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TAUNTON — From the very first, Taunton State Hospital was at the forefront of the treatment of mental illness.The hospital,
known for its rich federalist architecture and lush grounds, was built at the height of the "Moral Good" movement during which
leading theorists believed patients would be cured by work and placid surroundings. The 149-year-old hospital also weathered
changing trends in treating those afflicted by illness, from dark isolation rooms and hydrotherapy to electric shock prior to the
gradual phase-out of most of its facilities beginning in the 1970s. The state facility will mark its 150th anniversary in April, said
hospital director of rehabilitation Jane Musgrave Auger, who has researched much of the institution’s history. Public tours of the
grounds and the publication of a historical booklet are planned. Auger, who heads the hospital’s archives committee, has poked
into every nook and cranny of the sprawling hospital facility, from its dark tunnels used to transport food and supplies between
buildings to its wards and shops used to keep 19th century patients busy making shoes, mattresses and hats. During her research,
Auger was surprised to find a trove of evidence of the hospital’s past — a supply of springs still lining the shelves in the mattress
shop and sewing machines and hat molds still on their work tables as if awaiting long-absent patients.
Auger also discovered a large collection of glass photographic slides with perfectly-preserved images dating from before the turn
of the century to the 1930s. Many of the images are on display currently along with other hospital artifacts at the Old Colony
Historical Society Museum on Church Green. Many of the brick buildings which once made up the hospital’s campus are rapidly
deteriorating, said Auger, addressing a group of history buffs last week at the museum. The central administration building,
known for its vaunted circular dome, was abandoned in 1975 and the dome — threatening to fall over from structural weakness
purposely imploded to prevent a catastrophic collapse. Parts of the building appear to be near collapse, said Auger, its walls canted
outward rather than perpendicular."Its really a very dangerous place to come near," said Auger. In its day, however, Taunton
State Hospital was at the forefront of thinking about the mentally ill and the methods that might be used to return them to normal
functioning. The plan for the hospital was developed by Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride, a physician who had worked at the
Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane. Kirkbride was an exponent of the Moral Good movement, which believed that mental
patients should be taken out of the general hospitals where many had been languishing and housed in calm surroundings where
their minds might recover.
The hospital — originally the Taunton Lunatic Asylum — was designed to comprise an administration building at the center
attached to massive wings containing wards on each side. Men and women were housed in separate wings, and patients were
placed in specific buildings according to the severity of their symptoms. Ominously, the hospital, like many of its time, was built
with dungeon-like "strong rooms" on the basement levels with little lighting and only a central floor drain as furniture. The strong
rooms, intended for the most violent patients, were never used, however. Much of the rest of the hospital and grounds were
beautiful, however, with meandering roads and walkways arranged around rolling, landscaped lawns. Its buildings, elegantly
designed by architect Eldgridge Bowden, recalled colonial Philadelphia — except for the bars attached to the windows on some of
the buildings to hold particularly dangerous inmates. Diagnosis and treatment of patients also reflected a different era.
In a time before Freud and psychotropic medications, patients often were committed for a variety of reasons not normally
associated with mental illness today. Records indicate that many of the first patients were admitted for such issues as "religious
excitement," "loss of friends" and masturbation. In one case, a patient was officially described as having a "loss of interest in
housework."
In an era without sophisticated medications to calm nerves and overcome personality disorders, patients might be treated with
hydrotherapy, in which inmates were soaked for extended periods in long tubs in a communal bath. Work was also considered a
promising course of therapy, with many of the patients put to work making baskets or working in the hospital’s many shops and
its adjacent farm. Nurses and other staff members, meanwhile, lived on the grounds. Today, most of the original hospital lies
abandoned except for one of the original buildings still used by the Department of Youth Services. Newer areas of Taunton State
are still being used to house about 200 patients. Joseph Langlois, a mental health counselor at the hospital who has also researched
Taunton State’s history, said it is unlikely that the state will ever restore or reuse the old state hospital. Buildings are now too far
deteriorated from abandonment and most would require expensive upgrades to meet modern building requirements.
Article from Silver City Online