it got me interested in Eloise Psychiatric Hospital, the place where the family member spent much of her life hidden from the rest of the world.  I realize after learning about Eloise, that it wasn't the only mass facility in America in the mid 20th century, where people were housed, often for life for various forms of mental illness, deformity, blindness and deafness.  In other words, asylums were where families (with approval from doctors) put less than perfect children.

Eloise Psychiatric Hospital opened in 1839.  At that time it was a medical facility for sick patients.  It was a poor house at this time, but quickly became an asylum and medical hospital.  At it's peak, it housed over 10,000 people.  It was located just outside of Detroit, Michagan.  It was so big that it had it's own postal code.  It grew all it's own food, had a bakery, slaughterhouse for pork and beef, it's own fire and police department.  There were thousands of people who worked there, not only as hospital employees, but raising and cooking food for the thousands of people that had to be fed every day.  It was probably no better or worse than similar asylums in California, New York and Illinois, because psychiatric medicine was really in it's infancy.  They used such archaic (today) methods as insulin and Metrazol shock therapy to treat patients.  They had chains and metal cuffs anchored on walls to control patients.  It must have been a horrific life for the residents.

The strides in mental health in the past century have been huge.  We now understand that many of the patients at Eloise and other similar facilities, did not belong there.  People who are blind or deaf or have physical deformities, live productive lives in their communities today.  Those with mental retardation also fit well into our society.  There is a place for psychiatric hospitals, but generally only for short term treatment, not life.  Mental health has come a long way.  The stigma of mental health is slowly being erased.  Thank goodness.