Report of the County Lunatic Asylum at Prestwich : presented to the Court of Adjourned Annual Session, holden at Preston, 28th December, 1882, with the accounts of the receipts and payments of the treasurer of the said asylum.

Lancaster County Lunatic Asylum at Prestwich.

Date:: 1883

Credit: Report of the County Lunatic Asylum at Prestwich : presented to the Court of Adjourned Annual Session, holden at Preston, 28th December, 1882, with the accounts of the receipts and payments of the treasurer of the said asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$The Asylum has been free from epidemics. A few isolated cases of erysipelas and one of measles (which the patient had on admission) occurred ; and one patient was received with fractured ribs. The ratio of recoveries to admissions in 1881 was 45*25 per cent, for both sexes, and the death-rate 5*1 per cent, of the average number resident; but these rates have doubtless been seriously affected by the refusal to receive patients suffering from epileps}^ and general paralysis. The present weekly charge per head is 7s. 7d. ; the weekly cost, 8s. 6§d. The difference is paid out of a present balance felt to be unnecessarily large. The bodily health of the patients is, at present, satisfactory on the whole. Under medical treatment are 19 males and 27 females. The number of patients confined to bed is not large. We find no record of the use of mechanical restraint, and but 7 patients, 1 male and 6 females, have been secluded, the male on two and the females on 11 occasions, and for a total duration, in all, of 81^ hours. We have not omitted the usual inquiries into the general system of treatment and management followed here. The useful employment of the patients is largely promoted, and we learn from the records that about 75 per cent, of each sex are daily occupied in some description of useful work. In addition to keeping up the stock for the existing Asylum, we find that all the necessary clothing and shoes, and much of the furniture for the Annexe, have been made here. The attendance at divine service, Church of England and Roman Catholic, is much the same as reported in the last entry, as is also that at the associated entertainments, which are of the usual frequency. As regards the exercise of the patients, we think there is room for improvement. Eighty men, or thereabouts, take walks beyond the Asylum estate weekly ; and the patients (exclusive of men employed on the land) who daily walk beyond the airing courts are$