State of the Lincoln Lunatic Asylum (instituted November 4, 1819) : [twenty-second report].

  • Lincoln Lunatic Asylum (Lincoln, England)
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: State of the Lincoln Lunatic Asylum (instituted November 4, 1819) : [twenty-second report]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    imperfectly they may occasionally be appreciated. Thus will the great principle become familiar to the public, that even without reference to the amount of actual recoveries, there is positive advantage in every addition that is made to the present comforts of the Insane. The Parliamentary Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy, published in 1844, painfully exhibits the tardy operation and the in¬ efficiency of any inspection towards preventing or correcting abuses in Lunatic Asylums, where public inspection is withheld; every instance of which is virtually an inspection of the managers, and even of the official visitors themselves; and which will ever be most impeded and most loudly condemned, where most it may happen to be needed. Happily this great safeguard of the Insane, and true source of public confidence, has long been in active operation at the Lincoln Asylum; keeping the whole Establishment on the alert, and in a condition to meet the public eye, (in which the officers feel a pride), and to acquire a character for cleanliness, order, kindness, and courtesy ; enforcing a more frequent circuit of the Officers among the Patients and Attendants; and mitigating the monotony of the house. Strangers, however, are on such occasions, forbidden to communicate with the patients, or to do more than see their external condition and accommodations. Mr. Farr observes,—“ The wnrds of the talented Samuel Tuke on this subject are golden”—viz.—“ I believe that I am not too sanguine when I say, that for one evil arising from accidental visitation, ninety- nine will be prevented. The evils of visitation are speculative bugbears, to which practical men have too often found it convenient to give the character of reality.” Through the Patient’s Balls, and Casual Visits, the public are familiar with this House and its economy: and it is gratifying to add that, in the month of August last, it was visited by upwards of three hundred strangers, of the same mixed station in life as the Patients; and that no complaints were heard of. The erroneous prepossessions of society on the subject of insanity, often lead strangers, while unconsciously surrounded by all the worst cases in the Asylum, to enquire where are the furious and violent; and some strangers can with difficulty be induced to believe, that the unoffending peaceful persons amidst whom they are standing, are the very objects of their inquiry and alarm, subjected to no other control than the habitual presence of steady, watchful, and powerful attendants. The popular belief in the ungovernable ferocity of the
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