Page 24 - Delaware Medical Journal - December 2016
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Often patients were allowed to leave the hospital, but they continued to be considered patients of the State Hospital. As long as they were under the care of the hospital, patients had no civil rights.
Dr. Tarumianz took visitors or guests on a tour of the hospital
everything ends.”
Other general hospitals in the vicinity of Wilmington opened short-term inpatient psychiatric units. Wilmington General, medium units that depended on private psychiatrists to treat – they offered placebos to patients. They presented a tablet
to give relief from pain or insomnia, although it was not any medicine. When patient right-to-know laws were enacted, the practice was stopped.
In the mid-20th century, the admission order to the State Hospital required the following:
1. Complete blood work to include checks for syphilis and gonorrhea.
2. Check of bromide levels, as it was a commonly used tranquilizer and the therapeutic level was very near the level that caused psychotic symptoms.
3. A spinal tap to rule out neuro-syphilis. This test was required for every patient, and it could be performed by a resident.
4. A complete physical.
then be transferred to the appropriate treatment unit. Treatment would last a minimum of three weeks. After the initial very infrequently. When a patient left the hospital, he would receive a special note. Often patients were allowed to leave
the hospital, but they continued to be considered patients of the State Hospital. As long as they were under the care of the hospital, patients had no civil rights.
Other institutions under the management of the Delaware State Hospital were the Governor Bacon Health Center for
adolescents, and the Stockley Center in Sussex County for children with birth defects.
Before 1952, Delaware State Hospital was just like any similar hospital around the globe. In those years, the nursing stations windows were about to come down. Pharmacotherapy would soon replace previous treatments, including insulin comas, hydrotherapy, and sleep therapy (sometimes achieved with the use of opium).
The introduction of chlorpromazine (brand name Thorazine in
was held in Philadelphia. This symposium announced that
goal had been reached: Psychiatry was seen as an inseparable
psychology will someday be based on an organic structure.”
He was right.
as many from Canada, attended. All of them wanted to present papers on progress and improvements as a result of Thorazine. Symposium organizers asked three researchers to present formal Will Do to Mental Illness,” was very popular and gained worldwide renown. Among other things, the paper explained that as psychiatric units became quiet and manageable,
nurses would be able to join the therapeutic team. As patients improved, activity therapy staff would be needed.
Dr. Mesrop Tarumianz, Superintendent of the Delaware State
expressed my viewpoints in regard to the accomplishments in mental hospitals through this drug. I have also seen the reaction
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Del Med J | December 2016 | Vol. 88 | No. 12
