Twenty-seventh annual report of the Trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital at Northampton, for the year ending September 30, 1882.

  • State Lunatic Hospital (Northampton, Mass.)
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Twenty-seventh annual report of the Trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital at Northampton, for the year ending September 30, 1882. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    deaths from epilepsy, 3 from paresis, or the general paral¬ ysis of the insane, 2 from the metastasis of erysipelas, 3 from marasmus, 2 from wounds self-inflicted at the hospital, and 1 from a similar wound before the admission of the patient. The remaining 14 were the results of as many different diseases, the record of which may he found in the table of mortality. As above intimated, the deaths of three of the patients Avere the consequences of suicidal acts. In tAvo of them, both of them men in Avhom no tendency to self-destruction AA^as either known or suspected, the act Avas committed here ; but in the other, a Avornan, it Avas done at her home. The first two cases were investigated by the Medical Examiner. The Avhole number of deaths by suicide committed at the hospital to the present time — tAventy-four years from the time it AA’^as opened — is 18. In 12 of them the patients were men ; and in 6, Avomen. Eleven of them occurred Avithin the first tAvelve years of the period, and 7 of them in the last tAvelve. The relative proportion in the tv/o subor¬ dinate periods, as compared Avith the number of patients, differs more Avidely than is indicated by these numbers. The average number of patients resident in the hospital during the first twelve years was only 347.61, AA^hile in the last tAvelve it Avas 452.18. Hence we derive the fact that, during the first of these periods, the a proportion of suicides Avas a trifle more than twice as great as during the last, or as 317 to 154. The experience of the past year, in relation to the com- paratUe mortality of the sexes, confirms that of most of the antecedent years in the history of the hospital. Of the 291 men-patients treated in the course of the year, 24, or 8.24 per cent., died; but of the 296 women-patients, the deaths Avere only 14, or 4.73 per cent. Calculated in this Avay, then, the mortality of the men Avas nearly tAvice as great as that of the Avomen. Calculated upon the daily average of patients resident in the hospital, the percentage for men Avas 10.41, and for Avomen 6.05, the difference being less than by the other method. In the course of the last twelve official years, the number of deaths was, of men 219, and of Avomen 161; a total of
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