Observations on the necessity of an extended legislative protection to persons of unsound mind / by Edward D. de Vitré.

  • De Vitré, Edward D.
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the necessity of an extended legislative protection to persons of unsound mind / by Edward D. de Vitré. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    15/64 (page 11)
    liian at his antics, lie would still have been as troublesome as ever. His stout-lianded superintendent was glad to think that he was getting to require much less attention than formerly. He had become comparatively quiet, and in fact was growing, as the master said, “rather stupid upon the whole !” Comment here would be misplaced; but it forcibly occurs that if such means are even yet adopted in poor-houses, this is perhaps not a solitary instance of a lunatic being rendered harmless by such a mode of coercion. Appalling as the return of 1837 is, as regards the number of insane poor, yet it only professes to be a return of those actually chargeable and on the poor’s books; whilst it is to be apprehended that a very large number of persons of unsound mind, in a state of great poverty, if not in an absolute state of destitution, and who may have since become paupers, are altogether excluded from the return. Taking it for granted, however, that this return is in every respect correct, and that there are at this time in the work- houses and otherwise supported by the poor rates, 9,396 pauper lunatics, exclusive of those in Asylums, the public have a right to know what care is taken of them,—what their condition,—what remedial means have been adopted to ameliorate their sufferings,—what the per centage of deaths and cures, and whether they are subjected to any moral treatment under the direction of competent parties. This information could easily be supplied by the poor-law Commissioners, as doubtless the returns made in conformity with 5 & 6 Victoria, c. 57, will be upon the whole more accurate than those made by the Overseers under 9 Geo. IV. c. 40, s. 36: and yet, throughout the voluminous reports issued by these gentlemen, no comprehensive or satisfactory information on this point is to be obtained. It is the more imperatively required, inasmuch as the poor-