Richard Sprigg Steuart

Who was Richard Sprigg Steuart?

Dr. Richard Sprigg Steuart was a Maryland physician and an early pioneer of the treatment of mental illness. He was instrumental in the expansion and modernisation of The Maryland Hospital for the Insane, now known as the Spring Grove Hospital Center, which became his life's work. Spring Grove continues to treat mental illness today, and is the second oldest institution of its kind in the United States. Steuart was relieved of his position as superintendent of the hospital at the start of the American Civil War, because he refused to sign an oath of loyalty to the Union, but he was reinstated at the war's end, and remained superintendent almost until his death in 1876.