Created by Michigan Public Act Number 155, and originally called the Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane, the Traverse City mental health institution had a total of five names in its one hundred plus year history. Medical advances during the institution’s existence made the treatment of patients more humane as time went on, but early treatment was anything but gentle. Opium and morphine therapy, in addition to insulin shock, induced metrazol shock, lobotomies, and the infamous electroshock therapy were used to treat patients with illnesses ranging from typhoid to polio to shell shock. When the hospital closed in 1989, patients with continuing mental health problems were turned loose and ended up homeless, in jail, or in inadequate private care. Some even tried to return to the abandoned hospital, which they referred to as “home.”
Sources :
“Michigan Historical Calendar“, courtesy of the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University.
Northern Michigan Asylum : a history of the Traverse City State Hospital / William A. Decker. Traverse City, Mich. : Arbutus Press, [2010]