An Account of the Events Surrounding the Origin of Friends Hospital &
A Brief Description of The Early Years of Friends Asylum 1817-1820

By Kim Van Atta
In collaboration with
David S. Roby, M.D. and R. Ross Roby, M.D.

Published by Friends Hospital
Printed by The Winchell Company
1980
Reprinted 1988

IN 1813, Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence, Surgeon-General of the Continental Armies, head of the prestigious Pennsylvania Hospital, and accepted today as the father of American psychiatry, expressed his concern for the "slender and inadequate means that have been employed for ameliorating the condition of mad people" and lamented the "slow progress of humanity in its efforts to relieve them." "For many centuries," Dr. Rush wrote, "They have been treated like criminals, or shunned like beasts of prey; or if visited, it has been only for the purpose of inhumane curiosity and amusement."

IN that same year, ground was broken in the town of Frankford, Pennsylvania, a few miles outside of Philadelphia, for an institution that would provide an answer to many of Dr. Rush’s concerns. Erected by a small group of Quakers, and known simply as the Friends Asylum, it was one of the earliest hospitals in the United States devoted exclusively to the humane care and treatment of the insane.

Of the Early concern shown for the Insane by the Quakers, and a description of their Ministry.

QUAKERS had long been interested in the plight of the mentally ill. As early as 1671, George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends, had suggested that "frends doe seeke some place convenient…wherein they may put any person that may be distracted or troubled in minde." And two years later a rudimentary asylum was established in London with a physician in charge of the inmates. Although this institution seems not to have survived more than a few years, the Quakers demonstrated quite clearly that they recognized insanity as a medical problem to be dealt with by those trained in the medical profession. In the colonial city of Philadelphia, The Quaker Monthly Meeting proposed, in 1709, the building of Pennsylvania Hospital. A portion of this institution, finally completed in 1757, was to house the insane. But the Quaker influence in its management waned and for the next half-century little further was done to ease the plight of these "afflicted souls."

The Quakers of Pennsylvania, strong, active, independent, and fiercely stubborn, were hit hard by the Revolutionary War. Stripped of political power and prestige by their refusal to participate in the fighting, the Quakers responded with an internal reformation. Feeling that the difficulties of the War years were a direct indication of the extent to which they had become corrupted by involving themselves in worldly affairs, or "creaturely activity," the Quakers determined to withdraw from the outside world as much as possible and to rededicate themselves to the old truths. As the world turned against them they simply turned inward, reaffirming the ideals of George Fox by a "revival of ancient simplicity in plainness of apparel, household furniture, the education of youth, and a due and wakeful attendance of our religious meetings." Schools were to be cleared of outside influences, opposition to excessive dealings with anyone not of the Society of Friends increased, and a general air of strict adherence to Quaker principles prevailed.

The leaders of this conservative tide were the many Quaker ministers who traveled widely and visited meetings in every part of the country urging worshippers to return to the old ways. These ministers were by nature an unusual group of men and women. They labored under an essential contradiction of Quakerism as it was being practiced in the eighteenth century – acting as the leaders of a group which disdained the idea of leadership; or, more accurately, felt that each member was responsible for his own spiritual progress with as little outside assistance as possible.

The most crucial portion of every meeting, therefore, was the period of silence; the time during which each member sought to hear God’s will as it manifested itself in his heart. The danger of disturbing this silence was so great that those who did speak were expected to have been definitely called of God and to be spiritually equipped for this service. Thus, those who spoke acceptably in their respective meetings were considered ministers, and these men and women describe this need to speak in public as an "awful compulsion." Fear was the predominant emotion in accepting the call to the ministry and there is no record of Quaker parents ever hoping that their sons and daughters would join this "unnatural calling." And yet it was the responsibility of those ministers to guide their fellow Quakers; to strengthen and preserve Quakerism in the young country. And by all accounts they accomplished this task with a stubborn determination that was as unyielding as it was inspired.

In which Thomas Scattergood is introduced and his Character described.

One of the strangest of this rather strange group of people was Thomas Scattergood, the founding father of Friends Hospital, a tanner by profession and a minister by compulsion. In his youth Scattergood was fond of sailing and had spent every spare moment, even Meeting days, with friends on the Delaware River. But a day came when he realized the "enormity of his sin" and, partially to atone for this and other sins, he became a minister in 1781 at the age of 33. Even among his contemporaries he was known as a "mournful prophet." Numerous accounts, including his own, describe Scattergood as being "in deaths oft," "brought very low", and drinking "of that bitter cup which was drunk in its fullness by his lord and Savior." After his death his Monthly Meeting said of him that "being sensible of his various infirmities, he was frequently in inward retirement." Thomas Scattergood was not a happy man. As he traveled throughout the country, his depression only rarely lifting, he would often say to the meetings he visited that "the sound of the distress which is coming upon you is in my ears, and I cannot leave you until it has fulfilled its commission, spent its fury and passed by." But the calamity never came and in 1794 he asked for permission to visit Europe, where he remained for the next six years.

One important side effect of the Revolutionary War for American and the Quakers, was later to have a profound influence on the history of psychiatry. While the enmity between the Americans and the English, which lasted for many years, effectively stopped extensive travel between these two countries, the Quakers in both countries remained in close communications. Thus Thomas Scattergood was able to be in England at the turn of the century and see for himself the results of the English experiments in the treatment of the mentally ill.

While in York, England, Scattergood met William Tuke, a prosperous tea merchant, and founder of The Retreat. Tuke described to Scattergood the origins of this unusual institution; how, in 1790, a woman named Hannah Mills, owning to her insanity, was placed in the local asylum which ostensibly existed for the purpose of treating the insane. A few weeks later she was dead. No visitors had been permitted to inspect the asylum to ascertain the cause of her death and even while she was confined her family and friends were not allowed to see her on the grounds that she was not in a suitable condition to be seen by "strangers."

William Tuke, and others, were shaken by this incident and suggested that the Quaker community in York build and establishment to care for their own mentally ill. Tuke had difficulty persuading members of the York Monthly Meeting to contribute money for the undertaking, and, as a result, he spent two years issuing explanatory statements describing the fundamental principles of the proposed institution. The principles William Tuke formulated during those years were to become the essence of "moral treatment," a revolutionary concept in the treatment of the mentally ill.

A Description of The Retreat and a visit by Thomas Scattergood

WHEN The Retreat opened in 1796, it was very difficult from the institutions which then existed. The patients were treated humanely; corporal punishments, chains, and most mechanical restraints were eliminated. IN their place was substituted fresh air, gardening, warm baths, and genuinely empathic concern. William Tuke, his son Henry, and his grandson, Samuel, were tireless in their efforts to promote the idea of moral treatment and with The Retreat as their showcase, they took many visitors on inspection tours.

One such visitor was the gloomy Thomas Scattergood, who remarked in his journal: "we got most of them (the patients) together, and after we had sat a little in quiet, and I had vented a few tears, I was engaged in supplication." Scattergood’s visit was brief and, although he spent much time in York, he was far more interested in the new Quaker school which had been built in that community (also with William Tuke’s moral and financial support) and he returned to The Retreat only once before leaving for Philadelphia in 1800.

It is difficult to say what effect these visits had on Scattergood. That he was affected is amply demonstrated by subsequent events, but the care of the insane was not his primary concern. Upon his return to America he became interested in the new school for Quaker children at Westtown, Pennsylvania, and spent much of his time there, assisting in every aspect of its affairs. Perhaps he felt a little too close to the internal suffering of the patients in The Retreat. His empathy for those people was obviously great, owing to his own recurring bouts with depression. One contemporary described this empathy as born of "seasons of conflict and suffering" which, "Painful as they might be at the time, were blessed to him, as a means of preparing him…to minister more effectively to the suffering and oppressed seed of God." For the insane, his prophecy of "the distress coming upon you" had already become manifest.

In 1808, on one of his frequent trips through Pennsylvania, Scattergood stopped to spend the night at a Friend’s house. There he discovered that the wife of his host was severely depressed and Scattergood, extremely sympathetic to her plight, spoke with the woman. At the ensuing Yearly Meeting she approached Scattergood and greeted him with great excitement and affection. He was puzzled, for he didn’t recognize the woman and couldn’t understand the reason for her greeting. "Why doesn’t thee know me"?" she said, "I am the Friend that through thy instrumentality was raised right up out of the earth." Scattergood was being given credit for the cure.

Proposals for the Establishment of an Asylum in Philadelphia

"In 1811, the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting was presented with proposals from both the Burlington and Western Quarterly Meetings that an asylum be established "for such of our members as may be deprived of the use of their reason." The Meeting was inclined to accept the proposal and, in 1812, formed a committee to raise the necessary funds and to decide on the best manner of implementation."

There are a number of reasons for the ease of the plan’s acceptance, not the least of which was the lack of Quaker control over the Pennsylvania Hospital, which, despite the attempts of Benjamin Rush to implement needed reforms, was not noted as yet for any special concern shown to the mentally ill. The prevalent view of insanity, espoused by a large majority of the religious leaders of this period, taught that insanity was a necessary evil and an integral part of the social hierarchy. Therefore, the need to cure the insane was seen as not only an impossible task, but also essentially unnecessary (some going so far as to say that the care of the poor and the insane allowed the rich to dispose of their excess funds in a morally uplifting way). And thus Pennsylvania Hospital’s primary reason for taking in these "unfortunates" was similar to that of the other institutions of that time; it was the Hospital’s responsibility to keep the insane off the streets where they tended to ""wander about to the terror of their neighbors."

The Quaker view of Insanity

FOR the Quakers, however, it was very necessary to find a cure for the mentally ill, due to one of the central tenets of that Society. IF it is sincerely believed that in every man there is a "divine principle" and nothing, be it slavery, poverty, or insanity, should prevent that man from obeying that principle, then insanity becomes merely another obstacle to be removed from the road to inward enlightenment and, like slavery and poverty, curable. Once this feeling became apparent in each member of the Quaker community, he was then morally obligated to support Scattergood’s proposal. For what the Tukes, through Scattergood had proposed was a revolutionary new concept; that an asylum could be built (and, indeed, had already been built; in York) which could not only be used to confine the mentally ill, or "gather in the homeless" but could actually cure these afflicted people.

The strong conservative feeling of this period also worked in favor of implementation. A sense of fraternity was extremely important to the Quakers, particularly after the War, and the idea of a hospital exclusively for members of the Society of Friends must have had a strong attraction for this tightly-knit group. The Quakers, while being able to take in only their own kind, thus fitting in with the beliefs of the time that outside worldly influences had to be avoided, would also show the rest of America that insanity was a curable disease.

Money for the construction of Friends Asylum was raised comparatively easily, helped by the publication of a book written by Samuel Tuke, describing the successes of the York experiment. In 1817 the doors of Friends Asylum were opened and have remained open to this day.

Thomas Scattergood did not live to see the results of his proposal, for he died in 1814 of Typhoid fever. After making the proposal, he was content to let others carry out the actual implementation, and he turned all of his own attention to his beloved schools. But this man of the sad features and dour turn of mind had successfully served as the catalyst for one of the most important events in the history of American psychiatry, and his friends, anxious to hear his last words, were pleased when he uttered the words "I shall lead" just before he passed away.

 

A Brief Description of The Early Years of  Friends Asylum
1817-1820

 

AMONG the seven Friends chosen in 1812 to carry into effect the "provisions for such of our members as may be deprived of the use of their reason," was a forty-seven year old farmer named Isaac Bonsall. With no previous experience in the care of the mentally ill, Bonsall, along with Thomas Scattergood and the other committee members, were convinced that their efforts had God’s blessing. The committee’s first report expressed the hope that "in the prosecution of this important work, if some difficulties should be presented…they may not be permitted to discourage our efforts to overcome them, but recollecting that the design had its origins in religious motives, may we proceed in its accomplishment." On May 15, 1817, Isaac Bonsall, in his new capacity as Superintendent of the Friends Asylum, stood ready to greet the first patients.

The Farm and its Surrounding

DESPITE the fact that an institution of this kind had never been constructed in the United States, the buildings and the grounds of Friends Asylum were impressive. Unlike the Pennsylvania Hospital, Friends was to be completely self-sufficient, and this necessitated the purchase of fertile land suitable for farming. The grounds of the asylum, acquired for roughly $120 an acre, covered 58 acres of prime agricultural land, 30 of which were to be cultivated; the principal crops being grasses, corn, potatoes, and a little wheat. Six cows would supply the asylum with a large quantity of milk and butter, and a separate kitchen garden would produce the vegetables needed for the patients’ meals. Even tobacco was eventually grown, but only for the "restricted consumption of the convalescent patients." Medicinal plants as well as other "salutary" herbs were also cultivated in large quantities.

But not all of the land was to be used for farming. The first patients were also greeted by a broad tree-lined avenue stretching from the public road to the front doors of the institution. Shaded walks, quiet forest paths, and large fields of soft grass were set aside for recreational use. A "never failing" spring was located on the grounds near the main building and, as well as supplying the Asylum’s drinking water, flowed into a quiet, shaded, duck pond. One of the walks, stretching for over a mile, wound throughout the grounds and led to a small summer house built on a hill of considerable height, three sides of which were almost perpendicular. This "house of pleasure" was shaded by oak, beech, chestnut, and towering tulip trees. A rapid stream rippled over rocks nearby, producing the "melancholy" sounds of a distant waterfall. The grounds of the new asylum were very carefully planned, and were intended to evoke a feeling of quiet serenity, to make the institution a true "retreat." The inherent confusion of life in a large city was to be left outside the gates of the Friends Asylum. Once inside these gates the patients would be safe.

A description of the Main Building and its Importance in the Treatment of Patients; with an Account of the Organization of the new Asylum.

THE main building, over which Isaac Bonsall was to have direct control, was constructed with the York Retreat as its model and William Tuke’s principles as its guide. It is impossible to overestimate the critical importance of the main structure to these proponents of moral treatment. By removing the mentally ill from the outside world, with its many temptations and its bewildering array of paths "designed to lead unsound minds astray." These men sought to implant a feeling of stability and a sense of order into the hearts of the insane; thus allowing them a chance to reorder and restructure their lives. Therefore, the proper construction of the building used to actually house the patients was essential.

A large central house, with wings stretching from both sides, had been built of stone from a quarry located on the grounds of the new asylum. Isaac Bonsall and his staff would occupy the center portion, with the male patients in one wing and the female patients in the other wing. An important aspect of moral treatment was the realization that different types of patients could be better cared for if housed in different areas. As a result of this principle, the more violent were housed on the second floor and the quieter patients on the first floor. (Special rooms were constructed on the fourth floor of the center portion for those patients who were considered "too noisy.")

The "Committee on the Admission of Light and Air" had suggested that the patients’ rooms be constructed on only one side of the halls, allowing windows to be placed along the entire length of the hall. This innovation, widely copied in later institutions, helped to remove the aspect of a place of confinement.

The staff of the new asylum included, along with Bonsall as the Superintendent, a resident physician, a matron, a groundskeeper, a caretaker, a nurse, and several attendants. It was the new Superintendent’s responsibility to coordinate this diverse group.

With the organizational experience he has received from his work on various committees of the Yearly Meeting, Bonsall was able to work well with the often conflicting personalities of his staff. In speaking of his attendants, for example, Bonsall considered one "very firm and decided and rather severe" and the other "not determined enough and rather too timid." But both, he continues, are "very useful and possess valuable qualifications."

Overseeing the work of the Superintendent was a Board of Managers, who were expected to visit the new Asylum weekly and serve as its liaison to the Yearly Meeting. During his six years as Superintendent, Isaac Bonsall was to have a number of disagreements with these Managers over the proper management of the Asylum. "The cold was considerable…so a large fire was made in each wing, the visiting managers having requested it. We feel sorry this expense should be incurred as the patients are all fit to be in their respective day rooms and keep themselves covered at night. Those two stoves consume about as much as all of our fires besides."

The Superintendent’s primary responsibility, however, was with the daily care

of the patients and Bonsall found himself faced with an exhausting task. Except for the vague and often untested principles of moral treatment, he has little to guide him. But with a strong sense of humanity and a passionate belief in order, Bonsall was stubbornly determined to cure the men and women admitted to Friends Asylum. Among the specific problems he had to treat were "melancholy," abusive behavior, "filthiness," "negativism," agitation, depression, suicidal behavior, self-mutilation, anxiety, "suspicion," insomnia, "excitement," anorexia, alcohol and drug addiction, and "obliterated ideas."

The Central Principles of Moral Treatment; including Acceptance, Occupation and Responsibility

MORAL treatment has often been associated with the introduction of kindness and sympathy to the process of treating the insane, but the concept is much broader and more encompassing than those words suggest.

The first principles of moral treatment stated that no man was ever completely insane. Regardless of how "mad" a person may seem, there was always some rationality still present and it was the job of the Asylum staff to expose and strengthen that healthy portion of the patient’s mind; to "cherish every ray of returning reason." Doing this would allow the patient himself to then gain some measure of control over his disorder. Whereas medical treatment focused on the negative aspect of the patient’s mental illness, moral treatment stressed the patient’s inherent mental health.

Acceptance

ABOVE all, the mentally ill were to be accepted as "brethren and men." This meant that, within the limitations of their illnesses, the patients were given the opportunity to become stable and productive members of the community; albeit a special community set apart from the society at large. Patients and staff worked the farm together, ate their meals communally, and resided permanently in the same buildings. This did not mean, however, that harsh methods were completely done away with; but, when used, they are accompanied with as much compassion as possible. Bonsall writes, "We placed the hand straps on her just on going to bed, and removed them this morning, but finding the buckles had marked the skin, we proposed substituting the sleeves and have chosen the softest pair for the purpose."

At times the difficulties of implementing these principles were considerable. One patient "manifested a most ferocious disposition, by far exceeding anything I had ever conceived it possible any human capable of. He looked truly terrific, but seeing several of use, was secured the night without any actual attempt to injure us." Not long after this incident, Bonsall describes a patient who "scratched my wife very much this morning, but in the afternoon was more quiet." Despite the attack on his wife, he seemed to bear no sense of recrimination and his belief in the idea of acceptance and trust remained firm. "This morning W.P.B. manifested a degree of wildness which indicated the commencement of another paroxysm. We, however, let him have liberty to go out with the men to their work in the woods, and did not lay him under any particular restraint, intending during this spell to try the effect of liberty with strict watching, but without letting him know that we were apprehensive of a change."

Occupation

THE importance of productive labor was another central tenet of moral treatment. Every patient at the Friends Asylum was expected to make at least an attempt at some form of occupation; the men usually working outdoors on the farm and the women sewing or cooking. The success of the entire treatment program was often believed to have been a direct result of the acceptance, by the patient, of this work ethic, and the methods used to convince him to work were numerous. Bonsall described a patient he felt particular concern for, due to his excessive laziness: "There was no persuading him to work…He pleads weakness." Finally, one of the attendants "undertook to make him work. He first tried to the shower bath without effect. He then took him down to the wood and tried to induce him to carry a few sticks which he refused to do. The attendant then got a rope and tied a number of sticks on his back and made him walk upstairs with it, and repeated this several times, until the patient consented to carry some in his arms." Several days later, Bonsall speaks of this patient as "now one of our best workers, and in other respects improved much…I had the most rational conversation with him that I had ever had…It was truly pleasing to discover such rationality."

Responsibility

THE Superintendent of Friends Asylum was, at all times, willing to accept the mentally ill as "brethren and men," but he saw this as a two-way commitment and expected his patients to understand what that commitment implied. A patient who became violent, for example, would be removed from the rest of the patients and staff and placed in a room by himself. When he composed himself, he would then be allowed to rejoin the group. Bonsall threatened one patient with a bed of straw if he continued to soil himself during the night. Humiliation was occasionally used as a means of treatment. A male patient who offended the group by not disposing of his wastes in the proper receptacles was sometimes forced to wear a petticoat until he learned to control his bowels. Isaac Bonsall’s wife, Ann, the first Matron of the Asylum, was never hesitant to suggest original methods. For a woman who complained that the physician was not giving her any medicine, Ann prescribed "pills of bread" disguised with "a small portion of pulverized All-spice…to be administered night and morning." And the patient," after taking the pills…thought herself much better."

Both Isaac and Ann Bonsall had to contend with many difficulties, not the least of which were those emanating from the outside community. Curiosity seekers, often coming in droves, were very firmly escorted off the grounds. The Bonsalls did not want their patients "exhibited as spectacles to others," a common practice at some earlier institutions. Harder to deal with, were the visits of the patient’s relatives. Intuitively feeling that the presence of family members often exacerbated the patient’s illness, Bonsall often wished that the friends and relatives would stay away. But, of course, this wasn’t possible and the patients sometimes suffered from their families’ haste to see them cured. "J.T. took away his son who is much improved, and we are inclined to suppose that he might have been restored to health but his parents’ impatience induced them to take him away. The cost of four dollars per week no doubt had considerable operation. I fear he will at his paternal abode retrograde so as to lose all he had gained here."

Once "cured," the patients were then to be returned to the outside world; but this presented its own problems. Many were hesitant to leave the asylum, so the discharging of patients was a slow, careful process; a gradual reintroduction to the general society. When sufficient improvement occurred in the patient’s mental health, he was taken for short carriage rides into the town of Frankford, usually to attend religious services. One woman was "mortified that she would be looked upon as one of the insane riding in the crazy carriage, but after getting to the Meeting, she felt sweet peace." Some patients, although cured, decided to remain permanently at the Asylum and help manage its affairs.

Of the 66 patients admitted during its first three years, Friends Asylum cured, or discharged as "much improved," about 25 of these men and women, which, in light of the fact that the Asylum accepted many patients considered incurable, demonstrated the potential of moral treatment. It was generally accepted, for example, by Benjamin Rush and others that "the longer its remote and predisposing causes have acted upon the brain, and mind, the more dangerous the disease," and yet most of the patients accepted at Friends had mental illnesses lasting for more than a decade before being admitted. Rush also felt that insanity was "rarely cured in old people," and yet the average age of the patients at Friends was forty, and five patients older than 65 were admitted. And in the first three years of its existence, the Asylum had only five re-admissions.

Results of the Asylum Experiment and its Influence on the Development of Similar Institutions.

ONE measure of the success of moral treatment could be seen in the large number of prominent visitors to the Friends Asylum. The influence Friends had on the construction of other institutions was enormous. From New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, and even Scotland, men "concerned to promote the well-being of the insane," visited Friends and some returned to build nearly identical asylums in their own communities. Bloomingdale, an asylum in New York, was the direct result of Thomas Eddy’s visit to Friends. Even the Managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital were impressed by what they saw at Friends.

Still another by-product of the Asylum’s experiment with moral treatment, was the valuable experience it gave its resident physicians and staff members. Individuals like Thomas Kirkbride and Pliny Earle, who were to become leaders in American psychiatry, took from their years at Friends Asylum a strong dedication to the ideas of moral treatment, and a hopeful and realistic approach to the problems of mental illness.

Isaac Bonsall left Friends in 1823, still convinced of the importance of moral treatment. Throughout his career at the Asylum, Bonsall struggled to retain his original sense of the project’s goals, but at times he felt extreme despair. Two years prior to his leaving Friends he wrote, "The present family of boarders are the most uninteresting we have had for a long time. Nearly all of them are considered incurables…so that unless new objects (patients) should be introduced, there will be little to encourage either the Managers or us in the prosecution of the concern."

But clearly, Friends Asylum had taken great strides towards the fulfillment of the goals advanced by Benjamin Rush. It was an important part of "the humane revolution, dictated by modern improvements in the science of the mind, as well as of medicine…" Commenting on the inhuman conditions endured by patients of Pennsylvania Hospital, Dr. Rush wrote, "The clanking of chains, and the noise of the whip are no longer heard in their cells. They now taste of the blessings of air, and light, and motion in pleasant and shaded walks in summer, and in spacious entrees warmed by stoves in winter… protected from the eye of visitors. In consequence of these advantages, they have recovered the human figure, and with it their long forgotten relationship to their friends and the public."

Helping Future Generations

Two years before Friends Hospital admitted its first patient in May 1817, it received a bequest from a Friend. George Aston learned about the need for funds to help establish an asylum for individuals "deprived of the use of their reason" and included the proposed institution in his will.

His bequest, in the amount of $300, was the first such gift received by the Contributors, the committee of seven men who undertook the task of planning and raising funds for Friends Asylum, as it was then called. During the next few years, bequests were received from Rebecca Wharton, Sarah Wistar, Rebecca Bacon, Jonathan Worrell, and Elizabeth Foulke.

Several hundred others – Corporation members, employees, patient families, Managers, Friends and individuals acquainted with the work of Friends Hospital – have benefited the Hospital through wills and trusts since that first gift.

It is impossible to guess where Friends Hospital would be today without the thoughtful and far-seeing generosity of its friends. Buildings have been constructed, renovations made, needy patients cared for, and new treatment programs established as a result of the gifts and bequests of many friends of the Hospital.

The Hospital has progressed and changed greatly in the years since George Aston’s legacy. But is has never wavered from its central philosophy of humane care and respect for individuals afflicted with mental illness. Today it continues to need the support of its friends, through bequests, deferred gift plans that provide tax advantages, and gifts of insurance – ways of giving that help future generations. As William James wrote, "The great use of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it."

 

 Copyright © 2000 Friends Hospital. All rights reserved.
Revised: June 05, 2007