Comments

Bucky Katt, while I appreciate your sentiments and totally get where you're coming from, I have to make a correction. The kids that were placed at Gaebler were not "mentally disabled". They were mentally ill. As someone who has struggled with mental illness her whole life and who has been placed in psychiatric institutions twice, I can't help but be offended by your choice of words. Yes, I'm mentally ill. But in no way am I disabled. I'm just as able and capable as the next girl. Mental illness is NOT a disability, and anyone who views it as such is just promoting the negative stigma that is/was attached to people like the kids who were sent to Gaebler.

Ok, getting off my soapbox now...

this reminds me of something on a slipknot press conference

Media: If im 555 and your 666, then who is 777?

Corey Taylor: George W. Bush

Not to my knowledge...

Had anyone tried to dig up the caskets?

notice the next door in the background to the right

this hall was part of a haunted house

I really like the color for some odd reason. Yellow's my favorite color. Maybe I am crazy? Maybe thats why I like it. But either way, being in such a tiny room for days on end would be insanity inducing either way.

it so sad I want to move away

I had a dream about this place... I'm from Nova Scotia and I haven't been anywhere near Philadelphia but I thought I would tell you about it.

I dreamed that I was exploring this place with a group of people. I had a really fancy camera. We wandered down this white cement hallway lined with doors. I went through one door, peered over a wall, and I realized it was a shower stall. It was dimly lit. Hanging from the shower head was a woman's torso. Her flesh was rotting from her body, and a chunk of her blonde hair was standing on end because of the blood. The floor was covered in coagulated blood. I took a picture, we all bolted, and we called the police.

And then some woman and "I" (I didn't look like me) were driving down a highway in a new black Jaguar convertable, lol.

It has been a while since I looked at this paticular gallery, but I thought I would check it out to see if the Byberry hallways matched the one in my dream... naw, the one in my dream was too new looking, but it was pretty freaky none the less.

If anyone is still interested in patient file related things, Geoffrey Reaume has written a book by the name of Remembrance of Patients Past, which uses case files from 1880-1920 or so to give a more humanized history of the Toronto State Hospital (with pseudonyms to protect peoples' identity). Its a bit hard to get a hold of, but a library could probably get a copy through interlibrary lone.

The other thing with actual case files (and I've done some research with 19th century ones) is that by and large they tend to be written by people who were doing so as part of their job, and in order to maintain concise records for future treatment. Consequently, even the most interesting things in them tend to be conveyed in a somewhat sparse style (sentence fragments, brief notes, etc) which often comes across as incredibly detached. That said, some of it *is* quite interesting (though nothing nearly as exciting as the "files" that show up in, say, Session 9), but there's also a marked difference between reading the files of people who have been dead over a century (and who may well have left no other record) and those of people who may even still be with us.

All that said, I can also read enough of the cards in this photo to see that there's nothing especially interesting written down on them.

Mr Adamson! Surely you didn't forget the words?..........ah I remember it well, the Christmas Review.

I worked on Ward 16 (16A to be exact) throughout the 1980's and heard all about 'The Enquiry' even then as it was still a topic of conversation. My memories of Whittingham are mostly good, a real family within a safe community.
It's sad to see it in disrepair and abandonment. I too remember the staff dances at the ballroom.......

This whole gallery is amazing Motts. I agree with Lynne in hoping that they salvaged as much as possible from the place before it was demolished. I would kill to be able to get my hands on some of this stuff. The workmanship that went into everything in the place is fantastic, and the idea that it was just abandoned and neglected and most likely largely destroyed, makes me want to cry.

It most possibly could be fat, seeing as fat, after a period of time, will turn into soap, Go google Female Soap Mummy, I saw a program on it. Its really an amazing shot, and Fat might be removed from a body if one needed to get to a certain organ or item or bone.

wow... this is a really great picture Motts.