The hospital is built of brick, and consists of a centre house of 64 feet in front, elevated above all the adjoining buildings, and projecting beyond them a proper distance —two wings and two flanking wards, making in the whole, a front of 278 feet. Detached from the hospital at a con venient distance, is a separate building for venereal pa tients. The hospital contains an anatomical museum of wax preparations, casts, and preservations in spirits, and a library of upwards of 5000 of choice and costly works, on medicine and philosophy, considered the most exten sive and valuable on those subjects in the United States. This is supported and enlarged by a fund of about 500 dollars per annum, arising from the pay of the students who attend the practice of the house. In 1801, by au thority of an act of the legislature, a lying-in apartment for married women was added to the hospital.
Such of the sick or lunatics as have the means, pay in proportion to their ahility for their board and nursing, and many poor are admitted gratis, as the funds of the in stitution will support. Application for admission must be made to two managers and two physicians, who meet for the purpose in the hospital twice a week, and, in the in tervals between their sessions, to the monthly physicians and an attending manager—excepting in cases of wounds or recent fractures, received in the neighbourhood of the city, when the patient may be brought to the hospital at any time of the day or night, within 24 hours after the occurrence of the accident, and receive the requisite me dical attendance, free of expense.
From April 1821, to April 1822, 697 patients have par taken of the benefits of the institution. Of this number, 158 were lunatics, and the others, cases of bodily disease. From April 1822, to April 1823, there were 843 patients, 155 of whom were lunatics, and 422 were poor, and sup ported at the expense of the institution. From April 1823, to April 1824, there were 900 patients, 465 of whom were poor, and supported at the expense of the in stitution.
There is, perhaps, no institution where more attention is paid to cleanliness and the general comfort of the un happy sufferers. The managers are indefatigable in their attention to the interests of the establishment, and the extension and increase of its usefulness and charities. The medical attendants are men of superior abilities, and the steward, nurses, and caretakers, well qualified for the duties of their office.
Friends' Asylum for the Relief of persons deprived of the use of their Reason.—Although the building is not
within the limits of Philadelphia, yet, as the society was formed in the city, and continues to meet there, it may be proper to give a brief notice of it in this article.
The design of this institution was to endeavour to sub stitute, as far as practicable, a mild, humane, and yet firm treatment of the unhappy objects of its care, for the more rigid and severe means which have been too gene rally adopted. Much more reliance is placed on restrain ing the violence of the patient, by kind and soothing per suasion, and appeals to the remaining portion of reason which most lunatics possess, and an attempt to arrest and fix this to a definite point, than in the use of chains and other modes of producing bodily restraint, which rather tend to irritate and inflame the individual, than to produce a melioration of his mental condition. In pursuance of the views of the society, every care was taken in the erec tion of the building to render it light, airy, and in all re spects, as little resembling a place of confinement as pos sible. In place of the bars commonly used, the sash of the windows are double, the one permanent, and the other capable of being raised, formed of cast iron painted white, so as to be undistinguishable from those of a com mon window. The locks of the cells are of a peculiar construction, and work without noise. No chains are used, and the only instruments of confinement are strong leather straps attached to the beds—these, however, are rarely em ployed. The house, which was built in 1816, is beautifully situated five miles from the city, and one mile from the village of Frankford. It consists of a stone centre build ing of 60 feet square, with two wings, each 100 by 20 feet, containing 20 cells 10 feet square. In front of the house is a fine lawn, and back a vegetable and flower garden, and yards for the use of the convalescents ; and at a small distance from the building is a wood containing an elegant serpentine walk of near a mile in length. The cost of erection was near 50,000 dollars, which was raised by contributions from members of the society of Friends. The treatment before described has been eminently suc cessful and encouraging ; a large proportion of the pa tients, including some who had for years been under the care of other hospitals, and were considered as incurable, have been restored to the use of their reason. The number of patients has rarely exceeded 60.