State of the Lincoln Lunatic Asylum (instituted November 4, 1819) : [twenty-first report].

  • Lincoln Lunatic Asylum (Lincoln, England)
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: State of the Lincoln Lunatic Asylum (instituted November 4, 1819) : [twenty-first report]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    violent treatment, have gradually disappeared. The Suicides formerly occurring, or attempted, in this House, are now not heard of: and from some cause not easily explained, the suicidal propensity seems to have disappeared, and to cease very soon after the admission of a Patient into the House. This must partly be attributed to great attention on the point of general health, especially in the matter of fresh air and ventilation and diet; as also in the entire disuse of instrumental restraint, solitary confinement, and other depressing agencies ; and in the general cheerful¬ ness of the premises, and the open cheerful tone attempted in the whole house. The monthly Balls have perhaps contributed to this effect : and it should be added, that the whole of the Patients, with the rarest exceptions, are admitted : it appearing that Patients on other occasions gross in their conduct and conversation, or even violent, exercise a control over themselves on these evenings, and become more and more orderly at each successive meeting. On the other hand, the company is not scrupu¬ lously limited to ladies and gentlemen of superior station, but these parties are very freely accessible to children and respectable individuals, of the same class in life as the Patients themselves. The eager and animated reception of certain mechanical amusements, such as the rocking-horse, foot-ball, &c., when first introduced, might have afforded materials for glowing description. The experience, however, of this house has not encouraged any sanguine expectations from such a quarter ; but has on the contrary developed the disappointing truth, that there is a fickleness and instability in the insane on the point of interest in such external objects, that disposes them to become quickly sated with enjoyments of this nature. It is quite evident that they will not seek such amusements of their own accord ; they must be systematically pre¬ sented to them, and on system discontinued, and varied, and again pro¬ duced, as are the monthly balls of the house in the winter season ; so as to force attention by their novelty, and withdraw the Patients from that abstraction into which they so naturally relapse. At the end of the disorderly galleries are the apartments for the Noisy Patients : a matter accompanied in every Asylum with very serious difficulties, as affecting the comfort of the whole Establishment. Innumer¬ able schemes have been resorted to and suggested for obviating the evil; such as placing the Patients in upper rooms with windows turned away from the house, or with sky-lights, or with hollow walls containing saw¬ dust—all of which have failed in preventing the transmission of sound— which has reverberated as from a focus—or has produced that stifled and muffled noise found to be much more irritating and intolerable than the direct noise. No one in the present day would venture on the proposition to gag a noisy Patient: and it may indeed be considered as established, that these Patients find some sort of relief to their irritability, in their noise —and in some degree control each other by the exercise : and we would further venture the position, that any inspector who passes through an