Research

Scope and Content Note

This series consists of patient medical records. General information for each record includes consecutive number; number for year; name of patient; residence; date of admission; date of discharge; gender; age; civil condition; nativity; occupation; cause and form of insanity; cause of death; previous admissions and discharges; heredity (other mentally ill relations); education; age when discharged or died; location (ward or building); how remains are to be disposed of in case of death; and name and address of next of kin. Photographs of the patients are sometimes present. Also included in the records are dated narrative notes on the patient's condition, activities, and transfers; and autopsy reports.

19069-05: These files were withdrawn from other accessions for documentation in a New York State Museum exhibit entitled "Lost Cases, Recovered Lives: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic" and a subsequent traveling exhibit. They are known informally as the "Willard Suitcase Files."

19069-14: This accretion consists of patient medical records from the Sampson State School facility, which was located on the former grounds of Sampson Naval Training Station. The files include patients who were transferred to that facility from the Newark State School and Letchworth Village.