Boston Doctors Appeal for Mental Hospital
On August 20, 1810, two Boston doctors circulated an appeal for "a hospital for the reception of lunatics and other sick persons." (Some sources, including, until recently, Mass Moments, erroneously date the letter to August 10.) The time had come to provide more humane care for sick people than they generally received at home. Reform-minded Bostonians pledged funds to establish both Massachusetts General Hospital and the state's first hospital for people living with mental illnesses. Soon named McLean Hospital, the asylum opened in 1818 on an expansive site in Charlestown. In 1888 it moved to Belmont, where Frederick Law Olmsted consulted on the selection of a beautiful park-like campus.
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