Report of the Committee of Visitors of the County of Warwick Pauper Lunatic Asylum : 1859.

  • County of Warwick Pauper Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
[1860?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee of Visitors of the County of Warwick Pauper Lunatic Asylum : 1859. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to be reasonably set down as incurable : advanced disorganization of brain or other vital organs, idiocy, the complication of epilepsy, or long protracted mental disorder, indicating that little more was to be done than to administer to their daily wants, to endeavour to develop what remained of their original mental capacity, or, in many cases, to smooth their sure progress to the grave. The large proportion of cases of this nature necessarily suggests that this A sylum is still regarded too much as a mere receptacle for cases of mental disorder and decay, inconvenient or troublesome to be longer treated in their homes or Union houses, instead of an Institution specially adapted to the care and treatment of insanity in its earlier and more curable stages. Of the admissions this year less than six per cent, have been previously under treatment in this Asylum; and of the cases of dis« charge, as recovered, during the seven and a half years since its open¬ ing, only eighteen per cent, have more than once become its inmates. Though experience from this source is too limited for the deduction of any independent inference, it tends to confirm other observations, that, in persons recovering from an attack of insanity, the probability of a relapse is not greater than in the majority of ordinary serious diseases to which we are liable. It is a common remark of strangers, and even of those more accustomed to the general inspection of Asylums, that a large propor¬ tion of the inmates appear perfectly quiet and inoffensive ; and it is to many a subject of surprise that their detention is considered necessary ; and that they cannot be equally well taken care of in the Union houses, or by their friends. This view of their condition is, so far as mere superficial observation is concerned, very reasonable, but it is practi¬ cally very fallacious. Many of the patients, whose appearance more especially elicits such remarks, have been sent to the Asylum simply because they have become quite unmanageable in the Unions; and to the experienced observer present the most striking examples of the bene¬ ficial effects of the present treatment of insanity as practiced in Asylums. The facilities for classification, the moderate amount of general control exercised to check or remove sources of irritation to individuals, com-