Danvers State Hospital Insane Asylum
		A Gothic Revival Masterpiece in Brick...
		Volumes have been written about the now demolished Danvers State Hospital Insane Asylum. This panoramic is actually 6 individual shots of the Kirkbride Building at Danvers State, taken in September of 2005, stitched together to create a scrawling view that doesn't even reveal a full third of the building. As the print hangs in the gallery it is framed in a piece of copper gutter that blew off the building during a storm in September of 2005. The copper was hand hammered flat and and hand cut forming not just a piece of art, but a piece of history as well. The original parts of the building were constructed in the late 1870's in a Gothic Revival style by architect Nathaniel Bradlee. Dr. Thomas Kirkbride, who the building was named after, was a revolutionary for his time. He believed that many mentally ill patients just needed to be brought back into balance with nature and beauty. Under the Kirkbride method, patients would farm their own food, and help out as much as possible. Gorgeous gardens were built on the site by Italian landscapers to add to the aesthetic qualities which were believed so therapeutic.

Danvers also has a more ominous reputation as being the hospital where the frontal lobotomy was first experimented with, and later perfected. Some of those "experiments" lie in unnamed graves at the bottom of the hill. Various other experimental treatments would be put into effect here in the 100+ years that the hospital functioned such as:

• Electro-shock Therapy, which consisted of applying electrical current to patients brains to alter their brain wave patterns.

• Hydrotherapy, simply put was submersing patients in water for up to a week at a time to "calm" them.

• Experimental drug therapy.

Perhaps the most famous patient to have stayed at Danvers was Marie Balter. Marie was an adopted child, whose adoptive parents were abusive and often would lock her in the cellar as a form of punishment. Her biological mother suffered from depression and alcoholism. These things yielded to anxiety and depression in Marie which eventually landed her in Danvers State. While there she was misdiagnosed as schizophrenic, and put on an experimental drug therapy that nearly cost her life. Eventually she refused to take the drugs, and building on spiritual strength she claimed to have found in God, she worked on her own recovery. Eventually she was discharged from Danvers and went on to attend Harvard, returning to the hospital as a clinician. During her employment there she brought about great changes that only someone with her insights as a former patient could have. Her story is an inspiration, and proof that by awareness we can put an end to suffering.

On a side note, Danvers State Hospital was also considered Massachusetts' most haunted building. You may see what is believed to be an actual ghost image by clicking here, and also watch a sensationalized video about this fact by clicking here.