Report of the Committee of Visitors, and seventh annual report of the medical superintendent, of the asylum for the insane poor of the County of Wilts / Wiltshire County Lunatic Asylum.

  • Wiltshire County Asylum.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee of Visitors, and seventh annual report of the medical superintendent, of the asylum for the insane poor of the County of Wilts / Wiltshire County Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    has thought it right to depart from the general rule of the total disuse of personal restraint. The case was that of a female partially disabled in the lower limbs, labouring under an inveterate form of moral insanity, who, with the object of frightening those around her into a compliance with her unreasonable demands, abandoned herself to practices the most disgusting, and to language too outrageous for repetition. After the employment of every method which could be suggested, and the exercise of the greatest possible patience, a strait waistcoat was applied for part of two days, with perfect success; and the fear of its re-application has sufficed to prevent any recurrence of the objectionable conduct or language. A case of this exceptional kind shows the inexpediency of being too rigidly bound by any general rule as to the disuse of mechanical restraint. The occurrence of one such instance, in a period of six years, serves rather to confirm than to invalidate the rule, the general applicability of which to the circumstances of a well-ordered Asylum there seems no reason to doubt. In his last report, the Medical Superintendent drew the attention of the Committee of Visitors to the crowded state of the female department, and suggested that the time had arrived for some addition being made to the buildings for the women. After repeated deliberations, however, it was determined to postpone the enlargement. The year 1857 has witnessed a progressive increase in the number of female patients, and the present number of 189 is twenty more than were in the house at the beginning of the year. This Proposed addition.