The construction and government of lunatic asylums, and hospitals for the insane / By John Conolly.

  • John Conolly
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The construction and government of lunatic asylums, and hospitals for the insane / By John Conolly. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    associations and impressions are unknown, but when all who were concerned in them will be forgotten. An asylum ought to be neither a prison nor a workhouse ; but a place of refuge and of recovery from all the mental distractions incidental to mankind. Comfort in all cases, and recovery in many, are the attainable results of proper agencies directed to the remains of affection and intelligence existing in every case, and varying in all cases. ‘The object, therefore, of every law and regulation of an asylum, and of its whole constitution, should be to bring to bear on all the patients such an amount of intelligence and benevolence as may soothe many, and direct all, and raise each patient to the point of cure attainable in each particular case. All the details should be part of one harmonious whole. The patients should be accustomed to look on the attendants as their constant friends and guardians ; the attendants should expect the visits of the officers with pleasure, and rely upon them for advice and en- couragement ; the officers should be animated by the example of a humane and intelligent medical superintendent; and he and they should look forward to the occasional visits of the directors with confidence. If the patients fear the attendants, and the attendants dread the officers, and the officers look forward to committee days as days of insult, all must go wrong. There is so much that is peculiar in the management of an asylum, that the wonder is, not that such institutions should often be mismanaged, but that governing bodies, not one member of which can be supposed to have had opportunities of acquiring much previous knowledge of the subject, should, upon the whole, acquit themselves of this duty so creditably. The true requirements of a member of such body comprehend not only an attention to finance, and a strict enforcement of regulations, but a consideration of the human character, and of everything that can affect the feelings, and stimulate or depress the exertions, of those officers to whom the direction of infirm minds is intrusted. It must sometimes happen that
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