Annual report of the Committee of Visitors of the Surrey Lunatic Asylum.

  • Surrey Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Committee of Visitors of the Surrey Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    five years, and may be determined at any time by any of the principal Secretaries of State, and shall not exempt the Justices of any County from the immediate duty and obligation of erecting and providing an Asylum or additional Asylum, or of enlarging or improving any Asylum in such manner as may be required, although the term for which such contract was entered into has not expired by effluxion of time ; it may be inferred that contracts of this kind were intended only for temporary purposes, and none such can be recommended for adoption in this County. Another arrangement has been suggested, namely, the removal to their Parishes of all those patients that are quite harmless and inoffensive, though still of un¬ sound mind, of whom there are a considerable number in the Asylum. By the Statute none are to be sent to the Asylum except such as are Lunatic and proper persons to he taken charge of and detained under care and treatment. All are considered so on being sent, but it is probable that many, though remaining uncured, may pass whilst in the Asylum into a state in which they can no longer be regarded as such. It is very questionable whether Committees of Visitors can be justified in detaining patients of