Arkham Hospital

**The Elizabeth Arkham State Hospital** (or simply Arkham State Hospital) formerly known as the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane, is a high-security psychiatric hospital in Gotham, New Jersey.

Arkham Hospital has a poor security record and high recidivism rate; high-profile patients and prisoners, such as that of Jack Napier, are frequently reported to have been escaping at will - and those who are considered to no longer be mentally unwell and discharged tend to re-offend. Furthermore, several staff members have become mentally unwell subsequent to their employment in the hospital, including its founder, Dr. Amadeus Arkham, as well as medical staff Dr. Harleen Frances, Dr. Jonathan Crane, security chief Lyle Bolton and Administrators Hugo Strange, Charles Cavendish and Jeremiah Arkham; among others.

In addition, prisoners with unusual medical conditions that prevent them from staying in a regular prison are housed in Arkham. For example, Victor Schivel has not been found to be mentally ill, but requires a strongly refrigerated environment to stay alive; Arkham, with special conditions required for certain patients or inmates being a regularity rather than an exception, is seen by authorities to be an ideal location under certain circumstances.

Gotham criminals deemed "criminally insane" or "mentally unfit" by the court of law generally are treated at Williams Medical Center, before being deemed dangerous enough to be sent to Arkham Hospital.

## History

In 1888, cement tycoon Eric Mercey commissioned a giant gothic mansion in the wooded hills of ‘Mercey Island’ for his family and he. Dutch immigrant Ambroos Lydecker was hired to construct the mansion and incorporated a number of hidden rooms and passageways in the building which would later become a security nightmare. One of these passageways led to a tunnel that connected to the complex which would later be adapted into Gotham Academy. During construction, the architect went insane, killing the workers with an axe while quoting *The Fall of the House of Usher* by Edgar Allan Poe before comitting suicide.

Built in 1888-89 under the supervision of prominent architect Cyrus Pinkney, the multi-acre, self-contained mansion originally housed the Mercey family (and subsequently the Arkham family) on their own small island off the Gotham City outskirts. Complete with it’s own theatre, Mercey would entertain the creme de la creme of Gotham society. Little is known about the Mercey family or what may have caused them to leave the family manor, but the once decadent halls of Mercey Mansion once laid empty for more than a decade.

In the early 1900s, Elizabeth Arkham, having suffered from mental illness most of her life, had been suffering delusions of being tormented by a supernatural bat-like entity. After believing to have seen the creature himself, her son, Amadeus killed her to end her suffering, and initially suppressed the memory. As the sole heir to the Arkham estate, Amadeus aimed to remodel his family home in order to properly treat the mentally ill, so others might not suffer the same fate as his mother.

Prior to the building's remodeling, Amadeus Arkham treated patients at the State Psychiatric Hospital in Metropolis, where he, his wife Constance and his daughter Harriet had been living for quite some time. Upon his telling his family of his plans, they moved back to his family home to oversee the remodeling. While there, Amadeus Arkham received a call from the police notifying him that Martin "Mad Dog" Hawkins, a serial killer (once treated by Amadeus Arkham after Metropolis Penitentiary referred him to State Psychiatric Hospital) had escaped from prison and sought his considered opinion on the murderer's state of mind. Shortly afterward, Amadeus Arkham returned to his home to find his front door wide open. Inside, he discovered the raped and mutilated corpses of his wife and daughter in an upstairs room, with Mad Dog's alias carved on Harriet's body. The shock of the murders brought back the memory of killing his mother; traumatised, Amadeus put on his mother's wedding dress and took out a pearl-handled razor, cannibalising his family's remains in a shamanic ritual. Despite this family tragedy, the *Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane* opened in November 1921.

Dr. Arkham designed a floor plan for the asylum that evoked occult runes, and believed that the pattern would drive away the mysterious bat that haunted his dreams. One of Arkham's first patients was Mad Dog himself, whom Amadeus Arkham insisted on treating personally. After treating Mad Dog for six months, Amadeus Arkham deliberately and purposefully electrocuted him, murdering him. The authorities and the staff treated the death as an accident, but it contributed to Amadeus Arkham's gradual descent into mental illness, which he began to believe was his birthright. Eventually, Amadeus Arkham was admitted as a patient in his own asylum after he tried to kill his stockbroker in 1929, and eventually Arkham died scratching the words of a binding spell into the walls and floor of his cell with his fingernails, belting out "The Star-Spangled Banner".

Another one of the earliest inmates was the Anchoress, who would be studied by four generations of doctors before a new breed of lunatic took up the asylum's attention.

Between 1929 and 1974, four more buildings were built on the island and incorporated into the rehabilitation processes of patients and prisoners.

During the 1960s, as a result of increased emphasis on alternative methods of treatment, deinstitutionalization, and community-based mental health care, the inpatient population of the majority of asylums started to decrease, all except for Gotham's Arkham asylum - fueling some to believe further that both the city and the asylum were cursed. After an escape of a prisoner who went on to murder a local child, the asylum set up an alarm system which is activated to alert people in the vicinity, as well as the public including those in the Gotham City areas of Burnley and Somerset when any potentially dangerous patient escapes. It is based on Second World War air raid sirens, and a two-tone alarm sounds across the whole area in the event of an escape. Since 2005, it has been tested every Monday morning at 10 am for two minutes, after which a single tone 'all-clear' is sounded for a further two minutes. All schools in the area must keep procedures designed to ensure that in the event of an Arkham escape no child is ever out of the direct supervision of a member of staff.

In 1974, the asylum changed it's name to *Elizabeth Arkham Hospital*.

Between March 2016 and December 2017, the number of Arkham patients had doubled. Some point to this being a result of the vigilante crusade undertaken by Batman.

## Notable Staff

### Current Staff

* Dr. Jeremiah Arkham - A prominent psychologist and the head administrator at Arkham Hospital. Despite his professional success, he is mentally unstable and has cracked under the pressure of his job several times.
* Aaron Cash Head of Security
* Charles NigaffPsychologist
* Byron MeridethPsychologist
* Mister BygonePsychologist
* Simon Ecks (Prime Earth)Psychologist
* Ingrid KarlssonPhysician

### Historical Staff

* Professor Hugo Strange - Formerly chief psychiatrist and warden from 2011-2019, Strange encouraged his staff to perform illicit, illegal and immoral pranks and experiments on their patients for years. In 2011, he and accomplice Quincy Sharp hired private military and security company TYGER to act as their personal army of unquestioning soldiers. In 2022, after helping create mercenary Bane and helping Ra’s Al Ghul destroy Gotham’s bridges, Strange was betrayed and killed.
* Dr. Amadeus Arkham - The founder and first superintendent of Arkham asylum. Arkham himself seemingly began a slow descent into madness after the murder of his wife and daughter, and eventually died as a prisoner in his own asylum.
* Dr. Harleen Frances - A cleaner and later a psychologist, Frances fell victim to Jack Napier’s manipulation tactics and fell in love with her patient during her internship. Frances later broke Napier out of Arkham, and the duo became romantically and criminally involved. Francis is currently being held in Belle Reve Penitentiary, Louisiana.
* Dr. Jonathan Crane - Once a brilliant professor of psychology, Crane developed an obsession with fear and incorporated a hallucinogenic drug dubbed "fear toxin" to exploit the phobias and sadistically terrorise patients under his care, often to death. Crane is currently a patient in Arkham.
* Professor Achilles Milo - A chemist and physician working at Arkham, Milo used his skills to mutate humans with the aim of defeating Batman. He lost grip on his sanity after being overexposed to his own chemicals and became an inmate of Arkham Hospital.

## Notable Patients

### Current Patients

* Dr. Jonathan Crane, a former psychiatrist at Arkham also known as The Scarecrow, Crane took sadistic pleasure in frightening his patients, often literally to death. Crane suffers from brain damage from prolonged exposure to his own ‘fear-toxin’, that has rendered him nearly incapable of being afraid of anything - except Batman.
* Julian Day, dubbed **Calendar Man** by the media, Day is a serial killer known for committing crimes that correspond with holidays and significant dates.
* Harvey Dent, Gotham’s former district attorney sentenced on five counts of murder; infamous as the criminal **Two-Face**. Currently being treated for psychosis by Dr. Bartholomew Wolper.
* Basil Karlo, a former a-b list actor and serial killer suffering from dissociative Identity Disorder. Known in the media under the title of his movie and character, **Clayface**.
* Jack Napier, anarchist terrorist and serial mass murderer, primarily known as T**he Joker**.

### Historical Patients

* Dr. Amadeus Arkham, the asylum's founder and first superintendent. Died c.1929.
* Dr. Jeremiah Arkham, the hospital’s current administrator has become a patient several times, always apparently regaining his sanity and somehow his position in the hospital.
* Martha Arkham, daughter of Astrid and Adrian Arkham. In and out of the facility between 1966 and 1989.
* Oswald Cobblepot, former gangster and jewel thief, **The Penguin** has spent periods in Arkham Hospital although many sources argue he had feigned insanity to avoid lengthy prison time.
* Humphrey “**Humpty Dumpty**” Dumpler, a former mob accountant who speaks exclusively in rhyme and has a compulsive desire to "repair" that which he considers to be broken. The victim of inexplicable bad luck since birth; unlike other prisoners, he is not deliberately malevolent.
* Duela Dent Jane Doe, a mysterious, delusional and schizophrenic harlequin, the **Joker's Daughter** has claimed to be the daughter of many varied super-criminals and infamous figures in the past such as Selina Kyle, Oz Cobblepot, Dr. Crane, Edward Nashton, Harvey Dent and most infamously the Joker. Despite her unknown true identity, we know she has been in and out of mental institutions for several years.
* **Jane Doe**, an unknown serial killer who observes her targets and then kills them before assuming their identity.
* Dr. Harleen Frances, once a cleaner and later a psychiatrist at Arkham Hospital, she became the girlfriend of patient Jack Napier and was later placed in Arkham for dependency issues and given involuntary therapy. Famously dubbed **Harley Quinn**, she is currently being held at Belle Reve Penitentiary.
* Edgar “**Egghead**” Head, a petty criminal imprisoned in 1966. Died in Arkham at age 66 of a Salmonella infection in the bloodstream (as a complication resulting from undetected lung cancer), on October 25, 1993.
* Waylon Jones, a former sideshow wrestler going by the name **Killer Croc**, Jones is not mentally unwell but has a history of cannibalism, and his rare genetic condition and strength makes it impossible for him to be held at a standard penitentiary. He is currently held at Belle Reve.
* Garfield Lynns, a sociopathic pyromaniac with an obsessive compulsion to start fires. Nicknamed **Firefly**.
* William Omaha McElroy, former Egyptologist at Yale University, a student riot caused McElroy to develop amnesia and delusional psychosis. McElroy believes he is a reincarnation of **King Tut**.
* Professor Achilles Milo, a former chemist and physician at Arkham, Milo lost grip on his sanity after being overexposed to his own chemicals and became an inmate of Arkham Hospital. Milo is now an inmate at the Haven Correctional Facility. He has lost his legs under undisclosed circumstances and uses a wheelchair, but continues to assist in body modifications.
* Preston Payne, suffering from a lifelong usual and rare STD, as well as hyperpituitarism, Payne worked at S.T.A.R. Labs-Gotham division searching for a cure, before being admitted to Arkham for dissociative Identity Disorder. Also nicknamed **Clayface**.
	+ Lock-Up
	+ Mad Hatter
	+ Magpie
	+ Maxie Zeus
	+ Mr. Freeze
	+ Music Meister
	+ Nocturna
	+ Poison Ivy
	+ Professor Milo
	+ Professor Pyg
	+ Prometheus
	+ Ra's al Ghul (committed as "Terry Gene Kase")
	+ Ratcatcher
	+ Riddler
	+ Scarecrow
	+ Signalman
	+ Tally Man
	+ Ten-Eyed Man
	+ Ventriloquist
	+ Victor Zsasz

## Deaths

### Murders committed in Arkham Hospital

* Elizabeth Arkham - Euthanised by her son, Amadeus.
* Constance Arkham - Raped and murdered by “Mad Dog” Hawkins.
* Harriet Arkham - Raped and murdered by “Mad Dog” Hawkins.
* ”Mad Dog” Hawkins - Strapped to a table and electrocuted to death by Amadeus Arkham in revenge for the rape and murder of his family.
* Various Scarecrow victims - Patients sadistically tortured and killed by Dr. Jonathan Crane.
* Jason Todd - Murdered by the Joker in an abandoned wing of Arkham Hospital.

### Deaths connected to Arkham Hospital

* Various construction workers - Killed by Ambroos Lydecker with an axe after he had gone insane.
* Ambroos Lydecker - Committed suicide after murdering his own construction workers.
* Amadeus Arkham - Died as a prisoner inside his own asylum.
* Local child - An Arkham prisoner escaped and murdered a local child before being recaptured.