PBA Galleries

Approx. 29 printed reports, etc., relating to California state hospitals and asylums for the insane. 21.7x17.5 cm. (8½x5¼"), later half leather and boards.

Reports covering the founding and early operations of state hospitals in California, geared toward providing safe haven and possible cure for the insane, or at least to remove them from polite society. The earliest report, a Senate Journal appendix report on establishing a "Marine Hospital, for the Port and Harbor of San Francisco," is dated 1850, though printed later. Other reports include the 1852 Annual Report of the Marine Hospital (printed in 1853), with some 88 pages of tables listing the various patients admitted, their native countries, date of admission, disease, dated  of discharge, and how (most cured, a smaller number dead). There are also a number of reports on the founding and operations of the State Asylum for the Insane in Stockton. With the bookplate of Roger K. Larson, noted collector. Also, occasional rubberstamps of Masonic Home, Gift of Alexander Culver, 1930.