Sixth annual report of the Inverness District Lunatic Asylum : May 1870.

  • Inverness District Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sixth annual report of the Inverness District Lunatic Asylum : May 1870. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    I now beg to lay before the District Board of Lunacy the re¬ ports of the Visiting Commissioners in Lunacy, and an abstract of the proceedings of the House and Visiting Committee, and in doing so I may be permitted to offer my thanks to the District Board of Lunacy for the support I have met with during the jmst year. The alterations proposed to be carried out in the various ap¬ paratus connected with the laundry, kitchen, and heating and ventilating of the establishment, have been commenced by the putting in of a new boiler, intended not only for cooking purposes, but also to heat the building and to supply hot water to the different wards and for bathing purposes. The setting of the boiler, however, and the erection of the chimney stalk in connection with it, was not finished until so advanced a period of the colder season that its capabilities to effect the different purposes for which it was intended have not been tested. It is believed there is little doubt but it will be able to do so, and in this way it is to be hoped much saving in the consumption of fuel will be effected. It has also been determined to remove the cooking boilers from their present position in the kitchen, and to place them in a glass house to be erected in the central court, against the back wall of the kitchen, but with easy access to that department and to the dining-hall. This has been necessitated by the pipes intended to carry the steam from the surface of the boilers during the preparation of the food, having failed to effect this, and in consequence, at all times, but more particularly during the heavier conditions of the atmo¬ sphere, the kitchen and passages connected with it are densely filled with steam. The effect of this is to keep the walls of that depart¬ ment in a continual state of dampness, and passing through the ventilators, the steam is carried along the different flues into very distant parts, producing not only offensive smells in several dormi¬ tories, but from the amount of moisture conveyed to the joists, it may, if longer continued, affect them to such an extent as to injure very materially the centre block of buildings. Amongst other im¬ provements effected in the establishment, has been the introduction • of drinking fountains into all the dormitories and corridors, so that water is at all times accessible to the patients by night or day, and they are no longer left to the consideration of others for this indis¬ pensable necessary. The works connected with this will be again noticed when reference is made to the changes carried out in the Asylum grounds.