Age of Restraint 1773-1835:
In the early years of its existence, the Public Hospital appeared to be part jail and part infirmary. The belief that mentally disturbed persons could be cured by using scientific knowledge was relatively new. Previously, the insane were kept in county gaols, poorhouses, and private homes.
The Hospital Opens:
On October 12, 1773, the Public Hospital for Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds admitted its first patients, Zachariah Mallory and Catherine Harvey. Located near the edge of town in a relatively undeveloped section of eighteenth-century Williamsburg, the new institution consisted of twenty-four cells, an apartment for a live-in keeper, and a meeting room for the overseeing Court of Directors. When it opened, the Virginia hospital was the only public institution exclusively devoted to the care and treatment of the mentally ill in British North America. In England and France, a number of mental hospitals began to appear during the mid-1700s. The Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia reserved a special place for mental patients when it opened in 1751. These institutions were testimony in the Enlightenment's faith in science. They also indicate a growing fear of social deviants. The institution was not full until the early 1800s.
The Hospital Staff:
Initially, the hospital staff was small. James Galt, formerly the keeper of the Public Gaol in Williamsburg, was appointed keeper or head administrator. His wife, Mary E. Galt, served as the matron for women. John de Sequeyra, a physician educated in Holland, acted as the part-time doctor. He attended patients upon admission and one each week thereafter.
A Court of Directors -- drawn from Virgin ...More...
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