Report of the County Lunatic Asylum at Prestwich : presented to the Court of Adjourned Annual Session, December 29, 1864 with the accounts of the receipts and payments of the treasurer of the said asylum.

  • Lancaster County Lunatic Asylum at Prestwich.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the County Lunatic Asylum at Prestwich : presented to the Court of Adjourned Annual Session, December 29, 1864 with the accounts of the receipts and payments of the treasurer of the said asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ascribed to the removal from Workhouses of an excessive number of paralyzed and other incurable cases. The mortality (10-5 per cent, upon the total number under treatment) has not exceeded the average of previous years. The chief causes of death have been, as usual, general paralysis and pulmonary consumption; 56 having died of the former, and 21 of the latter disease. In 10 cases death was attributable to epilepsy, in 9 to senile decay, and in the remainder to chronic disease of the brain and other causes. Owing to the rapid admission of Patients in the first few months of the year, and To the inexperience of newly-appointed attendants, much confusion prevailed in the Wards. The attendants had not only to learn their duties, but to become acquainted with the peculiarities of those placed under their charge. The consequence was that the latter escaped in larger numbers than is usual in well-regulated Asylums; and other untoward circumstances arose which possibly we might not other¬ wise have had to deplore. One woman contrived to commit suicide by immersing her head in a pail of water which she placed in a water-closet. Another most cunningly possessed herself of a knife belonging to a journeyman plumber, who was engaged in fitting up some new buildings, and with it inflicted a severe wound in the throat, which proved fatal in less than 36 hours.