State of the Lincoln Lunatic Asylum : [fifth report].

  • Lincoln Lunatic Asylum (Lincoln, England)
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: State of the Lincoln Lunatic Asylum : [fifth report]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    case; under this condition howeve'r, that ne is re¬ quired to lay all the circumstances of the case before the proper authorities without delay, in order to secure from abuse this hazardous though necessary discretion.# The Governors have particularly directed their views to the subject of Coercion and Restraints, well aware of their injurious consequences to the Patients, and seeing from the late Parliamentary investigations on these points, the deplorable results which caprice, tyranny, negligence, and above all a wish to avoid necessary attention and trouble, have elsewhere produced. In order to ascertain the number and con¬ dition of the instruments in use for these purposes, instead of being dispersed in all parts of the house under the control of the inferior Keepers as heretofore, they are now collected in a single apartment, accessible at once, and open to inspection at any moment. In the next place,.the Governors have adopted a Register universally used in the Scotch Asylums, wherein the Director is bound to enter the nature of every instance of restraint, and the time of its continuance, during the night as well as the day. And lastly, * “ A Lunatic Asylum is unlike every other establishment for the “ care or confinement of human beings, in this respect, that the Patients “ are wholly incompetent witnesses, and too often that there is no direct “ mode of detecting any fault in their treatment, but through those who (< have an interest in concealing it.” 13th Report of the Glasgow Asylum, p. 9. Coercion.