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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    shine in the winter, as well as of free access of air, and some shade in summer. Quadrangular buildings, (unless the quadrangle is very large, and the buildings are very low,) and ‘circular buildings, and central towers or crescents with radi- ating wings in three or more directions, are open to great objections on every account. A north and south aspect is perhaps as convenient as any other, and the galleries and day- rooms should certainly face the south, or south-east. If the houses of the officers are also to the south, and the kitchen and other offices behind the centre, the principal approach to the asylum must be on the south likewise, and being exposed to the windows of all the galleries and day-rooms, should be screened by an avenue or asemicircular plantation of trees or shrubs. If the central house projects a little from the main front, and has the kitchen, &c., behind it, the projection and the approach will form a complete division between the east and west galleries, and the male and female patients will be effectually separated, both in the front and at the back of the asylum, those of one sex being out of sight of those of the other, both in the galleries and airing-courts. Much ornament or decoration, external or internal, is use- less, and rather offends irritable patients than gives any satis- faction to the more contented. In some of the Itahan asylums, busts, pictures, and ornaments abound, and the walls are painted with figures representing various allegories or histories. These would appear more likely to rouse morbid associations than to do any good. I also disapprove of paint- ing numbers and titles on the walls of airing-courts, by which the walls are disfigured, and the patients are reminded of their confinement as insane persons when walking out for relaxation, or led to consider themselves prisoners. The wards and bed- rooms also should only be designated by simple numbers. When it is remembered that many patients are sent to an asylum whose senses are as perfect, and whose feelings are as acute, as those of sane people, and that from the moment they enter the outer gate everything becomes remedial with