Gracefully Insane

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Gracefully Insane

Author : Alex Beam
Publisher : PublicAffairs
ISBN 13 : 0786750367
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (867 download)

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Book Synopsis Gracefully Insane by : Alex Beam

Download or read book Gracefully Insane written by Alex Beam and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2009-07-21 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Its landscaped ground, chosen by Frederick Law Olmsted and dotted with Tudor mansions, could belong to a New England prep school. There are no fences, no guards, no locked gates. But McLean Hospital is a mental institution-one of the most famous, most elite, and once most luxurious in America. McLean "alumni" include Olmsted himself, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, James Taylor and Ray Charles, as well as (more secretly) other notables from among the rich and famous. In its "golden age," McLean provided as genteel an environment for the treatment of mental illness as one could imagine. But the golden age is over, and a downsized, downscale McLean-despite its affiliation with Harvard University-is struggling to stay afloat. Gracefully Insane, by Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam, is a fascinating and emotional biography of McLean Hospital from its founding in 1817 through today. It is filled with stories about patients and doctors: the Ralph Waldo Emerson protégé whose brilliance disappeared along with his madness; Anne Sexton's poetry seminar, and many more. The story of McLean is also the story of the hopes and failures of psychology and psychotherapy; of the evolution of attitudes about mental illness, of approaches to treatment, and of the economic pressures that are making McLean-and other institutions like it-relics of a bygone age. This is a compelling and often oddly poignant reading for fans of books like Plath's The Bell Jar and Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted (both inspired by their author's stays at McLean) and for anyone interested in the history of medicine or psychotherapy, or the social history of New England.

Gracefully Insane

Author : Alex Beam
Publisher : PublicAffairs
ISBN 13 : 0786750367
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (867 download)

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Book Synopsis Gracefully Insane by : Alex Beam

Download or read book Gracefully Insane written by Alex Beam and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2009-07-21 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Its landscaped ground, chosen by Frederick Law Olmsted and dotted with Tudor mansions, could belong to a New England prep school. There are no fences, no guards, no locked gates. But McLean Hospital is a mental institution-one of the most famous, most elite, and once most luxurious in America. McLean "alumni" include Olmsted himself, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, James Taylor and Ray Charles, as well as (more secretly) other notables from among the rich and famous. In its "golden age," McLean provided as genteel an environment for the treatment of mental illness as one could imagine. But the golden age is over, and a downsized, downscale McLean-despite its affiliation with Harvard University-is struggling to stay afloat. Gracefully Insane, by Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam, is a fascinating and emotional biography of McLean Hospital from its founding in 1817 through today. It is filled with stories about patients and doctors: the Ralph Waldo Emerson prot'g' whose brilliance disappeared along with his madness; Anne Sexton's poetry seminar, and many more. The story of McLean is also the story of the hopes and failures of psychology and psychotherapy; of the evolution of attitudes about mental illness, of approaches to treatment, and of the economic pressures that are making McLean-and other institutions like it-relics of a bygone age. This is a compelling and often oddly poignant reading for fans of books like Plath's The Bell Jar and Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted (both inspired by their author's stays at McLean) and for anyone interested in the history of medicine or psychotherapy, or the social history of New England.

Bedlam

Author : Catharine Arnold
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1847390005
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (473 download)

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Book Synopsis Bedlam by : Catharine Arnold

Download or read book Bedlam written by Catharine Arnold and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-08-06 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published: London: Simon & Schuster, 2008.

Hospital Always Wins

Author : Issa Ibrahim
Publisher : Chicago Review Press
ISBN 13 : 1613735154
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (137 download)

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Book Synopsis Hospital Always Wins by : Issa Ibrahim

Download or read book Hospital Always Wins written by Issa Ibrahim and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2016-06-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Issa Ibrahim's memoir details in searing prose his development of severe mental illness leading to the accidental killing of his mother, his acquittal by reason of insanity, and his subsequent commission to a mental hospital for nearly 20 years. Raised in an idyllic creative environment, mom and dad cultivating his talent, Issa watches his family's descent into chaos in the drug-crazed late 1980s. Following his father's death, Issa, grief-stricken and vulnerable, develops a drug habit. Within two years he is addicted, psychosis prompting his belief that his mother is possessed and he must exorcise her. Issa receives the insanity plea and is committed to an insane asylum with no release date. But that is only the beginning of his odyssey. Institutional and sexual sins cause further punishments, culminating in a heated legal battle for freedom. Written with great verve and immediacy, The Hospital Always Wins paints a detailed picture of a broken mental health system, but also reveals the power of art, when nurtured in a benign environment, to provide a resource for recovery. Ultimately this is a story about survival and atonement through creativity and courage against almost insurmountable odds.

Bedlam

Author : Paul Chambers
Publisher : The History Press
ISBN 13 : 0750991860
Total Pages : 311 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (59 download)

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Book Synopsis Bedlam by : Paul Chambers

Download or read book Bedlam written by Paul Chambers and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2019-11-29 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bethlem Hospital is the oldest mental institution in the world, to many famously known as ' Bedlam': a chaotic madhouse that brutalised its patients. Paul Chambers explores the 800-year history of Bethlem and reveals fascinating details of its ambivalent relationship with London and its inhabitants, the life and times of the hospital's more famous patients, and the rise of a powerful reform movement to tackle the institution's notorious policies. Here the whole story of Bethlem Hospital is laid bare to a new audience, charting its well-intended beginnings to its final disgrace and reform.

Mount Misery

Author : Samuel Shem
Publisher : Ballantine Books
ISBN 13 : 0307815617
Total Pages : 578 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (78 download)

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Book Synopsis Mount Misery by : Samuel Shem

Download or read book Mount Misery written by Samuel Shem and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Laws of Mount Misery: There are no laws in psychiatry. Now, from the author of the riotous, moving, bestselling classic, The House of God, comes a lacerating and brilliant novel of doctors and patients in a psychiatric hospital. Mount Misery is a prestigious facility set in the rolling green hills of New England, its country club atmosphere maintained by generous corporate contributions. Dr. Roy Basch (hero of The House of God) is lucky enough to train there *only to discover doctors caught up in the circus of competing psychiatric theories, and patients who are often there for one main reason: they've got good insurance. From the Laws of Mount Misery: Your colleagues will hurt you more than your patients. On rounds at Mount Misery, it's not always easy for Basch to tell the patients from the doctors: Errol Cabot, the drug cowboy whose practice provides him with guinea pigs for his imaginative prescription cocktails . . . Blair Heiler, the world expert on borderlines (a diagnosis that applies to just about everybody) . . . A. K. Lowell, née Aliyah K. Lowenschteiner, whose Freudian analytic technique is so razor sharp it prohibits her from actually speaking to patients . . . And Schlomo Dove, the loony, outlandish shrink accused of having sex with a beautiful, well-to-do female patient. From the Laws of Mount Misery: Psychiatrists specialize in their defects. For Basch the practice of psychiatry soon becomes a nightmare in which psychiatrists compete with one another to find the best ways to reduce human beings to blubbering drug-addled pods, or incite them to an extreme where excessive rage is the only rational response, or tie them up in Freudian knots. And all the while, the doctors seem less interested in their patients' mental health than in a host of other things *managed care insurance money, drug company research grants and kickbacks, and their own professional advancement. From the Laws of Mount Misery: In psychiatry, first comes treatment, then comes diagnosis. What The House of God did for doctoring the body, Mount Misery does for doctoring the mind. A practicing psychiatrist, Samuel Shem brings vivid authenticity and extraordinary storytelling gifts to this long-awaited sequel, to create a novel that is laugh-out-loud hilarious, terrifying, and provocative. Filled with biting irony and a wonderful sense of the absurd, Mount Misery tells you everything you'll never learn in therapy. And it's a hell of a lot funnier.

Life in the Victorian Asylum

Author : Mark Stevens
Publisher : Casemate Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1473842379
Total Pages : 204 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (738 download)

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Book Synopsis Life in the Victorian Asylum by : Mark Stevens

Download or read book Life in the Victorian Asylum written by Mark Stevens and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2014-10-30 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vivid portrait of the day-to-day experience in the public asylums of nineteenth-century England, by the bestselling author of Broadmoor Revealed. Life in the Victorian Asylum reconstructs the lost world of nineteenth-century public asylums. This fresh take on the history of mental health reveals why county asylums were built, the sort of people they housed, and the treatments they received, as well as the enduring legacy of these remarkable institutions. Mark Stevens, a professional archivist, and expert on asylum records, delves into Victorian mental health hospital documents to recreate the experience of entering an asylum and being treated there—perhaps for a lifetime. Praise for Broadmoor Revealed “Superb.” —Family Tree magazine “Detailed and thoughtful.” —Times Literary Supplement “Paints a fascinating picture.” —Who Do You Think You Are? magazine

Annie's Ghosts

Author : Steve Luxenberg
Publisher : Hachette Books
ISBN 13 : 1401394426
Total Pages : 508 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis Annie's Ghosts by : Steve Luxenberg

Download or read book Annie's Ghosts written by Steve Luxenberg and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2009-05-05 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beth Luxenberg was an only child. Or so everyone thought. Six months after Beth's death, her secret emerged. It had a name: Annie. Praise for Annie's Ghosts "Annie's Ghosts is one of the most remarkable books I have ever read . . . From mental institutions to the Holocaust, from mothers and fathers to children and childhood, with its mysteries, sadness, and joy--this book is one emotional ride."--Bob Woodward, author of The War Within and State of Denial "Steve Luxenberg sleuths his family's hidden history with the skills of an investigative reporter, the instincts of a mystery writer, and the sympathy of a loving son. His rediscovery of one lost woman illuminates the shocking fate of thousands of Americans who disappeared just a generation ago."--Tony Horwitz, author of A Voyage Long and Strange and Confederates in the Attic "I started reading within minutes of picking up this book, and was instantly mesmerized. It's a riveting detective story, a moving family saga, an enlightening if heartbreaking chapter in the history of America's treatment of people born with what we now call special needs." -- Deborah Tannen, author of You Just Don't Understand and You're Wearing That "This is a memoir that pushes the journalistic envelope . . . Luxenberg has written a fascinating personal story as well as a report on our communal response to the mentally ill." -- Helen Epstein, author of Where She Came From and Children of the Holocaust "A wise, affecting new memoir of family secrets and posthumous absolution." -- The Washington Post "Annie's Ghosts will resonate for many, whether the chords have to do with family secrets, the Depression, memories of a thriving Detroit, the Holocaust's horrors, or the immigrant experience." -- The Detroit Free Press

A Great Idea at the Time

Author : Alex Beam
Publisher : ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN 13 : 1458758575
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (587 download)

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Book Synopsis A Great Idea at the Time by : Alex Beam

Download or read book A Great Idea at the Time written by Alex Beam and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-09 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today the classics of the western canon, written by the proverbial ''dead white men,'' are cannon fodder in the culture wars. But in the 1950s and 1960s, they were a pop culture phenomenon. The Great Books of Western Civilization, fifty-four volumes chosen by intellectuals at the University of Chicago, began as an educational movement, and evolved into a successful marketing idea. Why did a million American households buy books by Hippocrates and Nicomachus from door-to-door salesmen? And how and why did the great books fall out of fashion? In A Great Idea at the Time Alex Beam explores the Great Books mania, in an entertaining and strangely poignant portrait of American popular culture on the threshold of the television age. Populated with memorable characters, A Great Idea at the Time will leave readers asking themselves: Have I read Lucretius's De Rerum Natura lately? If not, why not?

Behind the Gates of Gomorrah

Author : Stephen Seager
Publisher : Allen & Unwin
ISBN 13 : 1743438974
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (434 download)

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Book Synopsis Behind the Gates of Gomorrah by : Stephen Seager

Download or read book Behind the Gates of Gomorrah written by Stephen Seager and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2015-01-02 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Psychiatrist Stephen Seager was no stranger to locked psych wards when he accepted a job at California's Gorman State hospital, known locally as 'Gomorrah', but nothing could have prepared him for what he encountered when he stepped through its gates, a triple sally port behind the twenty-foot walls topped with shining coils of razor wire. Gorman State is one of the nation's largest forensic mental hospitals, dedicated to treating the criminally insane. Unit C, where Seager was assigned, was reserved for the 'bad actors', the mass murderers, serial killers, and the real-life Hannibal Lecters of the world. Against a backdrop of surreal beauty - a campus-like setting where peacocks strolled the well-kept lawns - is a place of remarkable violence, a place where a small staff of clinicians are expected to manage a volatile population of prison-hardened ex-cons, where lone therapists lead sharing circles with psychopaths, where homemade weapons and contraband circulate freely, and where patients and physicians often measure their lives according to how fast they can run. Behind the Gates of Gomorrah affords an eye-opening look inside a facility to which few people have ever had access. Honest, reflective, and at times darkly funny, Seager's gripping account of his experiences at Gorman State hospital give us an extraordinary insight into a unique and terrifying world, inhabited by figures from our nightmares.

American Crucifixion

Author : Alex Beam
Publisher : Public Affairs
ISBN 13 : 1610393139
Total Pages : 354 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis American Crucifixion by : Alex Beam

Download or read book American Crucifixion written by Alex Beam and published by Public Affairs. This book was released on 2014-04-22 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On June 27, 1844, a mob stormed the jail in the dusty frontier town of Carthage, Illinois. Clamorous and angry, they were hunting down a man they saw as a grave threat to their otherwise quiet lives: the founding prophet of Mormonism, Joseph Smith. They wanted blood. At thirty-nine years old, Smith had already lived an outsized life. In addition to starting the Church of Latter-day Saints and creating his own “Golden Bible” – the Book of Mormon – he had worked as a water-dowser and treasure hunter. He’d led his people to Ohio, then Missouri, then Illinois, where he founded a city larger than fledgling Chicago. He was running for President. And, secretly, he had married more than thirty women. In American Crucifixion, Alex Beam tells how Smith went from charismatic leader to public enemy: how his most seismic revelation – the doctrine of polygamy – created a rift among his people; how that schism turned to violence; and how, ultimately, Smith could not escape the consequences of his ambition and pride. Mormonism is America’s largest and most enduring native religion, and the “martyrdom” of Joseph Smith is one of its transformational events. Smith’s brutal assassination propelled the Mormons to colonize the American West and claim their place in the mainstream of American history. American Crucifixion is a gripping story of scandal and violence, with deep roots in our national identity.

The Last Asylum

Author : Barbara Taylor
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022627392X
Total Pages : 316 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (262 download)

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Book Synopsis The Last Asylum by : Barbara Taylor

Download or read book The Last Asylum written by Barbara Taylor and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-04-15 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the late 1970s, Barbara Taylor, then an acclaimed young historian, began to suffer from severe anxiety. In the years that followed, Taylor's world contracted around her illness. Eventually, she was admitted to what had once been England's largest psychiatric institutions, the infamous Friern Mental Hospital in London

Nightmare Factories

Author : Troy Rondinone
Publisher : Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN 13 : 1421432676
Total Pages : 345 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (214 download)

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Book Synopsis Nightmare Factories by : Troy Rondinone

Download or read book Nightmare Factories written by Troy Rondinone and published by Johns Hopkins University Press. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing from fictional and real accounts, movies, personal interviews, and tours of mental hospitals both active and defunct, Rondinone uncovers a story at once familiar and bizarre, where reality meets fantasy in the foggy landscape of celluloid and pulp.

Putting Women First

Author : Rani Bang
Publisher : Stree Distributed by Bhatkal Books International
ISBN 13 : 9788185604961
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (49 download)

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Book Synopsis Putting Women First by : Rani Bang

Download or read book Putting Women First written by Rani Bang and published by Stree Distributed by Bhatkal Books International. This book was released on 2010 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trained in India and at Johns Hopkins University where she and her husband, Dr Ajay Bang, learnt public health and research methodologies, the couple returned to India to set up a health clinic in Maharashtras neglected Gadchiroli district, about 170 km from Nagpur, where the Gonds are the dominant tribal group. As co-author Rupa Chinai points out, this is a very old centre of settlement of about 3000 years, from here stretches eastwards the tribal crescent that arcs across Central India and encompasses the ancient Dandakaranya forest. Dr Rani Bangs research found that 92 percent of women in this region had no access to treatment for gynaecological disorders in the absence of women doctors. Such neglect is accompanied by globalisation and liberalisation which adds further stresses: rural families are unprepared for the rapid changes wrought in the spheres of education, information, material enhancement and changes in lifestyle. All of this has an impact on human relationships and health. In his foreword, Rahul Goswami points out that the book plays many roles. It is a commentary on the chronic myopia of a planning process that refuses to see millions of Indians and the ways in which their lives can be bettered. It reveals the way tribal society is being buffeted by the modern and whose traditional kinship and ecological systems are being sorely stressed. It is also a logbook of case medicine. Quite different from the revolutionary activity of the Far Left, the Bangs have set in motion a type of revolution that equips women and men, communities and administrators with the tools to build an indigenous expression of development, one in which the fundamentals of healthcare, interdependence and sustainable economics are paramount.

The Peculiar Institution and the Making of Modern Psychiatry, 1840–1880

Author : Wendy Gonaver
Publisher : UNC Press Books
ISBN 13 : 1469648458
Total Pages : 269 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (696 download)

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Book Synopsis The Peculiar Institution and the Making of Modern Psychiatry, 1840–1880 by : Wendy Gonaver

Download or read book The Peculiar Institution and the Making of Modern Psychiatry, 1840–1880 written by Wendy Gonaver and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2019-02-07 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though the origins of asylums can be traced to Europe, the systematic segregation of the mentally ill into specialized institutions occurred in the United States only after 1800, just as the struggle to end slavery took hold. In this book, Wendy Gonaver examines the relationship between these two historical developments, showing how slavery and ideas about race shaped early mental health treatment in the United States, especially in the South. She reveals these connections through the histories of two asylums in Virginia: the Eastern Lunatic Asylum in Williamsburg, the first in the nation; and the Central Lunatic Asylum in Petersburg, the first created specifically for African Americans. Eastern Lunatic Asylum was the only institution to accept both slaves and free blacks as patients and to employ slaves as attendants. Drawing from these institutions' untapped archives, Gonaver reveals how slavery influenced ideas about patient liberty, about the proper relationship between caregiver and patient, about what constituted healthy religious belief and unhealthy fanaticism, and about gender. This early form of psychiatric care acted as a precursor to public health policy for generations, and Gonaver's book fills an important gap in the historiography of mental health and race in the nineteenth century.

Harrow the Ninth

Author : Tamsyn Muir
Publisher : Tordotcom
ISBN 13 : 1250313201
Total Pages : 452 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (53 download)

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Book Synopsis Harrow the Ninth by : Tamsyn Muir

Download or read book Harrow the Ninth written by Tamsyn Muir and published by Tordotcom. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harrow the Ninth, an Amazon pick for Best SFF of 2020 and the New York Times and USA Today bestselling sequel to Gideon the Ninth, turns a galaxy inside out as one necromancer struggles to survive the wreckage of herself aboard the Emperor's haunted space station. The Locked Tomb is a 2023 Hugo Award Finalist for Best Series! “Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space! Decadent nobles vie to serve the deathless emperor! Skeletons!” —Charles Stross on Gideon the Ninth “Unlike anything I've ever read.” —V.E. Schwab on Gideon the Ninth “Deft, tense and atmospheric, compellingly immersive and wildly original.” —The New York Times on Gideon the Ninth She answered the Emperor's call. She arrived with her arts, her wits, and her only friend. In victory, her world has turned to ash. After rocking the cosmos with her deathly debut, Tamsyn Muir continues the story of the penumbral Ninth House in Harrow the Ninth, a mind-twisting puzzle box of mystery, murder, magic, and mayhem. Nothing is as it seems in the halls of the Emperor, and the fate of the galaxy rests on one woman's shoulders. Harrowhark Nonagesimus, last necromancer of the Ninth House, has been drafted by her Emperor to fight an unwinnable war. Side-by-side with a detested rival, Harrow must perfect her skills and become an angel of undeath — but her health is failing, her sword makes her nauseous, and even her mind is threatening to betray her. Sealed in the gothic gloom of the Emperor's Mithraeum with three unfriendly teachers, hunted by the mad ghost of a murdered planet, Harrow must confront two unwelcome questions: is somebody trying to kill her? And if they succeeded, would the universe be better off? THE LOCKED TOMB SERIES BOOK 1: Gideon the Ninth BOOK 2: Harrow the Ninth BOOK 3: Nona the Ninth BOOK 4: Alecto the Ninth At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

South Carolina State Hospital, The: Stories from Bull Street

Author : William Buchheit
Publisher : Arcadia Publishing
ISBN 13 : 146714472X
Total Pages : 160 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (671 download)

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Book Synopsis South Carolina State Hospital, The: Stories from Bull Street by : William Buchheit

Download or read book South Carolina State Hospital, The: Stories from Bull Street written by William Buchheit and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2020 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly two decades after it closed, the South Carolina State Hospital continues to hold a palpable mystique in Columbia and throughout the state. Founded in 1821 as the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum, it housed, fed and treated thousands of patients incapable of surviving on their own. The patient population in 1961 eclipsed 6,600, well above its listed capacity of 4,823, despite an operating budget that ranked forty-fifth out of the forty-eight states with such large public hospitals. By the mid-1990s, the patient population had fallen under 700, and the hospital had become a symbol of captivity, horror and chaos. Author William Buchheit details this history through the words and interviews of those who worked on the iconic campus.