Twentieth annual report of the Suffolk Lunatic Asylum : December, 1857.

  • Suffolk Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
[1858]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Twentieth annual report of the Suffolk Lunatic Asylum : December, 1857. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    two of our most valuable artisans continue their present pur* suits, we hope to be able to make all the additional furniture required for the necessary demands of the patients. The men who have been most industrious, act somewhat impulsively; but during their profitable impulse, they have made fifty neat birch bedsteads, turned and polished: twelve settees, stuffed and covered: twelve double wash-hand-stands for the open dormitories: twelve small tables, twenty-four night-chairs for invalids, a good many looking glass and picture frames, and various other articles of general usefulness. All these have been obtained at the mere cost of material; and the quietude of two otherwise turbulent patients secured by em¬ ployment. The old trough bedsteads furnished materials for making seats round the airing courts, which were very much needed; for enlarging and roofing an additional cattle shed, and making extra coverings in the farm buildings. Since the last enlargement of the Asylum, we have felt occasional anxiety about the supply of water, which did not rise in the well to anything near its original height. In the months of June, July, and August, the supply became so scanty that the tank could not be filled, the water not rising more than eighteen inches in the well. Twenty patients were set to work at the removal of the accumulated sand which partially produced the failure. They got up ten loads of sand, and the water rose to six feet. This was only just half of its original height in the well, and if next summer should be as dry as the last, a question will arise whether it will not be necessary again to deepen the well. Should this be the case, our energetic labourers will be ready with their willing help again. Some of the less robust patients have been occupied in papering the single rooms, and painting some of the dining rooms and galleries. Obviously, there are opposite effects produced upon the mind of the insane by different colours. The residents in those parts of the House which have been painted green, have repeatedly expressed the com¬ fort that it is to them, and the tranquillizing effect produced.