Bloomingdale Hospital was a hospital treating patients with psychiatric ailments in White Plains, New York that evolved from the Bloomingdale Asylum (in operation between 1821-1894) and the Lunatic Asylum (1808-1821) of the Society of the New York Hospital. Bloomingdale Hospital was overseen by an Asylum Committee that was appointed by the Board of Governors of The Society of New York Hospital.

The New York Hospital treated patients with psychiatric ailments beginning in 1792 and opened a dedicated building for these patients in 1808 on the same grounds as the main hospital. The increase in the number of patients and a new style of treatment prompted a move to a rural neighborhood in the upper west side of Manhattan, New York City. This new facility, spearheaded by Thomas Eddy who was a member of the Board of Governors and the Asylum Committee, implemented what was known as “moral treatment” for patients with psychiatric ailments. This mode of treatment focused less on restraints and more on giving patients activities to engage in while they recuperated. Throughout the 19th century, moral treatment slowly evolved into occupational therapies that were employed alongside evolving medical and psychiatric treatments. Mounting financial pressures and the growth of the city northwards finally prompted Bloomingdale Asylum to move outside of New York City to White Plains, New York, where it opened as simply Bloomingdale, White Plains in 1894

Since 1821, Bloomingdale’s bylaws had directed that the physician of the asylum keep patient details in a set of registers recording name, age, place of residence, occupation, cause of the patient’s condition, treatment history, and termination of the illness. Though the registers formed the primary method of keeping patient records, other forms of record-keeping included volumes of case records kept at the discretion of the physician or monthly reports made by the physician to the Asylum Committee which can be found in the Bloomingdale Administrative Records collection. The case records were encouraged by the bylaws which stated that “remarkable” cases should be recorded at length and deposited into the Asylum Library.

During Pliny Earle’s tenure as physician of the asylum from 1844-1849, he made a number of administrative changes including the creation of a “Discharge Register” and a new volume for case records. However, Earle’s successors did not systematically keep these records and casebooks were sometimes replaced at the preference of the acting physician. In 1879, Bloomingdale adopted a “Daily History of Cases,” a book which for the first time recorded daily information about select patients, but it was not until 1891 that Bloomingdale adopted a systematic record of complete histories.

In 1910, Bloomingdale, White Plains was officially renamed Bloomingdale Hospital, and then in 1936, Bloomingdale Hospital was renamed the New York Hospital—Westchester Division.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Larrabee, Eric. The Benevolent and Necessary Institution: The New York Hospital, 1771–1971. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1971.

Russell, William Logie. The New York Hospital: A History of the Psychiatric Service 1771 – 1936. New York: Columbia University Press, 1945.