Thirty-second annual report of the Suffolk Lunatic Asylum : December, 1869.

  • Suffolk Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
[1870]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Thirty-second annual report of the Suffolk Lunatic Asylum : December, 1869. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    causes and impressions have very commonly an important and distinct influence on the character and colouring of those ideas which before have occupied the minds of the insane. Some circumstances known in connection with this patient’s previous history would furnish a clear proof of this. To all the facts connected with recurrent mania particularly, the attention of coroners and jurors should be especially directed, lest for want of investigation into the nature of insanity, hasty or erroneous opinions may be passed. The Commissioners in Lunacy are still very urgent in their recommendation of a night watch. No accident has taken place in this Asylum for a long series of years, which any such attendant could have prevented. If an opinion may be formed from the published reports of asylums where this suggestion is adopted, it would appear that it is a security not much to be depended upon. The watchman was at one part of the building when mischief took place at the other: he had only just left the patient before the deed was done. Some years back the Superintendent visited an asylum where the watchman’s vigilance was said to be tested by a very ingenious Tell-Tale : when he went with his friend and colleague to examine it, it was found to be only just out of order. Some correspondence took place in the year 1844 between the late Commissioner Milne and the Superintendent. The latter brought to Mr. Milne’s notice the case of a patient who complained sadly of being dis¬ turbed at night. The man slept in an associated dormitory: he said the watchman woke him as he passed, and he could not get to sleep again the whole night, for a swarm of bees had been put into his head. The night watch clearly put the bees into this hive. The watch must disturb some patients more or less who sleep lightly; and his required duty stands in opposition to the quietude of a night nurse. The question resolves itself into the difference between