Frankenstein-like experiments, no anesthesia and ‘child-torturing’ doctors: How Bellevue went from a desolate New York almshouse and mental hospital to top medical facility

EXCLUSIVE: Frankenstein-like experiments, no anesthesia and ‘child-torturing’ doctors: How Bellevue went from a desolate New York almshouse and mental hospital to top medical facility

  • Bellevue Hospital, located on the east side of New York City, first opened its doors in 1736
  • Over the years it has been home to patients suffering from deadly and infectious diseases and those suffering from vicious mental illnesses
  • Early on, it became known as a place that conducted Frankenstein-like experiments in the name of research – without anesthesia
  • Operations included performing electroshock therapy on young children and thousands of unnecessary liver biopsies on alcoholic patients
  • Bellevue’s 600 bed psychiatric building has been a revolving door for a long roster of celebrity patients including poet Sylvia Plath
  • Today, the Manhattan hospital’s emergency services are second to none
  • David Oshinsky gives a history of the hospital in his book, Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America’s Most Storied Hospital 

H/t kevin a.

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