General rules for the management of the London County lunatic asylums.

Date:
[1904]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: General rules for the management of the London County lunatic asylums. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    15/42 (page 11)
    regulated that a sufficient number shall always be at the Asylum. In the absence of the Medical Superintendent, the First Assistant Medical Officer in residence shall be responsible for the performance of the Medical Superintendent’s duties, sub- ject to his instructions. 8. Except under very exceptional circumstances the Medical Superintendent and the First Assistant Medical Officer shall not be both absent from the Asylum at the same time. 4. They shall visit the wards which are allotted to them at least twice a day, and during the night as occasion requires ; and during the absence of the Medical Superintendent, or with his sanction while he is in residence, on uncertain days and un- certain times (but visits of inspection are to be made on the female side at night only in company with the Matron or the Head Female Night Attendant), and shall report to the Medical Superintendent when such visits have been paid, together with any observations which may have occurred to them during such visits by night in order that such observations and the hours at which such visits were made, may be entered in the Medical Superintendent’s Report Book for the information of the Sub- Committee. 5. They shall not make any alteration with respect to the classification or occupation of the patients, or the duties of the attendants, without the sanction of the Medical Superintendent. 6. They shall render alT the assistance in their power to the Medical Superintendent, by observing the state of the patients carefully watching the effects of all medicines administered, by observing the order, general condition and ventilation of the wards, the treatment of the patients by the attendants, and by communicating without reserve the result of such observations to the Medical Superintendent. 7. They shall not sleep out of the Asylum for more than one night without the previous authority of the Sub-Committee, and shall obtain the consent of the Medical Superintendent before leaving the Asylum at any time during the day, or for one night only. It shall be competent for the Medical Superintendent to grant them occasional leave, consistently with the efficient working of the Asylum. 8. In addition to the specific duties hereinbefore provided, they shall obey and act upon all such other instructions in reference to the treatment of patients as shall from time to time be given to them by the Medical Superintendent.