Annual report of the Committee of Visitors of the County of Warwick Pauper Lunatic Asylum : for the year 1862.

  • County of Warwick Pauper Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
[1863?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Committee of Visitors of the County of Warwick Pauper Lunatic Asylum : for the year 1862. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    patients of sufficient intelligence and inclination to call the night atten¬ dant, if necessary. In large Asylums there are always to be found many light-sleeping and tolerably intelligent patients proud of the sense of responsibility, and in my judgment really more to be relied on at such times than'a nurse probably tired and drowsy from the duties of the preceding day. When suicidal patients are unfit for associated dormito¬ ries, the other ordinary precautions of a padded room, and clothing and bedding that cannot well be used for self-destruction, are resorted to ; but in only one instance have I thought it advisable to have an attendant specially sitting up with a patient of this class, and then I doubt whether the propensity was not aggravated and prolonged by the presence of the nurse keeping the idea continually in her mind. The record in the obituary of one death ‘from asphyxia might be be supposed to contradict the statement of our complete immunity from suicide; but the circumstances attending the death were such as not to admit of any doubt as to its cause :—A female, after a protracted exhaust¬ ing maniacal paroxysm, fell into a sound and heavy sleep; when last seen alive she was lying partly on her side, with the face sufficiently exposed in no way to interfere with respiration; when next seen, about an hour after the former visit, she was found to have turned into a prone position, with the face buried in her pillow, and herself dead, evidently asphyxiated by the obstruction to breathing caused by this position. There have been fluctuations in the proportions of recoveries in different years, influenced in great measure by the accidental character of the admissions. The whole admissions up to the close of the year 1862 have, been 1096, and the recoveries 320, or 30 per cent.; and between twenty and thirty more (four of whom are now absent from the Asylum on trial) will probably be similarly discharged. But deducting those who on admission were affected with forms of insanity generally recognised as incurable, 578 in number, the remaining 518 have already afforded 308 recoveries, about 60 per cent. Separating the different forms of recent insanity, the recoveries have been From ordinary Recent Mania (under 12 months’ duration on admission .. .. .. .. . 60 per cent. „ Puerperal Mania, or that affecting women in connection with child-hearing .. .. .. .. 771 » „ Melancholia .. .. .. .. .. 52J ,, „ Recent Acute Dementia.. .. .. ,. 80 ,, s Whilst from the chronic forms of insanity they have been but 2i per cent.; and from insanity of any form complicated with epilepsy barely 10