Report of the Committee of Visitors, and sixth annual report of the medical superintendent, of the asylum for the insane poor of the County of Wilts / Wiltshire County Lunatic Asylum.

  • Wiltshire County Asylum.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee of Visitors, and sixth annual report of the medical superintendent, of the asylum for the insane poor of the County of Wilts / Wiltshire County Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/46 (page 14)
    Relief of Necessitous Patients on discharge. them that any neglect or improper treatment by such an officer, of those persons, whose mental state is such, as unhappily to render them incapable of taking care of themselves, will be visited by the Board with their severest censure.” The Board likewise addressed a letter to the Clerk to the Committee of Visitors of the Asylum, requesting that “in the event of any future instance in which there may appear reason to com¬ plain of the conduct of any of the officers engaged in the administration of the Poor-law in this respect, the Committee of Visitors or the Medical Superin¬ tendent of the Asylum will immediately bring the matter under the notice of the Poor-law Board, in order that the proper steps may be at once taken to have the conduct of such officer investigated.” A public notice of this kind was not in the least contem¬ plated, when the remarks of the Medical Superintendent on this subject were written, a year since. The obser¬ vations were by no means intended as a general censure ; and the discretion and humanity with which a large ' majority of the relieving officers discharged their duties, were expressly commended. It is however satisfactory to state that the notice which has been taken has been productive of good. Since the distribution of the report, there has been a marked improvement in the several respects which were complained of. In several Asylums for the pauper insane, the pecuniary circumstances of patients ordered for dis¬ charge have received the attention of Committees of Visitors. In the large Asylums for Middlesex, and in those at Wakefield, Gloucester, and Nottingham, sepa-