The thirty-fourth annual report of the visitors of the Staffordshire General Lunatic Asylum : for the year ending December 31, 1852.

  • Staffordshire General Lunatic Asylum
Date:
[1853]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The thirty-fourth annual report of the visitors of the Staffordshire General Lunatic Asylum : for the year ending December 31, 1852. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and though, by great care, liberal diet, and the use of stimulants, the lives of many have been prolonged, it is probably only to swell the mortality for the present year. The only other points which seem more particularly to require comment in reference to the patients admitted during the year, are the large proportion supposed to have had a suicidal disposition, and the increased number in whom the disorder is attributed to intemperance. The suicidal disposition was stated to exist in no less than 52 patients, many of whom had made one or more attempts at self- destruction previous to admission. It is a subject of much thank¬ fulness that no accident has occurred with this most anxious class of patients, nor has any serious attempt been repeated during the past year. In seasons of scarcity and privation, and amongst a class of society who can offer no moral resistance to depressing causes of any kind, the impulse which leads them to seek what they suppose to be a lesser evil than the precarious existence they have to endure, is readily accounted for; but the increase of this propensity in times of acknowledged prosperity and plenty, naturally compels us to look for other causes; and whether these may be referable to any atmospheric influence producing that peculiar depression of the nervous energies which leads to suicide, or to the habits of the people themselves, can only be decided by the general observation and experience of those connected with similar institutions. The coincidence, however, of so large a proportion of cases attributed to intemperance, being at the rate of 22.28 per cent., would rather tend to connect the two in the relation of cause and effect. That intemperance is a much more frequent exciting cause of insanity than is shown in the ordinary returns of Asylums, or, in fact, than is generally known or suspected, is much to be feared. The wish to conceal this habit, so naturally felt by all classes, and amongst the lower orders especially, the difficulty of ascertaining their estimate of intemperance, and fixing upon the standard of sobriety, are almost insuperable obstacles to obtaining any correct statistics on the subject. The aclmowledged extent, however, of intemperance as an exciting cause of insanity generally, indepen¬ dent of any speculative views on this point, even though closely
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