Thirty-fourth annual report of the Suffolk Lunatic Asylum : December, 1871.

  • Suffolk Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
[1872]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Thirty-fourth annual report of the Suffolk Lunatic Asylum : December, 1871. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/20 (page 6)
    visit. As some alterations, and required amendments of the Lunacy Laws are said to be in contemplation, it is imperative upon all who can speak from experience to press with con¬ tinued urgency the necessity of removal of many in both these classes, either to the union house or to their relatives who ought to watch over them. The vast expense of extend¬ ing and enlarging buildings, which would in many instances not be required, if the reception were limited to proper objects for an asylum, becomes in great measure useless? if hospital treatment is not secured : and this is almost en¬ tirely ignored by the admission of feeble imbeciles and dirty children, harmless, but incapable of cure. Recent cases are difficult enough to obtain under ordinary circum¬ stances : and if the room which should be retained for them is occupied by inmates who might be kept clean by an in¬ dulgent mother or a tender nurse, the consequence will be that patients suffering from recent attacks must be refused. The Scotch Commissioners express this opinion very strongly. They remark “ the term insane is used in the Irish Commissioners Report, and probably also in the English Commissioners Blue Book, in a general sense, and applies indiscriminately to the idiotic and demented as well as to the lunatic classes, many of whom when they become a little troublesome to those in charge of them, are sent to asylums without any reference to their fitness for treatment in institutions for the insane, or consideration for the addi¬ tional expenditure entailed upon the district, by placing persons in curative establishments who cannot properly derive any benefit therefrom, and who might be suitably provided for in the Union House.’7 It may be well to introduce here the notice of a patient who was admitted from a recent seizure of suicidal melan¬ cholia. It was a first attack of only six days duration. He was placed in an associated dormitory, watched over by the head attendant, ever close to his room. As the Assistant