General report of the Lunatic Department of the Charity Workhouse of the City of Edinburgh, for the years 1833-34-35.

Date:
[1836?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: General report of the Lunatic Department of the Charity Workhouse of the City of Edinburgh, for the years 1833-34-35. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    Table I. sliews, that the number of patients treated during that pe- riod amounts to 182, and Table II. shews the result, viz. that of that number 60 were discharged cured, or nearly one in three; that three were dismissed on trial, 22 taken out improved, and that 29 died, leav- ing in the Asylum on the 30th December 1835, 68 patients. Table III. shews the proportion of those remaining in the house supposed curable and incurable, the former amounting to 24, the latter to 44. ' The number of male patients it will be seen amounts to 86, and that of the females to 96. The proportion of the cures, however, it will be observed, is considerably greater in the females, being at the rate of 40 in 96, or about forty-two per cent, whilst amongst the males it is only as 20 in 86, or twenty-three per cent. This disparity may, I think, be accounted for from the disease in females being often of a milder cha- racter, their greater sensibility of constitution rendering them more liable to be acted upon by slighter exciting causes, the effects of which are less permanent and more easily removed, whilst at the same time the disease in them is rarely combined with apoplexy, epilepsy, and palsy. The women have likewise the advantage of occupation, which the men have not. Twenty-nine patients, it will be observed, have died during the pe- riod embraced by the report, of these twenty-four were male, -Uvuutyv five female; of the former, five died from apoplexy, three from epi- lepsy, two from palsy, seven from consumption of the lungs, two from dysentery, three from atropliy, one from extensive scrofulous disease, and one from fever; of the latter, one died from atrophy, two from dysentery, one from extensive scrofulous disease, and one from cancer of the stomach. The preponderance of deaths amongst the males is cer- tainly very great, but so far it may be accounted for, that the disease in them seems often to assume a more intense character, and to be much more frequently complicated with apoplexy, epilepsy, and palsy, as will appear from what is stated above. The accommodation for the men is inferior to that of the women, being more confined and not so well ventilated ; they likewise have not the advantage of active occupa- tion, and they often become listless and torpid, and the bodily functions seem to languish from the want of sufficient exercise, and some inte- resting employment. It should be stated also, that several of them were in bad health on their admission, and had been long labouring under the disease, and that seven of them were upwards of sixty years of age. It would be out of place here to attempt any thing like a detailed account of the different cases, but the brief relation of a few, whilst it will shew in some degree the nature of the treatment pursued in the Asylum, may not be altogether uninteresting. Case I, J. W. aged twenty-two, slender make, ruddy complexion, labourer, unmarried, was admitted the 22d of August 1832, in a state of high excitement, swearing much, and very abusive to all around him, reported to be a person of moderate intellect, and to have had re- peated attacks of violent mania,—the present paroxysm came on about three weeks ago, his head is small and contracted. From the state of excitement he was in, he was ordered antimonials, purgatives, and cold applications to the head. This treatment required to be persevered in for a considerable time before any abatement of the symptoms took j)lace. The violence of the paroxysm at length began to yield, when the aj)plication of the tartar emetic ointment to the back ot the neck seemed to have a very marked effect in checking the remaining irrita-