(seq. 46)

SHORT HISTORY

McLean Hospital is the oldest hospital in New Eng-
land. A charter was obtained by the Massachusetts
General Hospital Corporation in 1811. Because of
the war of 1812 the building of a greatly needed hos-
pital for the mentally ill was delaed until 1816. On
October 6, 1818 the first patient was admitted to the
new hospital on Cobble Hill in Somerville where the
old Barrell Mansion served as the administration build-
ing for 77 years. For eight years it was known as the "Hospital."
In 1826 the Asylum was named in honor of John
McLean, a generous donor, whose portrait by Gilbert
Stuart hangs in the hospital Library. To this day, how-
ever, McLean is officially a "Division of the Massa-
chusetts General Hospital."

The hospital was moved to Waverly, its present lo-
cation, in 1803, when more room was needed and the
new railway line began to threaten the privacy and sol-
itude of the grounds. The original property was sold
to the Boston and Lowell Railroad, the money being
used to start the new, larger McLean Hospital, which
consists now of fifteen wards and six cottages, as well
as service buildings.

CARE AND TREATMENT

The hospital is a non-profit voluntary organization
dependent for support on private funds entirely.

Dr. Rufus Wyman, the first Director in his re-port
in 1822, gives a description of the treatment of in-
mates which, as far as it goes, is good today. Attend-
ants were carefully chosen and instructed to treat the
inmates "with kindness and gentleness." Occupation
and diversion were highly recommended and regularity
in meals, exercise, work and rest were considered to
have a "powerful effect in tranquilizing the mind."

In the eighties, under Dr. Edward Cowles, several
important steps were taken. "Inmates" became "pa-
tients" and were admitted on a voluntary basis: bars
were removed from windows and screens were substi-
tuted: visitors were admitted freely: and most impor-
tant of all in 1882, the McLean School of Training for
Nurses was established, the first school in the world
in a hospital for the metnally ill. Thus "attendants"
became "nurses," and McLean became in fact and
in name, McLean Hospital instead of McLean Asylum.

Scientific Research and the development of new
treatments are part of the McLean tradition. From
1900 to 1908, Otto Folin, who later became famous at
the Harvard Medical School as the "father of Bio-
Chemistry," worked here in what is now our Clinical
Laboratory. In 1946 a new building with the most
modern equipment for Scientific Research was com-
pleted. Today there is new hope for recovery for the
mentally ill. The 1949 Annual Report shows that of
291 patients dischard, 188 were recovered or im-
proved. 49 were without psychosis. New techniques
in shock treatment and surgery are being practised
here so that the rate of improvement for patients should
steadily increase.