Abandoned Asylums of Connecticut by L.F. Blanchard & Tammy Rebello

Author:L.F. Blanchard & Tammy Rebello
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: unknown
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Published: 2016-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Three

FAIRFIELD HILLS HOSPITAL

41°24’N 73°14’W

THE STORY OF THE LOBOTOMY

Fairfield Hills State Hospital, also called Fairfield Hills and designed by architect Walter P. Crabtree, was located in Newtown, Connecticut. The main campus of 16 buildings sat on 100 acres of land and lent itself to a “campus-like” feel. A network of circular roads linked the buildings as well as an underground network of tunnels, used for travel between the buildings in poor weather.

It was the state’s third psychiatric hospital, owned and operated by the State of Connecticut Department of Mental Health. Built in an effort to ease overcrowding, it opened in 1931.

A lobotomy is a general category of several different operations intended to damage brain tissue with the intent to treat different types of mental illness. Despite its controversial reputation as barbarism, they were widely used for decades.

The procedure, which has also been referred to as a leucotomy, or leukotomy, is a neurological operation intended to sever the connections in the brain’s prefrontal lobe. The thinking of the time was that doctors could fix the neurological connections between the frontal lobe and the rest of the brain, stopping the undesirable behaviors.

Lobotomies were commonly used for the treatment of schizophrenia, manic depression, panic disorder, mania, and bipolar disorder. Unfortunately, these operations came at a high cost, with adverse side effects such as incontinence, vomiting, eating disorders, lethargy, apathy, epilepsy, loss of motor function, loss of cognitive abilities, paralysis, blunting of personality and emotion, and death.

The prefrontal lobotomy was developed in 1935 by Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz. In 1949, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which caused the family and friends of those on whom he performed the procedure to protest and call for the prize to be rescinded. The perceived barbarism of the procedure spurred the expostulation, and the histories of many of his patients show they suffered permanent brain damage and marked changes to their personalities, but the remonstrators’ request was denied.

Prior to the release of antipsychotic and antidepressant medications, lobotomies were used to treat different types of mental illness. These were considered viable options for treatment. The asylums of that time were more of a method of containment than treatment.

Patients held in these facilities were often mistreated and/or neglected. Overcrowding, extremely high patient-to-employee ratio, and lack of understanding and training contributed to the deplorable conditions.

While the use of lobotomies has not completely ceased, they are now very rare. If they are performed, it is as a last resort to all other methods of treatment.

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