Western State Hospital, called Western State Lunatic Asylum in its early years, is a hospital for the mentally ill in Staunton, Virginia, which admitted its first patient on July 24, 1828.
Overview of original complex
The Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924 was a U.S. state law in Virginia for the sterilization of institutionalized persons "afflicted with hereditary forms of insanity that are recurrent, idiocy, imbe
Western State Hospital (Staunton, Virginia)
…the warehousing of patients. Techniques such as "ankle and wrist restraints, physical coercion, and straitjackets" were used. After the passage of the Eugenical Sterilization Act of 1924 in Virginia, patients were forcibly sterilized at Western State until the law authorizing the practice was repealed in the 1970s. Electroshock therapy…
Southwestern Lunatic Asylum in Marion, Virginia. Renamed Southwestern State Hospital and finally renamed the Southwestern Virginia Mental Health Institute. Built May 17, 1887.
First opened in 1910 as the Virginia State Epileptic Colony