Psycho goes ‘crazy’
0By Rita Seal
Nineteen psychology students traveled to the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum for a field trip Thursday, Nov. 6 with Leanne Epling, assistant professor of psychology.
The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum was built between 1858 and 1881. It’s the largest hand cut stone masonry building in North America and is supposedly the second largest in the world, next to the Kremlin.
The original hospital, designed to house 250 people, was open to patients in 1864 and reached its peak in the 1950s with 2,400 patients in overcrowded and generally poor conditions. Changes in the treatment of mental illness and the physical decline of the facility forced its closure in 1994 inflicting a shocking effect on the local economy, from which it has yet to recover.
Students learned about the pioneers of humane treatment for the mentally ill while visiting the first two wards for the patients and saw the Civil War Section of the hospital. They stepped back in time to the 1935 fire that destroyed four wards of the asylum. They visited the doctors’ apartments, nurses’ quarters, Ward F where the most deviant of patients were kept, and explored the first floor of the medical center.
“This trip was an excellent experience for our students. It allowed them to see how the mentally ill were treated in the past and compare and contrast that with how they are treated today. I believe that it was an truly eye-opening experience for them to experience these conditions for themselves,” Epling said.
“I thought the asylum was cool. It was good to see and hear about how the asylum was run and who was kept in the asylum. Also the ghost stories and stuff like that added more to the experience,” Zachary Kennedy, junior said.