The Pennsylvania Hospital

Philadelphia has an amazing history, and bits of it sort of lurk around every corner, waiting to leap out at you.



Today we visited the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Hospital was the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751 by Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Thomas Bond 'to care for the sick-poor and insane who were wandering the streets of Philadelphia." At that time, the city was the fastest-growing in the thirteen colonies. Lying on the Delaware River, it bustled with international sea trade and immigration. Whereas the nation was established as a melting pot, city leaders of the day ironically noted that Philadelphia was a "melting pot for diseases, where Europeans, Africans, and Indians engaged in free exchange of their respective infections."

The majority of patients that presented themselves at the Hospital in its earliest years were diagnosed as "Lunaticks" (sic). The eighteenth century heralded increased control of the insane through confinement and growing confidence in science's ability to understand and cure insanity through more aggressive medical treatment. Here we can see the tranquilizer chair, designed to slow down the fluid movement of agitated patients.


Christ Healing the Sick in the Temple
Painted by Benjamin West

West was a Philadelphia native and the historical painter for King George III, and eventual president of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The hospital's Board of Managers asked West to create the painting and donate it to the hospital, in 1800. West agreed and chose his subject to be "the redeemer of all mankind extending his aid to the afflicted of all ranks and condition."

The painting took 11 years to complete, and caused such a stir in England that West was pressured to sell it to the National Gallery for 3000 Guineas. West assured the Board of Managers that he would creat a second, better painting, and he did. In the second painting he added a "demoniac with his attendant relations" to pay homage to Pennsylvania Hospital's treatment of the mentally ill. It was delivered in 1817.

It is said that this was the first piece of fine art available to be seen by the general population in colonial America. After 12 months, an admission fee of 1 penny was charged to look at it. Over the next 25 years, the fees paid for the picture house and added $15,000 to the hospital's funds. For another penny, one was allowed to watch the insane people as they took their daily exercise in the yard.

The Great Court

The center section of the Hospital was designed as a buffer between two wings, to shield the physically ill people from the disturbing cries of the insane. Here were housed the officers and servants. The first floor was the administrative center (it is still usedfor that purpose today); also an apothecary and medical library, both the first in the nation. The Great Court was restored in 1976 for the nation's bicentennial using traditional colonial colors.

The Nation's First Surgical Ampitheatre

or

"The Dreaded Circular Room"

The surgeons who first used this room were considered skilled craftsmen. Surgeries were performed on sunny days only, between 11:00 am and 2:00 pm, because the skylight was the main source of illumination - there was no electricity at the time. Locals and medical students could pay a fee to watch surgical procedures, which included amputations, removal of internal and external tumors, bladder stones and cataracts; repair of hernias, and the setting of fractures.

Anesthesia was not used until the 1840's, at first only on women because of their supposed low tolerance for pain. Prior to anesthesia, sugeons would administer prodigious amounts of alcohol, or opium, or a swift blow to the head with a mallet to render the patient unconscious - and, hopefully, not dead.

I would have elected for the use of all three methods.

Sterile technique was not in use in the country before 1890. Surgeons washed their hands - after the procedure. They wore coats, to protect their clothing. The surgical coats were left on hooks in the ampitheatre and were not washed for years at a time.

Pictures and text in this posting have been borrowed from The Pennsylvania Hospital Walking Tour guidebook and from The University of Pennsylvania Health System's History of Pennsylvania Hospital's web site.

Delaware

I visited Delaware a few times when I lived in Pennsylvania. There are a lot of scenic places there. I've been to Rehoboth beach; it is a beautiful place. The more I think about it, the more I'm looking forward to moving.

We are going to try to save enough money to move in early October. After that and we risk really, really cold weather. Moving in the bitter cold is not fun. And, after 6.5 yrs living in south Louisiana, I'm acclimated to the heat and humidity. The temperature here rarely dips much below freezing in the winter.

I'm not sure where we will live exactly, but it will be near the northern tip, in the Wilmington/Newark area. The trip will be about 1300 miles. We will drive through Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia (just a little), Tennessee, Virginia, and Maryland on the way. The road time will be about 26 hours.

Twenty Delaware facts (now with BONUS editorial comments!)*:

• Henry Hudson sailed his storied ship, the Half Moon, up Delaware Bay in 1609, becoming the first European known to have visited the area.


• Dutch leader Peter Minuit, employed by Sweden, brought settlers in two ships to what is now Wilmington in 1638.


• Swedish settlers here introduced the log cabin to American shores. (Shores, this is a log cabin. Log cabin, shores.)


• In 1655, New Amsterdam Governor Peter Stuyvesant brought a large fleet to the area, captured all of New Sweden for the Dutch, and ended Swedish rule in America.


• Delaware was the only colony to have been claimed by Sweden, Holland, and England.


• When a ship carrying peas wrecked on a sandbar, the peas grew and collected so much sand that a new island formed, now Pea Patch Island.


• Johan Prinz, capable governor of New Sweden from 1643 to 1653, was the "greatest" of all colonial governors. He weighed 400 pounds and was called the "Big Tub."


• Named for Lord De La Warr, early governor of Virginia; the name was first applied to the river, then to the Indian tribe (Lenni-Lenape) and to the state.


• When Shadrach Cannon of Seaford was bitten by a rabid dog, some of the town's best citizens were selected to smother him to death between two feather beds, in an early mercy killing. (Gruesome! Asphyxiation is a "mercy" killing?)


• In 1776, although he was seriously ill, Caesar Rodney, a member of the Continental Congress, made a famous ride from Wilmington, Delaware, to Philadelphia in order to cast the deciding vote for the Declaration of Independence.


• Delaware is known as the "First State" to ratify the US constitution.


• A 1978 order of the U.S. Supreme Court permitted the busing of children from Wilmington to the suburbs to promote racial integration. The decision was a landmark for the establishment of this practice.


• Today, Delaware is both a farming and an industrial region and leads the nation in the production of chemicals. (Yummy! Chemicals!)


• More corporations are headquartered in Delaware than in any other state as a result of its corporate laws. (Sociopathic corporate-type ladder-climber that I am, this will be like heaven!)


• Delaware is the second smallest state in the US. (Rhode Island is the smallest. I've lived there too, by the way.)


• total area: 2,397 sq. mi. (6208 sq. km.)


• land area: 1,955 sq. mi. (5063 sq. km.)


• Length: 100 mi.; width: 30 mi. (length: 161 km.; width 48 km.) (I did all these conversions from miles to kilometers myself. You see, I care about all the snaars fans, not just the De La Warrians. Delaware-ites. Delawarese?)


• Population (2000 proj.): 763,000


• The lotus plants found here have led some specialists to believe that the region may have been visited by early Egyptian explorers.

* Bonus comments added 6/22/05. Most of the comments were there already. Sorry to get you excited.

Jack Johnson

Saw a fabulous documentary on PBS last night about a boxing match that took place on July 4, 1910 between Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffries. (I think I got the names right - I remember they're all J's.) I didn't catch the whole story - only the last twenty minutes or so. Johnson was black and Jeffries was white. The whole nation was waiting to see who would win. Johnson won. Jeffries had been undefeated until then, but he was in really bad shape at the end. The crowd, which was all white, started yelling, "Don't let the nigger knock him out," so they ended the match before that could happen and declared Johnson the winner. Afterwards there were riots and killings and everything over it, all over the country. They showed some newspaper clippings from various towns that said things like, "12 blacks ran amuck, until police rescued them". On a train a black man was talking about the fight and a white man slit his throat, killing him. There were stabbings and beatings. An editorial in the Los Angeles Times warned the black community that the fight had not changed their complexion and nothing had changed. You are not any better just because of a boxing match.

I hate the fact that we are always looking for some way to subjugate one another.

I am proud of Johnson. I am not black, but I am proud of him as one human being can be of another human being. He conducted himself well and he fought for a cause that was larger than himself. After the fight Jeffries admitted that even in his prime he had never been as good as Johnson. With his prize winnings Johnson bought a house and moved in on July 7. That night, a white man with a rifle attempted to break in and kill him, but the police stopped him. That was only the beginning of Johnson's troubles. That's about all I remember of the documentary.