Bellevue Hospital is the oldest psychiatric hospital in the United States.
Historically, Bellevue was so frequently associated with its treatment of mentally ill patients that "Bellevue" became a local** pejorative slang term for a psychiatric hospital. The hospital has since developed into a comprehensive major medical center including outpatient, specialty, and skilled nursing care, as well as emergency and inpatient services. The hospital contains a 25-story patient care facility and has an attending physician staff of 1,200 and an in-house staff of about 5,500.
Bellevue is a safety net hospital, providing healthcare for individuals regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay. It handles over half a million patient visits each year.
Multiple firsts were performed at Bellevue in its early years. In 1799, it opened the first maternity ward in the United States. By 1808, the world's first ligation of the femoral artery for an aneurysm was performed there, followed by the first ligation of the innominate artery ten years later.[citation needed]
Bellevue physicians promoted the "Bone Bill" in 1854, which legalized the dissection of cadavers for anatomical studies; two years later they started to also popularize the use of the hypodermic syringe. In 1862, the Austin Flint murmur was named for
Austin Flint***, a prominent Bellevue Hospital cardiologist.
**Make that 'national' since for as long as I can remember, whenever someone acted 'crazy', someone would say that so-and-so is headed for 'Bellevue'.
*** Austin Flint was the father of Austin Flint II, who was one of the prosecution's medical experts in the Ali trial.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the entrance to the Hospital 124 years ago:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alice Sullivan's trial Testimony, transcribed by Mike Banks in 2023, is featured in the PDF below.
Alice told the Court that she had recently visited Bellevue for a medical complaint:
Q. What was the matter with you?
A. I had a bad cold, a touch of asthma.