Existing comment:
1773 Cell: Accommodations for patients in the Public Hospital during its first fifty years were prison-like. Furnishing were limited to a straw-filled bed on the floor, a blanket, and a chamber pot. Patients were assigned one per room or cell. Overcrowding was not a problem. Hospital residents, often referred to as inmates, spent most of the day in their rooms. Even meals were eaten in the cells.
On occasion, inmates were allowed to take fresh air in the fenced exercise yards. Barred windows, board-and-batten doors, and chains fixed to the walls insured the patients would not escape. |