Sixth annual report on the County Pauper Lunatic Asylum / Buckinghamshire County Pauper Lunatic Asylum.

  • St. John's Hospital (Stone, Buckinghamshire, England)
Date:
[1859]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sixth annual report on the County Pauper Lunatic Asylum / Buckinghamshire County Pauper Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    covering of the sides of the passages of communication was a matter of so much urgency as many others, they have postponed until a future period the consideration of this question as well as the recent suggestion of the Commissioners in reference to providing a Dining or Recreation. Hall for the use of the Patients. Your Committee are much gratified that the Commissioners in Lunacy have pointedly remarked upon the efficient manner in which Mr. Humphry, the Medical Superintendent, conducts the Establishment, thus fully es¬ tablishing the opinions expressed by former Committees of Visitors with regard to his abilities and zeal in the performance of his duty, to which your present Committee also bear abundant testimony; your Committee have also the satisfaction of confirming the opinion expressed by the Commissioners of the highly creditable state of the Asylum in all its various branches. Preferring again to the last Report of the Committee of Visitors ar¬ rangements during the past year have been made for the admission of Pauper Patients chargeable to Unions and Places not within this County; accommodation can be afforded for about 140 Female Patients and 140 Males, (Total 280); and at the last meeting of your Committee there were 250 Patients in the Asylum; this increased number has very sensibly diminished the weekly rate of maintenance, the amount per head charged to the Parishes in the County having Patients, during the four Quarters of the past year, having been respectively 10s. 6d., 10s., 10s., and 10s., as disclosed by the Table on the next page, with a pros¬ pect of still further reduction in future ; the average rate of maintenance in this Asylum is therefore now as reasonable as that in any other County. Your Committee, from these arrangements, also arrive at the following conclusion in regard to the cost of the construction of the Asylum; tak¬ ing the amount charged to the Capital or Building Account, [See Ap¬ pendix No. 1,] which has now been closed, as being £46,000, this mil, assuming the Asylum to be capable of containing 280 Patients, bring the average cost of construction per Patient to the sum of £164, which will be found to be the lowest average cost of construction as compared with that in other Counties with one or two exceptions. In the Appendix No. 2 will be found an Abstract of the County Trea¬ surer’s Accounts as to the payment of Instalments of the Principal