Narrative of the recent difficulties in the Provincial Lunatic Asylum in Canada West : dedicated to the Christian community, and to the presiding officers of lunatic asylums in Europe and America.

  • Park, Geo. H. (George Hamilton)
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Narrative of the recent difficulties in the Provincial Lunatic Asylum in Canada West : dedicated to the Christian community, and to the presiding officers of lunatic asylums in Europe and America. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    Here is a problem to be solved, viz., what want of cleanliness must tliere be, before it is marked. A certain amount of uncleanliness is here admitted ; but to what point may the dirtiness reach, before it is marked? Does nut this very language show to the Government a self-conviction in the Rev. minds of the truth of my statement 1 Is it not a reluctant admission of a pari for the whole ? And if the commissioners, in the unworthy discharge of their supervision, tacitly allowed the uncleanliness to accumulate to a degree, which, unscrupulous persons might say, was not marked, and further forced hostile and unworthy keepers on the Medical Superintendent for the discharge of his duty, how could my predecessors be held responsible for the condition of the Asylum 1 Let them, through the past records of the institution, speak now for themselves, and only briefly, as the pages grow in number far beyond my expectation. Dr. Rees paid all the attention, the conduct of the servants and commis- sioners would allow, to the cleanliness of the patients ; and in August, 1S43, thus registers his mortification, The cistern provided for the patients' heads, and ordered to be regularly used for that purpose, is not yet in a fit state! Hoping that the ladies in eveiy region where this narrative may travel, will read it, I forbear to detail the obvious condition of the heads of lunatics upon their arrival and during the worse stages of their illness in the Asylum, from the daily accumulation of various kinds of filth from various and nameless sources. No marked want of cleanliness ;*—and yet there was not, upon my assumption of duty, such a thing as a bath throughout the whole establishment! How were the patients, often wallowing in dirt and besmearing their bodies with it of every kind, be possibly kept in a state of uncleanliness not marked, without a bath for the purpose 1 The civilised world will condemn the leant of this means of ablution, as proof of inefficient discharge of important duty by the commissioners, either from ignorance or corruption. Dr. Rees evi- dently noticed the deficiency, and sought for its supply by this entry, to ascertain the expense of getting water from the water works. It was not without obvious sectet jealousies and displeasure, that I obtained a bath ; and, upon its completion, I see an order from Dr. Kolph to the steward, in August, To arrange for the patients of the whole institution to have a bath of such temperature as ma\ suit the patients respectively (unless otherwise in special cases ordered) in routine, so that each inmate may have it twice a-week. The reader can judge how much this aided other means to promote the comfort, invigorate the constitution, and improve the habits and mental condition of this much-neglected people. No want of cleanliness ! There must have been a want of it in a marked degree, around and about the Asylum, when Dr. Rees recorded, in June 1S44, The City Pound, or yard, so filthy as to demand immediate attention. And the inside of the Asylum could not have been in a better state, when, on the 3rd of June, 1844, the learned gentleman writes, Tar fumigation imperatively needed in the basement story! Was there nothing marked, when ihis collective was imperatively needed ] Where were the eyes, the noses, and the consciences, of the Rev. Delegates and their associates when this requisition was made, and throughout that month, in the last week of which, Dr. Kees is painfully doomed to record, to the shame of the whole Board and household, that The tar for the fumigation, some time since called for, has not yet been produced! 1 found the fumigation needed throughout the establishment imperatively; and this, not merely from the