1,927 Comments for Pilgrim State Hospital

''Lyric''

I meant you will not see this huge a capacity, I dont think they build them like this anymore, it is an old school type of design!

Beside's there is not to many building's with ''15,000'' people living in them anymore either, all under one care!

Old idea's were so much different than today..yet still had so much thought put into them!

Mortician's must have been very busy in this place, I am sure they made a lot of money and were highley respected for the time period as well!

I hate soda pop!!

As a young boy I always hated it..it was difficult for me to eat at a resturaunt due to this, I guess me being German mean's I have strong love for Lemonade..it was always my fave, Lemonade is a very German thing!

Soda is a true ''evil'' and is one of the worst thing's for the human body!

This just look's ''creepey'' becasue it too of course has decayed over time!! it now is like a mockerey of death!

Motts got it right with his statement!

Most people watch way to many movie's and take them as the truth!!!

GROW UP!!!!!

When you consider that in the United States one person dies every 12 seconds. I have a feeling that shots like these won't go away.

Without arguing. I would have to disagree. I do think however to see a Morgue shot, with as much equipement in them as what has been captured here will be more and more rare.

Death is cruel!!!!!

But none the less this is so interesting!!

There must be some wild storie's about thing's that went on in here, I would imagine back in the day frigoration would break down often!

I doubt they ever filled all them up as well..that much ''anticipation'' of death is very odd..you will never see anything like this again..EVER!!

I went to school there between 1969 -1972. I have great memories of the place... Good school and great education. scarey at times to live there. foreboding and all. Will always remember Ma Specht, our house mother. Saddens me to see the ruins...

Thanks Kate!

People fail to realize that the dead, whether from disease, old age or whatever, become tools that the living learn from.

We would have never learned the treatments for polio, TB, cancer, diabetes and mental illness (there are more but I won't list them all) if it weren't for the fact that people died.

The dead speak. They just have to be around the right people to hear them.
I don't mean ghosts either.
Ask any ME, and they will tell you all about what they have learned from those who are no longer living.

Not to be a clever clogs but I learned this translation a bit differently. We learned this to translate as Let idle talk be silenced. Let laughter be banished. Here is the place where death delights to succour life.

Also worth mentioning "Taceant colloquia.
Effugiat risus." is actually a shortening of the original line which reads Praesent aegroto taceant colloquia, effugiat risus, namque omnia dominatur morbus. Which translates into:In the presence of the sick, all conversation should cease, laughter should disappear, because disease reigns over all.

A variation of this phrase is to be found in anatomy suites and autopsy theatres. I myself have seen may different forms of this.

I understand the true meaning of the quote, but what is ironic is that it very well CAN be thought of as quote with bad intentions.

"This is the Place Where Death Delights To Help the Living."
The death helps the living part sounds like it could also mean that death helps the living...well..die. I can't really explain it any better than that, and I know it is not the TRUE meaning of the quote but I can understand where some of the freaked out people are coming from. It may not be simply because of the words involved and the location of the poem, it could have a double meaning if you think of it in that way. But don't all poems?

As you can see on the slabs it's open front and rear. On this side they would insert the cadaver from the lab where they did autopsy's etc. Then the funeral home would pick up the corpse on the other side, sort of a production procedure. The staff would recieve a tip for putting the body in the hearse. Then that persone flew away to the home for a face lift and a cosmetic makeover.

Neal - I've been enthralled by your commentary. Thank you for joining us and sharing some of your most valuable memories. It's always nice to read first-hand accounts. Thank you again.

Autumn Twin commented: "These are nice respectable homes these MDs had. I wouldn't want to be a child growing up on the campus of a large mental hospital, but they are nice homes." Actually, it was a fairly pleasant environment to grow up in, and as children of the hospital doctors we soon grew accustomed to being around mentally ill people. Back in the 1940's and early 1950's, before the discovery of really effective psychotropic drugs, the care that patients received at Pilgrim was pretty close to being State-of-the-Art Psychiatry at the time, and the buildings and grounds of every state hospital were very well maintained. Some of the milder schizophrenic patients even did work around the hospital grounds such as lawn mowing, pruning, gardening, or transplanting trees and shrubs (Pilgrim had a very large experimental nursery for many years), and some others worked in doctor's homes as cooks, nannies, or cleaning ladies. I still remember the various patients who worked in or near our home in the homes of my childhood friends as generally being very nice people, albeit a bit strange in their behavior on occasion.

The first television set bought by a doctor on the staff at Pilgrim was bought in 1947, I think, by a doctor who lived in a single family residence (actually bldg#61) on the PSH map. After we got home from school, most of us (preteen) children of the staff would ride our bikes over to this house and leave them in a heap on the front lawn. Then we'd all sit on the floor in front of the 16" black and white TV screenin the living room. We'd watch Howdy Doody for a while and sometimes stay for a bit of the western movie on Six Gun Playhouse before we had to go home for dinner.

When my dad was on the staff of PSH back in the 1940s and early 50's, this building was called the Staff House; unmarried doctors or married staff who had no children lived in small kitchenless apartments there. The building had its own kitchen staff and a very nice dining room. Every December there was a very nice Christmas party for all the medical staff and their families - it was especially fun for us kids. Just about everybody went, including some of the Jewish doctors who had survived interment in Hitler's Concentration camps. I still remember being able to get ice-cold bottles of Coca cola on hot summer days (for just a nickel) from an early-model vending machine in the back of the building, near the staff house kitchen.

Was wondering......Back in the 30's and 40's, did PSH employees live on site? And what explanation might someone have for a birth occurring at PSH? Was the facility capable of handling childbirths? Was this a common occurence?