Report of the Committee of Visitors of the Lunatic Asylum for the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire : with the superintendent's eighteenth annual report, presented at the Easter sessions, 1865 and an account of the receipts and payments to the end of the year, 1864 / North and East Ridings of Yorkshire Lunatic Asylum.

  • North and East Ridings of Yorkshire Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee of Visitors of the Lunatic Asylum for the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire : with the superintendent's eighteenth annual report, presented at the Easter sessions, 1865 and an account of the receipts and payments to the end of the year, 1864 / North and East Ridings of Yorkshire Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The. above table shews how large a proportion of the patients admitted in 1864 had either never possessed any intelligence, or had through long courses of mental decay, been gradually reduced to the like condition, as if they had been born Idiotic. Every effort is made to raise these sorely afflicted patients to states of comfort and usefulness. The Attendants and Nurses are apt to regard such unhappy persons as beyond amendment or improvement; for although they may have known examples of astonishing success, yet the apparently hopeless condition of many who are brought to the Asylum, seems, in spite of the satisfactory, bright, and pleasurable results in former cases to damp their hopes and to almost, as it were, forbid efforts being made for the amelioration of the abject plight of such patients. The greater the despair and the less the hope on the the part of the subordinates iri an Asylum, the greater must be the resolution and the firmer must be the determination of the several officers to overcome (no matter how many difficulties present themselves) all obstacles, all misgivings, all doubts, and to place prominently before the eyes of the servants, the good to be effected and the blessings which are sure to follow a faithful and strenuous discharge of duty. Discourage¬ ment may not unnaturally gain a footing, either through the absence or destruction of the mental power of the patient, or by the state of bodily decrepitude ; or it may be engendered by the contraction of vicious and revolting habits; and the use of disgusting, violent, and obscene language. In some instances, years elapse 7ere any marked change for the better is produced; for these miserable sufferers have often been so unaccustomed to kindness and sympathy, and have received so little attention, that they are entire strangers to any benevolence, and do not, for a long time, understand the friendly acts or intentions of those under whose care they are placed. Every interference with the use which has grown into a “ second nature 57 is a fresh cause for outbreak and abuse. The “ let alone 57 system would almost seem to be justifiable, and does find some excuse ; but all experi¬ ence proves how demoralizing and injurious a “ do nothing77 course is, not alone to the worst classes of patients, but how calculated it is to do damage to others, and more especially to those whose Insanity is of a confirmed and chronic character; whilst on the other hand, by successful treatment, they may create new hopes in the minds of the desponding, establish confidence with the timid, give strength to the faithless and doubting; and lastly, teach the friends and relations of the inmates what rich rewards may be reaped by their putting trust and relying with confidence in the well-tried efforts, management and discipline, to change the habits and tempers of their unfortunate connexions.