Health and Medicine | Page 45

Interior, Detention Hospital Ward, Fergus Falls State Hospital, Fergus Falls

Interior, Detention Hospital Ward, Fergus Falls State Hospital, Fergus Falls, c.1923.

Ward in the Fergus Falls State Hospital

Ward in the Fergus Falls State Hospital c.1900.

Nurse with patient in Fergus Falls State Hospital.

Nurse with patient in Fergus Falls State Hospital c.1900.

Ward in Fergus Falls State Hospital

Ward in Fergus Falls State Hospital, ca. 1900.

Main Building, Fergus Falls, Fergus Falls State Hospital

Main Building, Fergus Falls State Hospital, c.1928.

Fergus Falls State Hospital

When the Fergus Falls State Hospital opened its doors on July 29, 1890, it became the first state institution in northern Minnesota for patients considered insane. The hospital had a sprawling campus and large stately buildings, built according to the influential asylum plan developed by Philadelphia physician Thomas Kirkbride in the 1850s.

MN90: Sister Kenny's Polio Solution

In the 1930s and 1940s, when polio was rampant in the United States, the predominant treatment method was to immobilize the patient's body in braces and splints. But Sister Elizabeth Kenny, an Australian nurse who resettled in Minnesota in 1940, believed in a controversial alternative method. MN90 Producer Andi McDaniel describes how Kenny revolutionized polio care. Includes an interview with Kate Roberts, author of Minnesota 150, published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2007.