Fourteenth annual report, 1878 / Newcastle-upon-Tyne Borough Lunatic Asylum.

  • Newcastle-upon-Tyne Borough Lunatic Asylum
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fourteenth annual report, 1878 / Newcastle-upon-Tyne Borough Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    sewing and knitting or repairing clothes, 10 work in the laundry, 7 in the kitchen, and 31 in cleaning the wards. The records acquaint us that seclusion has been somewhat freely resorted to as a method of treatment. We find that it has been applied in the cases of 40 patients since the last visit, and that the aggregate duration of the seclusion amounts to a very large number of hours. Locked gloves have been used in the case of 3 males and 2 females on several occasions, either for surgical reasons or to prevent self-injury. The “ polka,” or camisole, has been worn by 5 men on 57 occasions for a total period of 971 hours; and by 2 women on 7 occasions for an aggregate of 50 hours. The reasons in these latter cases have been the same as those given for the use of the gloves. There are 6 men and 5 women entered as under medical treatment, and the numbers in bed to-day are 3 males and 4 females. On the male side there are, besides the Head Attendant, 10 day attendants, and 1 (with occasionally a second) night attendant; and in the female division, in addition to the Head Attendant, there are 10 day nurses and 1 night nurse. There is no continuous night supervision of epileptic and suicidal patients, but the night attendants visit all the dormitories periodically, and record their visits by Dent’s TelLtale Clocks. The wards and dormitories were very clean and well venti¬ lated, and the beds and bedding in good order. From one of the sinks in the male infirmary, however, there was an escape of sewer gas, and we learn that the Waste pipes from sinks com-
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