In the first book devoted to the history of hospital- and asylum-visiting covering the 18th to the late-20th centuries and taking case studies from around the globe, the authors demonstrate that hospitals and asylums could be remarkably permeable institutions.
A paramedic and paranormal investigator takes readers on a terrifying tour of haunted hospitals, asylums, and medical facilities across the globe. Hospitals are the nexus point between life and death, the place into which people enter this world, but also exit it. When we consider what has taken place behind the closed doors of hospitals since the inception of the medical profession, it should come as no surprise to discover that so many of them are haunted. In The World's Most Haunted Hospitals, paramedic and paranormal investigator Richard Estep recounts some of the most fascinating—and chilling—stories of hospital hauntings from across the globe, including: The apparitions at an old Utah hospital, now a nursing home, whose appearances are said to predict a patient's death. The Italian island referred to by locals as "the gateway to Hell," where the spirits of thousands of plague victims prowl the streets. The terrifying phenomena that keep visitors away from an abandoned airbase hospital in the Philippines. The ghostly nurse who has haunted the corridors of a London hospital for generations.
The late-17th and 18th centuries represent a golden age in terms of the design and construction of hospitals in Britain and its US colonies. This account of this period of planning and construction considers both the architecture and function of the hospitals and public response to them.
This open access book explores the history of asylums and their civilian patients during the First World War, focusing on the effects of wartime austerity and deprivation on the provision of care. While a substantial body of literature on ‘shell shock’ exists, this study uncovers the mental wellbeing of civilians during the war. It provides the first comprehensive account of wartime asylums in London, challenging the commonly held view that changes in psychiatric care for civilians post-war were linked mainly to soldiers’ experiences and treatment. Drawing extensively on archival and published sources, this book examines the impact of medical, scientific, political, cultural and social change on civilian asylums. It compares four asylums in London, each distinct in terms of their priorities and the diversity of their patients. Revealing the histories of the 100,000 civilian patients who were institutionalised during the First World War, this book offers new insights into decision-making and prioritisation of healthcare in times of austerity, and the myriad factors which inform this.
A total institution is defined by Goffman as a place of residence and work where a large number of like-situated, individuals, cut off from the wider society for an appreciable period of time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life. Prisons serve as a clear example, providing we appreciate that what is prison-like about prisons is found in institutions whose members have broken no laws. This volume deals with total institutions in general and, mental hospitals, in particular. The main focus is, on the world of the inmate, not the world of the staff. A chief concern is to develop a sociological version of the structure of the self. Each of the essays in this book were intended to focus on the same issue--the inmate's situation in an institutional context. Each chapter approaches the central issue from a different vantage point, each introduction drawing upon a different source in sociology and having little direct relation to the other chapters. This method of presenting material may be irksome, but it allows the reader to pursue the main theme of each paper analytically and comparatively past the point that would be allowable in chapters of an integrated book. If sociological concepts are to be treated with affection, each must be traced back to where it best applies, followed from there wherever it seems to lead, and pressed to disclose the rest of its family.
Deep within the soul of all of us, lies an intense fear. It could be the fear of death...or of a small, cramped place that stays dark even during the daylight hours. For some, those fears live on even after death. Take a personal tour of 29 of the world's most haunted prisons, hospitals, and asylums. Visit Waverly Hills Sanatorium, Auschwitz, Norwhich State Hospital, Eastern State Penitentiary, Preston Castle, Alcatras, The Tower of London, Leavenworth Disciplinary Barracks, and more. Learn the personal stories of the patients and prisoners who called these places home, the chilling histories of these monuments to suffering, and gain a unique insight into the reasons their spirits remain behind.
Looming on the outskirts of Philadelphia County since 1906, the mental hospital most commonly known as "Byberry" stood abandoned for 16 years before being demolished in 2006. At its peak in the 1960s, Byberry was home to more than 6,000 patients and employer to more than 800. With its own self-sustaining farm, bowling alleys, barbershop, ice cream parlor, federal post office, and baseball team, Byberry was a micro-community. Throughout its history, the hospital served as an educational institution for Philadelphia's medical, nursing, and psychology students; was the site of a World War II Civilian Public Service conscientious objector unit; and a volunteering hot spot for local churches, schools, and Girl and Boy Scout troops. This book provides an unprecedented window into the good, the bad, the unusual, and the forgotten history of Byberry.