Post: #1

An estimated 7,000 bodies (patients of Mississippi's first mental institution) are believed to be buried under a medical school in the state.

Quote:Experts believe that up to 7,000 bodies from Mississippi’s first ‘Lunatic Asylum,’ built in 1855, are buried under what is now the University of Mississippi Medical Center campus.

The bodies are former patients and stretch across 20 acres (81,000 sq meters) of land under the university campus which is earmarked for future construction. Experts used ground penetrating radar to make the extraordinary find.

The graves were first discovered in 2013 when construction crews, working on a new road project, unearthed 66 unmarked graves on the campus, leading researchers to further survey the site.

Later, in 2015, during work on a campus parking garage, a further 1,000 bodies were discovered and shortly after another 1,000 were found just north of the construction site. Following further surveying, experts believe that the total number of bodies under the campus is closer to 7,000.

The University of Mississippi, or ‘Ole Miss’, now has a plan to exhume and rebury each body and create a memorial to the dead, along with a visitors center and a laboratory which would be used to study the remains and clothes and coffins from the period. The project, however, comes at a hefty price.

Initially it was thought that the cost of exhuming and reburying each corpse would be $3,000, taking the total to a staggering $21 million. Now the university is looking at another plan at a cost of $400,000 for at least eight years, bringing the total a substantially less $3.2 million.

The Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum, later renamed the Mississippi State Insane Hospital, was the brainchild of civil war nurse Dorothea Dix. She strove for better conditions for the nation's mentally ill patients who, up until then, had been jailed and shunned by wider society.

The institution operated from 1855 to 1935, when it was moved to the present site of the Mississippi State Hospital. Construction didn’t begin on the university's medical center until almost two decades later, with Ole Miss opening its doors to its first students in 1955.

Sounds like the state is going to go cheap on honoring the dead -- no surprise there. Plenty of money to run the football programs, but giving the patients of their first mental health program a proper burial? Nope!

Post: #2

Meh. "Proper burial" is overrated. Spend money on people who will know the difference.

Post: #3

I'm offended by the political correctness that led to the renaming of the institution from the "Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum" to the "Mississippi State Insane Hospital."

Once Trump is elected, he'll put a stop to this madness and honour tradition by having the institution renamed back to its original title.

Post: #4

No one around today knows or has any connection to those buried there. Not to mention, there's very little historical interests in these remains.

I've got no issue with the university wanting to do this for as cheaply as possible. If they want to ease their concerns hire a priest who can do a quick blessing as the remains enter an incinerator.

Post: #5

(05-08-2017 11:43 PM)Delta Wrote:  Meh. "Proper burial" is overrated. Spend money on people who will know the difference.

True, it is quite the sum to properly handle the remains. Given there are always other more pressing financial concerns, this situation probably doesn't merit such an expenditure.

It still leaves a bad taste in my mouth that so many were left without a proper burial. Maybe they did in some form -- the records are probably lost to time -- but we should value the lives of those who came before.

Post: #6

I wonder if there's any good urban legends centred around the area.

Post: #7

Waste of money

WNB (would not bury)

Post: #8

(05-08-2017 11:48 PM)Suits Wrote:  I'm offended by the political correctness that led to the renaming of the institution from the "Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum" to the "Mississippi State Insane Hospital."

Once Trump is elected, he'll put a stop to this madness and honour tradition by having the institution renamed back to its original title.

It's under the University of Mississippi Medical Centre, right? Given the current state of universities around the country, it'll be a strike in the name of naming accuracy, too.

God save us from people who mean well. -storm

Post: #9

(05-08-2017 11:54 PM)The Beast1 Wrote:  If they want to ease their concerns hire a priest who can do a quick blessing as the remains enter an incinerator.

Post: #10

I can see how they need to get all those corpses out of the way for construction. That being the case, the reburials should be made with some reasonable respect.

However, I think the original burials were probably done with reasonable respect by the standards of the time. I don't see any grievances here in need of redress. After all, that lunatic facility was built in an attempt at more humane treatment of the insane.

It's funny how no matter what caring and non-biased term you try to use for nut jobs, it only takes a few years before that term develops highly negative connotations.

Post: #11

Yeah, the Universities care about football. Football brings in millions of dollars and is a recruiting tool to advertise the university. When is the last time 70,000 drunks got together to cheer for some dead crazies?

Nobody cared about these lunatics 100 years ago. I don't care about them now. They're just carcasses. Throw them in a big bonfire. Dust to dust.

Post: #12

Is the issue that the Asylum killed them instead of caring for them? If it's just about remains, I'm sure you can find scattered bones wherever you dig deep enough.

Post: #13

Hollywood thought me that spirits will cause these students from campus to go full SJW.

Post: #14

I don't believe in ghosts, but I refuse to go into a building that sits on top of 7000 dead diagnosed lunatics.

If ever someplace was haunted, its that.

Aloha!

Post: #15

(05-08-2017 11:14 PM)2Wycked Wrote:  

And look at how stressed out that poor guy is. They give him a couple shovels and a bucket and that's it. "Larry, get out there and dig up those lunatics!"

Aloha!

Post: #16

Found footage of Kona visiting the hospital...

Post: #17

(05-09-2017 04:20 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  Found footage of Kona visiting the hospital...

With all due respect to those who have passed, this thread made my day.

Look at this poor dude again:
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He's probably got a 200 thousand dollar anthropology degree and he's sitting there surrounded by costco brand trash bags full of lunatic bones. I bet theres a dry erase board over his desk that says he has 6894 more Mississippi lunatics to dig up.

I know its bad to mock others misfortune, but life is kicking that guys ass.

Aloha!

Post: #18

(05-09-2017 03:47 PM)Kona Wrote:  

(05-08-2017 11:14 PM)2Wycked Wrote:  

And look at how stressed out that poor guy is. They give him a couple shovels and a bucket and that's it. "Larry, get out there and dig up those lunatics!"

Aloha!

Heh - looks like they got the cost-cutting down - Larry with his bucket and a team of Mexican illegals will do just fine.

Frankly there is a limit to all this honoring of the dead. I would consecrate the earth and then napalm bomb the site - on site cremation so to say. Then move off to more pressing things.