Quaker Governor of the Society, who was then its Treasurer
and afterward in succession its Vice-President and
President, becoming aware of this movement, and having
made a special study of the care and cure of mental
affections, presented a communication to the Governors
in which he advocated a change in the medical treatment,
and in particular the adoption of the so-called moral
management similar to that pursued by the Tukes at
The Retreat, in Yorkshire, England. This memorable
communication was printed by the Governors, and constitutes
one of the first of the systematic attempts made in
the United States to put this important medical subject
on a humane and scientific basis. To carry out
his plan, Mr. Eddy urged the purchase of a large tract
of land near the city and the erection of suitable
buildings. He ventured the moderate estimate
that the population of the city, then about 110,000,
might be doubled by 1836, and quadrupled by 1856.
In fact, it was more than doubled in those first twenty
years, and sextupled in the second twenty. He
was justified, therefore, in believing that the hospital
site on lower Broadway would soon be surrounded by
a dense population, and quite unsuited for the efficient
care of mental diseases. The Governors gave these
recommendations immediate and favorable consideration.
Various tracts of land, containing in all about seventy-seven
acres, and lying on the historic Harlem Heights between
what are now Riverside Drive and Columbus Avenue, and
107th and 120th Streets, were subsequently bought
by the Society for about $31,000. To aid in the
construction and maintenance of the necessary hospital
buildings, the Legislature, by an act reciting that
there was no other institution in the State where
insane patients could be accommodated, and that humanity
and the interest of the State required that provision
should be made for their care and cure, granted an
additional annual appropriation of $10,000 to the
Society from 1816 until 1857. The main Hospital,
built of brownstone, stood where the massive library
of Columbia University now is, and the brick building
still standing at the northeast corner of Broadway
and 116th Street was the residence of the Medical
Superintendent. The only access to this site by
land was over what was known as the Bloomingdale Road,
running from Broadway and 23d Street through the Bloomingdale
district on the North River to 116th Street, and from
that fact our institution assumed the name of Bloomingdale
Asylum, or, as it is now called, Bloomingdale Hospital.
This beautiful elevated site overlooking the Hudson
River and the Harlem River was admirably fitted for
its purpose. The spacious tract of land, laid
out in walks and gardens, an extensive grove of trees,
generous playgrounds and ample greenhouses, combined
to give the spot unusual beauty and efficiency.
This notable work finished, the Governors of the Society
issued on May 10, 1821, an “Address to the Public"[1]
which marks so great an advance in psychiatry in our