3,181 Comments Posted by Lynne

P.S. This first shot kicks butt! :-)

YES! New pix! I am very happy! [Sitting back with large Diet Coke and some popcorn with extra salt]

So I go check out one of the older buildings on ground this week, and what do I find? A room with two wooden steps built up to the window so's you can leave the building and get out onto the fire escape. =8-o

OK, silk, you made me do my homework. :-) I went over to several of the older buildings this week (built 1912 and 1914) and found the rooms with the radiators on the ceilings. Turns out that the only rooms that had radiators up high were the shower rooms. Everywhere else the radiators were on the floor and covered with added on screen protectors like we see at many of the sites here. I asked the director of Quality Assurance and he said that this was a building code when they used to use radiators (we have steam heat now but it is routed differently so that the floors are heated directly - don't ask me - I don't know what that means or how it works). He said any room with a bathtub or shower had to have the radiator up high - either toward the ceiling or actually on the ceiling. I will try to get back to one of the buildings in the next several weeks and take a few pix of the radiators built into the ceiling. They are built so they can be placed flush with the ceiling and they are MOST kewl. :-)

Well, ya know, Barbara, I don't really know. It's just something I think we have seen so many times we forget that it is kinda odd. I think originally it was so you could have something small enough to grab onto quickly and you could put your hands on each side and hang on for dear life while puking your guts out, but I'll admit, the few times I have felt like that, the LAST thing I wanted was to continue holding onto anything that was going to stay that close to me - a bucket seemed like a MUCH nicer idea. 8`-) However, if you are bedridden, it's true that it's difficult to hoist a bucket up that quickly. I still find it hard to believe that most people can keep much of anything contained in that feeble little basin. It's not been my experience that they have been too terribly helpful. I still end up cleaning a LOT of stuff up. [Insert a weird screwed up grin right about here]

They also use them for toothbrushing if you have to stay in bed for a whiles, so's you can spit out the water when you brush your teeth.

Also, as gross as this sounds, there are times when you really kinda have to know just exactly how much someone threw up (hooray for input-output charts, eh, anna?), so I am happy to say that many (most?) of them are handily marked with both American and metric measurements for your measuring ease. [feeble grin - please quit retching, y'all, you think we LIKE to clean up puke?]

http://www.buyemp.com/dept.asp?dept_id=1071904
http://www.scooterlink.com/product_details.cfm?product_id=1202&catagory_id=627
http://www.siamintm.com/G-E.htm

P.S. "anna's arch-nemesis" - hee hee hee!!!!! When you have to clean that stuff up it's true - it quickly DOES become your arch-nemesis!!!! 8`-)

It's OK. I have sent their MOTHERS to time out. And WITHOUT their suppers. >:-(

Actually, the item pictured above is not a Utica crib. That is just a large standard hospital crib. A Utica crib (named for the place it was designed - the "New York State Lunatic Asylum at Utica") was designed in the 1880s. It was apparently designed for use with manic, agitated patients who needed rest and could not/would stay in their beds to recover. As with most things, it was purportedly developed with the best of intentions, since there were few other options except chains and dungeons, but frankly, I'd take the chains or dungeons over a Utica crib ANY day. [shakes head, sweats, and trembles at the thought]

Even assuming this was the reason it was initially designed, it quickly became seen as an effective way to keep violent or manic patients restrained without using chains, and that was a good PR ploy back then. Because the main way (only way?) of containing people with mental illness up until then had been to chain them to the wall or bed, hospitals fought to look more humane and compassionate, and wanted alternatives to chaining people up. That's where the straightjackets came from. The hospitals were very proud that they could use a straightjacket on a patient, which kept them from hurting themselves and others, yet many still had the freedom to walk around. Hospitals with 1/2 their clientele in straightjackets called themselves "restraint-free", and I suppose compared with chaining them to the wall it IS a step up. Sort of . . . kinda sorta . . .

http://www.uihealthcare.com/dep...stik/utica.html
http://www.indiana.edu/%7Emedhist/dwyer.htm

Also, check out the interesting comments about the Utica crib here:
http://www.omh.state.ny.us/omh...archive.htm

My dear Radical Ed, I believe that ANY spot would be a great spot for you to kick back and enjoy a beer! 8`-)

Boy, you are right - makes me think of those 1950s "B" grade movies of all the scientists doing strange things with x-rays and radiation and giant mutant spiders . . . .

That has got to be one of the most beautiful soap dispensers I have ever seen! This is one for my personal gallery!

Absolutely feckin' marvelous!

I love it! It's like the world is spinning around rapidly and making the stars blurry!

Now this particular angle would be scary as hell in infra-red . . . .

It is pulling back from you, trying to escape being captured on film.

But if you lighten the picture by highlighting it, the detail is incredible! You can see the ivy growing up and over the white picket fence and up the sides of the building, you see the individual leaves on the trees, you can see all the many boarded up windows, you can see the great detail in the masonry around the windows, and you can see the spidery fire escape. Well done!

Agreed, Kassie. It looks as if the hospital was trying to accomodate you by bending to fit in the frame. :-)