Second annual report of the Suffolk Lunatic Asylum : December, 1839.

  • Suffolk Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Second annual report of the Suffolk Lunatic Asylum : December, 1839. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/20 (page 9)
    becomes really necessary, as in the case of the de¬ termined Suicide, at night, it is of the gentlest pos- sible kind that an effective guard can be. There are Institutions where even this is said to be superseded by the employment of &Night. Watcli; but with our present system of management it would be foolish to suggest such an idea; and it is very questionable if the general disturbance it must occasion to those who sleep lightly and wake easily, for perhaps a solitary benefit, is not an insuperable drawback on any of its supposed advantages. Suicides are, under any circum¬ stances, painfully distressing objects to have any thing to do with; their ceaseless cunning and craft to effect a determined purpose, make them inmates of constant solicitude. They are a class of persons to whom public attention has been very much directed of late; and the act itself stands so closely connected with insanity, that it would scarcely be right to pass it by un¬ noticed ; for it must be a laudable desire, to de¬ vise, if possible, some means for prevention of an evil so melancholy and so great; and this can only be accomplished by a mature consideration of the bearings of the question, and the multi¬ tude offacts connected with it. Independently of its social or political bearing on society, in re¬ gard to surviving Relatives, with which the Medical Officer of an asylum has, perhaps, little to do, it is to be considered in a pathological and