CHAS. TV. PILGRIM, M. D. 45 



clianged from his Judean prototype of the first Christian 

 era. His environment was the cage and the alms-house, 

 he was shunned of men, hooted at ; 'crying and cutting 

 himself with stones,' happy only — like him in Judea — 

 when he found refuge in a tomb." In practice, the com- 

 mon law which permitted the confinement of a lunatic 

 anywhere, as a person dangerous to be at large was fol- 

 lowed, and the insane were therefore immured in jails, 

 poor-houses, out houses or in any place where cupidity 

 or convenience suggested. 



The first public attempt to provide care and treatment 

 for the insane in this country was made by Dr. Thomas 

 Bond of Philadelphia. With the encouragement and 

 assistance of Benjamin Franklin he succeeded in 1751 in 

 having a bill passed by the legislature appropriating two 

 thousand pounds '' for the purpose of encouraging the es- 

 tablishment of a hospital for the relief of the sick poor 

 and for the recejption and care of lunatics." A private 

 house was rented, and on the 11th day of February, 1752, 

 the first patients ever placed in such an institution in 

 the United States were admitted. This was the founda- 

 tion of what is now known as the Pennsylvania Hospital 

 for the insane, which was opened for the reception of 

 patients on the 23d of May, 1755. The first State insti- 

 tution in this country, however, was established at Wil- 

 liamsburgh, Va., in 1773. In 1791 a few cases of insanity 

 were cared for in the New York Hospital, and in 1807 

 a law was passed by which the overseers of the poor were 

 empowered to contract with the governors of the New 

 York Hospital for the care and maintenance of pauper 

 lunatics in that branch of the hospital which has since 

 been known as the Bloomingdale Asylum. It will be 

 noticed, however, that the admission of pauper lunatics 

 was optional with the governors of the hospital and 

 many who needed treatment most were unable to obtain 

 it. As a result, the jails and alms-houses in all the 



