Nineteenth annual report of the trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester. December, 1851.

  • State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Nineteenth annual report of the trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester. December, 1851. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in different sections of the State, would have some advantages over a large one. The third Hospital will undoubtedly be called for within a few years, by the increase among the people of this Commonwealth, and by the importation from abroad of the insane. If it shall be deemed advisable to place the sexes in different hospitals, it will be proper that this subject should claim some attention soon. This Hos¬ pital is becoming so much surrounded and hemmed in by the rapid growth of this city, that its farming operations are already and will be more and more restricted. If this Hospital was a mile further off from the centre of the population of this city, our male patients would have more freedom in their work and exercise. The labor of the male patients on the land is not only healthful and curative but is profit¬ able. New institutions should secure all the land they may ever want as one of the pre-requisites of location in any place. On the subject of the proper classification of the insane in hospitals, Doct. Jacobi, Director of the Institution for the Insane, at Seigburg, Germany, in his work “ On the Construction and Management of In¬ stitutions for the Insane,” says, “ That the insane of the two sexes should be separated in these institutions, and, indeed, that the separa¬ tion should be so entire that not only all communication between the patients, but also between the personal attendants, should be strictly prevented, is an object of so much consequence, while, at the same time, the difficulty of effecting such a separation in an institution open to both sexes is so great, and the difference of the arrangements requisite for the two sexes, especially with respect to occupation and mainte¬ nance, as well as with respect to many other matters in the nursing, is so considerable that it is very desirable that there should be entirely distinct institutions for the two sexes where it is possible. This sepa¬ ration into entirely distinct institutions can at least be effected in those districts which contain, within their limits, so great a number of the insane of both sexes as to make an institution common to both too extensive. In Paris, they have the Bicetre and Salpetriere standing near one another. Under other circumstances, economical considera¬ tions generally lead to the reception of the two sexes into a common institution under one direction and management, the separation being kept as entire as is practicable.” The propriety of separating the sexes in hospitals entirely distinct will hardly be questioned, I suppose, by those most practically ac¬ quainted with their management in hospitals for the insane. If then this great and leading feature in the classification of the insane in her public hospitals is to be adopted, some modifications from the usual