[MG1]

Originally Posted by nabs

Im in for the first No need to start a new thread thread riverview meet.

Great, I'm in. We get jtrinh to come along, too. We abduct him and tie him up in one of those electric chairs overnight. I imagine they performed lobotomy at Riverview.

Actually, I just looked up Riverview. It was called Essondale at one point. I remember that now. It was an asylum - state of the art (if there's such a thing).

About 80 buildings were eventually built at Riverview, which reached a peak population of 4,726 patients and about 2,200 staff in 1955.

Riverview was a small, self-sufficient city then, with its own fire hall, post office, bus station, bowling alley, cinema, cemetery, bakery, chapel, boiler house and soccer and baseball fields.

There were parades and picnics and sports days held on the grounds — all attended by large crowds.

The era also saw the use of the first psychiatric drug, chlorpromazine, used at Riverview in 1954, which replaced shock treatment therapy for severe depression and lobotomies for schizophrenia, mania and psychotic disorders. The use of anti-psychotic and tranquillizing drugs transformed therapies, allowing patients and doctors to realize mental illness was not untreatable.

Read more: Closure of Riverview Hospital marks end of era in mental health treatment