Dr. George Anthony Zeller

Pioneer – in Health Care

Dr. George Anthony Zeller (1858 – 1938) was an innovative psychiatrist and the first superintendent of the Peoria State Hospital, a care facility which treated the mentally ill. Dr. Zeller was recognized as a leader in the non-restraint, non-imprisonment treatment of mental health patients. Early on, he advocated for a gentle, compassionate care of all patients, and his methods were widely respected. Dr. Zeller did not restrain patients, he did not imprison them and he did not employ seclusion or solitary confinement for his patients.

He also worked to completely abolish the use of narcotics to treat patients (or rather to keep them in a “subdued” state). Additionally, for the hospital workers who gave care, he established the eight-hour shift. Zeller’s innovative ideas regarding mental health and treatment made him a leader in the field – well-known and respected nation-wide. Dr. George Zeller was clearly a man ahead of his time.

Born in 1858 in Spring Bay, Illinois, George Zeller graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri in 1879. He married Sophia Kline of Henry, Illinois in 1889, and a decade later he served in the Spanish-American War as a captain and assistant surgeon. Besides Zeller’s distinguished work treating the mentally ill, he was a benefactor of education, authoring several manuscripts and books and donating land upon which Jubilee College was established. Zeller died at age 79 in 1938. monument in honor of Dr. Zeller can be found in Spring Bay, he and his wife are buried in Springdale Cemetery.

P. R. Mcintosh

George A. Zeller M.D., 1938

Oil on canvas

Peoria Historical Society