The Arkham Sanitarium is a prominent building at the northern edge of Arkham. It was built in 1869-1870, and it was intended for just below 600 patients, although more than one thousand patients fill the Sanitarium today.. The Arkham Sanitarium is actually one of a limited number of state mental facilities in Massachusetts, and it caters to much of eastern Massachusetts outside of Boston. Arkham was chosen as a location for a state asylum, since it was felt that the quaint New England surroundings would promote mental health, and it was seen as a model for a more humane and modern way of treating the mentally infirm.
The Wolfman of the Moors, David Kessler
Joseph Rybko, the Swamp Killer
However, several cases during the 1890s and early 1900s provided the Arkham Sanitarium with a much more sinister reputation, with several violent and psychopathic killers being admitted and eventually facing supposedly gruesome treatments. This was certainly the case for Joseph Rybko, the legendary Swamp Killer of 1891 to 1893. He had killed and mutilated at least eight men and women before trying to hide the gruesomely disfigured victims in the marshes south of Innsmouth. Rybko was treated using the most modern methods available at the Arkham Sanitarium, but this resulted in three innocent patients and one nurse being mutilated and killed in the long, winding tunnels underneath the Sanitarium. Rybko was tightly followed by the admission of Lauren Long, a socialite from Arkham itself, who had strangled and eaten several of her lovers, both male and female. She promptly seduced one of the doctors at the Sanitarium, Dr. Herbert East, who supplied her with several servings of human flesh. This eventually led to a tightening of the procedures at the Sanitarium, but not before the Wolfman of the Moors, also known as David Kessler, had stalked and killed several lone travelers in the New England countryside by the full moon. Other equally gruesome cases followed.
Head Nurse Abigail Dawson
Following these, as well several other disturbing incidents, the Arkham Sanitarium hired Manfred Duplessis, M.D., as the head of the Sanitarium. He instituted a much more “traditional” way of dealing with patients, and at some point after 1903, various rumors started circulating in eastern Massachusetts about the gruesome practices of the Arkham Sanitarium. Dr. Duplessis was removed and actually sentenced in 1913 for having conducted various most unsavory experiments on unwilling patients, and in an ironic twist of fate, he was committed to the Sanitarium for life, and he remains there to this day.
The Arkham Sanitarium is currently under the auspices of Director Zebediah Hinchliffe, M.D., since 1917. He has been attempting to return the Sanitarium to a semblance of modernity. The head resident since 1921 is Herbert DeVos, M.D., and the Head Nurse is Abigail Dawson.
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