Fourteenth report of the directors of the Dundee Lunatic Asylum, for the year ending 31st May, 1834.

  • Dundee Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
[1834?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fourteenth report of the directors of the Dundee Lunatic Asylum, for the year ending 31st May, 1834. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    strictions in point of accommodation to which the patients had to submit, cannot be well aware of the comfort, convenience, and use of these addi¬ tions. It is true that the ladies’ parlour is at present unoccupied; but intimation is hereby given, to those who may require such accommo¬ dation for their relatives, that, in regard to privacy, elegant accom¬ modation, watchful attendance, kind, affectionate, and skilful treatment, there are not advantages offered any where superior to those enjoyed in the Dundee Asylum. The new day-room and airing ground have given increased accommodation to those who pay the lower rates of board, and have enabled the Directors to advance another step in the classification of the patients. Nine spacious airing grounds, with the adjoining gardens, walks, and bowling green, give such scope for recreation and exercise as is seldom equalled in any similar institution. The erection of the new offices, and the now remote situation of the piggeries and poultry yards, have very materially improved the cleanliness, and thereby the comfort, of the whole establishment; and, while nuisances have been removed, the welfare of the patients has been promoted, workshops have been made out, and the apartments which, from necessity, had been used as bed-rooms, have been rendered much more com¬ fortable and convenient. A considerable expense has thus been incurred, as the subjoined accounts intimate, which is not very accordant with the state of the funds, but which is fully justified by a great accession of comfort to the inmates of the institution. II. The Occupation of the Patients.—It has been often said, that if a lunatic is ever to be restored to the use of reason, he must be treated as a rational being ; for we cannot expect to regain the use of our faculties, if no opportunity is offered for their regular exercise. Experience shews that any ■change in our habits is generally accompanied with some degree of mental excitement, which may be either salutary or otherwise, according to the temperament of each individual. Our frame of body, constitution of mind, and the condition in which we are here placed, point out labour as a duty inseparably connected with our present state ; and it is the proper and well regulated exercise of his mental and bodily powers that constitutes the health, comfort, and usefulness of man. Rest is found to be a punishment of a heavier and more afflicting nature than labour. Solitary confinement has been proved to be impracticable, on account of its severity; for the mind either sinks into despondency, or the body yields to the power of death. In a retreat for lunatics, there must be nothing that bears the least resemblance to the treatment of a prison ; and the habits that prevail in an Asylum must approximate as nearly as possible to the manners and pursuits of the world. These are views that have been long before the minds of the Directors—but it is only during the last year that their wishes have been fully realised. The