Sixth annual report of the state of the United Lunatic Asylum for the county and borough of Nottingham; and the fifty-first of the original institution, formerly the General Lunatic Asylum : year 1861.

  • Nottingham United Lunatic Asylum at Snenton.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sixth annual report of the state of the United Lunatic Asylum for the county and borough of Nottingham; and the fifty-first of the original institution, formerly the General Lunatic Asylum : year 1861. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The gross increase in the number of Patients at the close of the year amounts to 30 ; and, as I remarked in a former Report, the accumulation of Patients is augmented by the lengthened term of residence which the permanent and incurable character of the majority of the cases admitted demands. The latest Par¬ liamentary Returns show that the mean term of treatment, or, in other words, the average duration of confinement in an Asylum, Hospital, or Licensed House, is 2.68 years for males, and 3 years exactly for females. These figures include private Patients in Hospitals and Licensed Houses; but if the calculation had been limited to Paupers in County Asylums, the average duration would have been found still greater. More men have been sent into the Asylum than women, although there is a greater number of female Lunatics existing in the county than male. This is explained on the grounds that the form of insanity is more severe in the male sex; and also that women can be usefully occupied in domestic duties amongst their friends or in Workhouses, whilst there is a greater difficulty in providing employment for men out of an Asylum. The recoveries are 31, or 25.61 per cent, on the admissions. The deaths 39, or 13,31 per cent, on the daily average resident, and 9.87 per cent, on the total number under treatment. The causes which tend to the production of the malady are always a subject of interest to the public. These were, in the order of their frequency, the Hereditary Disposition, Epilepsy, Chronic Diseases of the Brain, Intemperance, &c. Of all the causes of insanity the last named is the most preventable. The temporary stimulating effects of alcoholic beverages upon the nervous system are well known; but the permanent morbid changes in the organism less so. Pathology demonstrates that the long con¬ tinued abuse of this agent produces atheromatous disease of the arteries ; fatty and other degenerations of the heart, liver, and kidneys; and, as might be expected, affects with special severity, a vascular organ like the brain, which has no excretory duct to eliminate the poison.