Georgia's First Mental Institution: Central State Hospital, Milledgeville, GA

Central State Hospital was chartered in 1837 as the Georgia State Lunatic, Idiot, and Epileptic Asylum. At that time, Milledgeville was the Georgia state capital. The facility was completed in 1842.

Dr. Thomas A. Green, who was the head of the establishment from 1845 to 1879 tried to run the facility in a more humane manner than some asylums used, abolishing the then-customery restraints of chains and ropes for patients. in the beginning, he ate lunch with the staff and patients everyday. But as more and more patients flooded in, it became more and more difficult to provide care. Following the Civil War, many of the patients were former Confederate soldiers who were physically or mentally incapacitated by the war. Others were former slaves, epileptics, people with chronic illnesses, or just those unwanted by their families.

Despite the best intentions of the administration, by 1872 the hospital had a ratio of 112 patients per physician, and this ratio did not improve for nearly 100 years. Thousands of patients died, some of natural causes and some quite possibly from medical experiments gone wrong, and were buried with only numbered metal poles for markers, or no markers at all. In 1938, over 2,000 African Americans who died at Central State were disinterred and buried in trenches, some marked by metal poles and some unmarked, so a new building could be constructed. It is estimated that between 20,000 and 30,000 patients died at Central State and were buried in either unmarked graves or in graves marked only with the numbered metal poles, many which were lost. There are four cemeteries at Central State that are clearly marked, and very few gravestones or individual monuments. There are efforts going on to try to identify as many of these patients as possible, but it is slow going and no one even knows where the boundaries of the burial areas were.

It just was not possible to give these patients, many who were simply dumped there and forgotten by their families, the best care under these conditions.

Many of these patients were epileptic or suffered from other chronic diseases, and had nothing wrong with them mentally at all. In 1879, the institution changed its name to the Georgia State Sanitarium, and different wards were instituted for different conditions, segregated also by race and gender as well as condition.

Due to the steady increase in population in the 1900's, care devolved into taking care of the basic needs of feeding, clothing, and cleaning, and very little else. The most able patients were put to work in the fields and farm the hospital maintained to be somewhat self-sufficient. Insulin shock and electro-shock treatment was applied in massive numbers to keep the patients under control, before the advent of chemical and drug treatments which helped the inadequate staff deal with the overcrowded conditions. Things went from bad to worse until there were over 12,000 inmates of the institution in the 1960's, when the hospital was renamed Central State Hospital. In addition, there is a great deal of evidence that patients were subjected to medical experimentation as well. in the 1960's, there is evidence that politicians often pressured the board to provide appointments to the administrative staff as political favors, and to keep the level of patients high despite the deteriorating conditions for political and economic profit.

Psychotropic drugs and deregulation led to the closing of many of the buildings at Central State in the early 1970's. Part of the hospital is still in use, but many buildings are now boarded up and in dangerous condition. Patients today recieve caring, conscientious care, with as little restriction as possible.

Much paranormal activity has been documented in the empty buildings, where so many patients lived over the years with so little hope, and many paranormal investigators believe those buildings to be haunted.

But whether you believe in ghosts or not, Central State Hospital is a haunting reflection of the morbid yet fascinating history of mental health care in the United States.