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         AN  APPEAL

             TO THE

CITIZENS OF PENNSYLVANIA

           FOR MEANS TO

   PEOVIDE ADDITIONAL ACCOMMODATIONS

              FOR

      THE  INSANE.
        PHILADELPHIA:
T. K. AND P. G. COLLINS, PRINTERS.
            1854.
• 
 
APPEAL.
  The city of Philadelphia has long enjoyed
the  proud  distinction  of having, by  the
efforts of its private citizens, originated,  and
since supported, the  first  institution for the
care and treatment of the insane in America.
It has aimed, too, at all times to be foremost
among  those  who  have  been laboring to
ameliorate the condition of this unfortunate
class of our fellow-beings, and has ever been
ready to provide the means for whatever im-
provements benevolence  and  science have
shown to be worthy of  adoption.   The  first
movements in this great work were made in
1750, when  a  number  of  the  benevolent
citizens of Philadelphia—witnessing the de- 
4
plorable  condition of the insane, and of the
sick poor of the Province—associated them-
selves  together for the  establishment  of a
hospital  for their  relief.   A charter was
promptly granted  by the Provincial Assem-
bly, and the first patient  was  admitted in
1752.   Thus  originated the Pennsylvania
Hospital, which has ever since been  dispens-
ing its blessings among the afflicted in every
section of the State.
  From the opening of the  Hospital, till the
present time, it has received and  treated in
its wards, no less  than 58,600 patients, and
of these 33,900 were  poor  people,  who  re-
ceived every care  and attention without ex-
pense  or charge of any kind.  All  this has
been  effected without assistance from city,
county, or State, with the  exception of cer-
tain appropriations made by the Provincial
Assembly, and by the State Legislature  to-
wards the  close  of  the last century, and
which were expended in the erection of the 
5
original buildings in the city of Philadel-
phia.   All contributions to the general fund
of the Hospital are securely invested, and
the entire income  of the Institution from
this  source, is devoted to the relief of the
indigent sick and insane.
   The number of patients commonly under
care in the two branches of the Pennsylvania
Hospital  is about 385,  and  of  these  about
230 are insane, and 157 free patients.
   The late alterations and improvements in
the Hospital in the city have so extended
the  accommodations of that well  known
charity, that fifty more sick  patients could
be well  cared for  in that building, if the
funds of the Institution permitted their  re-
ception.
   The care  of the insane, always a promi-
nent object with the founders of the Penn-
sylvania  Hospital,  has received a liberal
share  of  attention from their successors in
every period of the  history  of  the Institu-
                     1* 
6
tion.   From 1752 till 1841, the insane were
received and  treated in a  portion  of the
buildings in the city of Philadelphia; but
long  before the  last-named period, those
connected   with  the  Institution  became
thoroughly  convinced,  that the  arrange-
ments then existing—liberal as they were,
for the period when  they were provided—
did not comport with the character of Phila-
delphia for liberality and. active benevolence,
or with the spirit of the age, nor did  they
satisfy  the  wants of an enlightened  com-
munity.
  The wise foresight  of  the  early managers
of the Hospital, in securing the vacant  lots,
then surrounding the Hospital  in the  city,
and  the careful  husbanding  of their re-
sources, ultimately enabled  their successors
to carry out in the most liberal manner,  their
long  cherished  object,   of  providing  in  a
country location, a new  Institution for the
insane, replete with every desirable improve- 
7
ment, and without any call for aid from their
benevolent fellow-citizens.  "The Pennsyl-
vania  Hospital for the Insane,"  two
miles west of the River Schuylkill, the re-
sult of these efforts, may be referred to with
entire confidence as  an honor to the State,
and a blessing to the whole community.
   Since its opening,  in 1841, 2,445  insane
patients have been received  and treated in
its wards, and of these 1,699 have been dis-
charged entirely cured, or in various states
of  improvement, while a large number'of
others have been enabled  to enjoy comforts
in life, to which they had long been strangers.
Its advantages  have  been restricted to no
class of society,  for among  its cases have
been  numerous individuals  endowed with
the brightest genius, having  the  most culti-
vated intellects, or possessing the most abun-
dant wealth, as well as those who have  had
to bear the double affliction of sickness  and
poverty.   Of the  whole number admitted, 
8
610  were  received  and  treated  without
charge of any kind, and  a large number  of
others enjoyed the benefits of the Institution
at rates considerably below the actual cost of
their support.
  The whole number of insane treated  in
the Pennsylvania Hospital, since its opening
in 1752, is 6,702.
  The present  buildings  of  the  Pennsyl-
vania Hospital for the Insane are intended
for the accommodation of 220 patients, 110
of each sex, this number being regarded by
the best authorities, as about as large as is
desirable in the  highest class of curative in-
stitutions for the insane.   For more than a
year, this number has been almost constantly
exceeded, the wards in nearly every part of
the house, have been steadily crowded, and
a large  number of  applicants  have, from
painful necessity, been refused admission.
  Could those to whom this appeal is ad-
dressed listen to the urgent entreaties almost 
9
daily  made  for  accommodations  which do
not exist, could  they know the  diminished
chances of  cure, which become  the lot of
many of the insane from the want of proper
and prompt treatment, or witness  the  dis-
tress and sorrow which whole families suffer
in consequence, it is not too much to believe,
that all that is required to  remove this state
of things, would be as cheerfully as it would
be  promptly contributed by the  citizens of
Philadelphia.
   Insanity is a disease that seems to be of
growing frequency in the community, but
whether this be so or not, the unexampled
increase of our population is of itself enough
to  account  for the urgent necessity  which
exists for greatly extended provision for its
treatment.  One of the most important steps
made towards securing a proper appreciation
of  this malady,  and  a successful mode of
treatment, was the general conviction among
enlightened men of what  is an  undoubted 
10
truth, that  insanity, a functional disorder of
the brain, is to be regarded in the same cate-
gory as the diseases  of other organs, that
there  is  no more reproach connected with
one than the others, and that it is as curable,
if  properly treated, as many other maladies.
It  is no less certain that it is a disease from
which none can claim exemption, for it spares
neither  age, sex, nor rank, and all classes
who suffer from it require  nearly the same
kind of  treatment.  Although in  these re-
spects resembling other diseases, it has, ne-
vertheless,  striking peculiarities, and among
these, one  of the most important is that
which  all experience clearly proves, that it
is  commonly best managed among strangers,
and rarely with success except in institutions
specially arranged  for  its  treatment.   The
aid of the charitable may provide all that is
requisite for the poorest, when suffering from
ordinary sickness, at  their  own homes,  but
when insanity strikes down a  member" of a 
11
family, it is one of the  most painful of its
attendants, that  all the resources of wealth,
all the efforts of  skill, and all the devoted
attentions of the tenderest affection so com-
monly fail  to  afford  relief  to the  sufferer
while at  his own home.
  This appeal then to the benevolence and
liberality of Philadelphians and Pennsylva-
nians,  is not merely  an  ordinary  call for
charity to relieve  the  indigent and to miti-
gate the sufferings of the unfortunate. While
it embraces all these in its aims, it goes much
further,  and asks  from this community that
it will secure  itself against a contingency,
which, if not now actually existing, is rapidly
approaching, when our citizens—no matter
how urgent may  be the case, or how vitally
important the provision—can feel no security
that any one of them can rely  with certainty
upon finding in our own institutions proper
accommodations for the treatment and care
of  those who are  suffering under one of the 
12
most lamentable diseases to which humanity
is exposed.  The facts are simply  these—
the present institutions are more than full,
the demands for admission are steadily in-
creasing, and  additional buildings must be
promptly provided, or great loss  and suffer-
ing must soon result to the community.
  To obviate all these difficulties, and to
provide the best kind of accommodations, on
a scale which it is believed will be sufficient
for  many  years, a plan has recently been
proposed by the Physician of  the Pennsyl-
vania Hospital for the Insane, after a careful
study of the whole subject, which meets the
entire approbation of this Board, which they
most cordially commend to the sympathies
of the  whole community, and  to  carry out
which thoroughly, they now make this earn-
est  appeal  to  their fellow-citizens.  Imme-
diately on  the west of the present pleasure-
grounds  of the  Institution just referred to,
and belonging to it, are seventy acres of land 
13
admirably situated, and  possessing extraor-
dinary advantages  for the intended  object.
On these grounds it  is proposed to erect a
new Hospital,  replete  with  every modern
improvement and convenience, for about 200
male patients, and to give up  the whole  of
the present buildings to females.  Such an
arrangement, it is believed, will possess im-
portant advantages, and once fairly in opera-
tion, there is every reason  to believe, that
while  furnishing  accommodations  of the
highest order and of rare excellence, to those
who wish them, will also minister largely to
the comfort and welfare of the indigent and
those  in  moderate circumstances.  Carried
out as proposed, with all the knowledge de-
rived from long experience, this  plan would
give to Philadelphia a provision  for the in-
sane, certainly unsurpassed,  if equalled,  in
any portion of the world.
   To  effect all that is  desired, which is no
more  than seems  to be  imperatively  de-
     2 
14
 manded even now, will require an expendi-
 ture of $250,000, and for this sum we appeal
 to the benevolent in a community, now num-
 bering half a million of souls, and which has
 never yet allowed an object so deserving and
 so  urgently needed, to fail from the want of
 a generous and liberal support.
   An arrangement  nearly similar  is now
 projected by the liberal people  of  Boston,
 and, judging from all their antecedents, will
 soon be carried into effect.  A comparatively
 limited number of the citizens of New York
 have just contributed a sum for the improve-
 ment of their hospitals, nearly as large as
 that proposed for our purposes, and  a  single
 individual, in another neighboring city, has
 devoted to a similar  object from his private
 fortune, more than will be required to carry
 out our plans to completion.   Philadelphia
 so long  and  so justly distinguished for  her
judicious liberality and enlightened  benevo-       -1
 lence, certainly can never falter while such a 
15
want  exists in her midst, or be willing to
feel that she  has  been distanced in such a
work by any of her neighbors.
  AVe appeal to Philadelphians specially, but
also to all  Pennsylvanians, as interested in
the call.  The Pennsylvania Hospital receives
its patients, without preference, from every
section  of  the State, and all the populous
counties around Philadelphia depend upon
it, for these accommodations, almost as much
as the city in  which it is located.
  The best guarantee that can be given for
the faithful manner in which any trust  con-
fided to  the Pennsylvania Hospital will be
executed, is a reference to the whole history
of that institution from its foundation, more
than  a century ago.
   To commemorate  the  names  of those to
whom this community must ever feel in-
debted  for this new Hospital, it is proposed
that some  durable  recognition shall be made
of all who contribute to  the work, and that 
16
one of the ten wards into which it will be
divided, shall bear the name of each  donor
to the amount of $10,000, while $5,000 shall
be considered as forever securing a free bed
to the Institution, which shall be named after
the giver of that amount, and which shall be
kept occupied  by such recent cases  of in-
sanity, as the officers of the Institution may
consider most  likely to be restored, and best
calculated to extend  the benefits of the Hos-
pital.   Every such bed can thus be made to
restore to health one or two insane in every
year it shall exist, and who could not  other-
wise be provided for.   The payment  of no
contribution  will  be asked,  until  at least
$150,000 shall have been subscribed.
  This appeal is  made  by the  undersigned,
comprising the Board of Managers of the
Pennsylvania  Hospital,  on  behalf of  that
portion of our afflicted fellow-men, who can
in no other mode than that  suggested, find
the proper means  of relief.   We ask the 
17
means to carry out this imperatively needed
object, from our own fellow-citizens of Penn-
sylvania, for it is solely for their benefit that
it is designed.  We ask it to save the men-
tally sick from neglect and cruel exposure,
and from being doomed to a  hopeless ma-
lady ; to spare their families a  load  of grief
and sorrow, often too deep for  utterance; to
save the community from the acts  of irre-
sponsible individuals, and  the public trea-
sury from the care of incurables, who under
proper  treatment would have been useful
citizens.  We ask  this,  from the  parents,
children, husbands, wives, or friends of those,
who,  should  this dire calamity ever over-
take them, must look  principally to this In-
stitution for relief.  We ask them  to take
this matter home  to their own serious con-
sideration;  to  ponder  the  facts we have
briefly stated, and then to do  for others, as
they would have others do for them—to give
liberally as  their means are  abundant,  so 
18
that while they may enjoy the pleasant re-
flection that they have, as  cheerful givers,
rendered important aid to one of the noblest
and  most  unselfish works—the New Hos-
pital for  the Insane may be completed so
promptly,  as  to  meet the  wants  of  the
afflicted, and in a manner so liberal,  as to
realize  every expectation of an enlightened
community.

 LAWRENCE LEWIS, No. 345 Chestnut Street.
 GEORGE STEWARDSON, No. 90 Arch Street.
 WILLIAM B. FLING, West Rittenhouse Square.
 FREDERICK BROWN, Chestnut and 5th Streets.
 JAMES  R. GREEVES, Chestnut and 17th Streets.
 JACOB G. MORRIS, N. W. cor. Spruce and 9th Sts.
 MORDECAI L. DAWSON, Spruce St. West of Broad.
 CLEMENT C. BIDDLE, Spruce Street West of 12th.
 JOHN FARNUM, No. 257 Arch Street.
 MORDECAI D. LEWIS, No. 328 Chestnut Street.
 WILLIAM BIDDLE, N. W.  cor. Arch and 11th Sts.
 JOHN M. WHITALL, No. 101 Filbert Street.
  Philadelphia: May 1, 1854. 
19
  Contributions will be received by either
of the above-named Managers, by John T.
Lewis, Treasurer, No. 135 South  Front St.,
Philadelphia,  or  by Dr. Thomas  S. Kirk-
bride, at the Pennsylvania Hospital for the
Insane.

  Legacies intended to promote the objects
of this appeal should be given in the corpo-
rate  name  of the Institution, viz.  to  "The
Contributors to the Pennsylvania Hos-
pital," and should specify that they are to
be devoted to extending and improving the
accommodations for the Insane. 
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