In the main hospital is where the surgery clinic was located. In this clinic is where emergency and preventive surgery took place. This was a very busy section of the hospital. State hospital surgical wards were the prototypes of what we now call trauma units. They had to be able to handle almost any injury that could and did occur. I recall some stories from some of the old timers still working at the campus in the mid 1970s, telling of horrific car accidents that would happen at the nearby HWY 20, that the injured would sometimes be transported to NSH because the doctors and staff were so well equipped and trained to handle such emergencies. In the surgical clinic lobotomies and forced sterilizations were also performed as well.
Northern State Hospital Book 