The first annual report of the North Wales Lunatic Asylum, Denbigh : for the year M.DCCC.XLIX.

  • North Wales Counties Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The first annual report of the North Wales Lunatic Asylum, Denbigh : for the year M.DCCC.XLIX. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    EE PORT OF THE COMMITTEE. The Committee of Visitors of the North Wales Asylum have the satisfac¬ tion of presenting to the Subscribers, and to the Justices of the several Quarter Sessions, the report of the Medical Officers of the Institution; and in doing so, of adding their testimony to the perfect manner in which their 'duties have been discharged, as well as to the just commendation which they have paid to the various officers of the institution. The visitors need not state that in this, the first year.of their establish¬ ment, they have had serious difficulties to contend with, both from the novelty of the management, in which few, it any, had any previous experience_from the heavy debts still unliquidated on account of the building fund, principally owing to the tardiness in one case, and refusal in another, of the quotas due from two of the counties—from the absolute necessity of receiving pauper patients on the lowest possible terms trom the comparatively small number of patients at the commencement, requiring the same extent of establishment as would be nearly sufficient for the number originally contemplated in the house—but especially from their not having in this, the infancy of their establishment, reaped the benefit to any extent of the higher classes of patients, who will, it is expected hereafter be greatly augmented. Under these circumstances the Board of Visitors fixed the weekly pay¬ ment at 9s., including clothes; a sum considerably less than that demanded at the asylums from whence many of the patients were removed, but which they anticipated would ere long cover their expense, and that the extra cost at the commencement would be entirely reduced. They subjoin a table showing how this has as yet worked, and they have the gratification of feeling that before another year lias elapsed, the income will so far have gained on the expenditure, as not only to liquidate the loss upon the patients at the opening of the establishment, but also to authorize the committee to reduce the weekly payments to such an extent