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A HISTORY OF THE ASYLUMS FOR THE INSANE IN MICHIGAN BY HENRY M. HURD, M. D.
Their report concludes as follows: "The State of Michigan, though a child in age, is not one in its resources. Build, then, asylums for its manhood. So build them, that they may be handed down to posterity, not as pauper houses, but as hospitals and asylums, fitted with all that experience has devised for the care and cure of all its unfortunate children. Let a just State pride urge us to make the very best provision for our insane, and our deaf, dumb and blind, that can be procured with the aid of modern science and experience. Such institutions the board believe the State will have, if these suggestions are met in such a spirit of benevolent liberality as will enable us to complete the struc-tures designed, according to the plans. For this purpose the trustees unanimously ask from the State an appropriation of one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars for continuing and completing the asylum for the insane. "
The legislature of that year, appropriated sixty-seven thousand dollars, which was expended during the ensuing two years in completing the center building, and in partially completing one of the wings of the institution. In the meantime, Dr. John P. Gray had been appointed superintendent of the New York State Lunatic Asylum, at Utica, and Dr. E. H. VanDusen was accordingly appointed medical superintendent of the Michigan Asylum, in his place.
The legislature of 1857 very properly decided to sever the connection between the asylum for the deaf, dumb and blind at Flint, and the asylum for the insane at Kalamazoo, and each institution was placed under a distinct board. The new board consisted of J. P. Woodbury, Charles T. Gorham, and Henry Montague, who proceeded at once to push the erection of the buildings which had been commenced by their predecessors.
MICHIGAN ASYLUMS
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