Lunatic asylums, their organisation and management / by Charles Mercier.

  • Charles Arthur Mercier
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lunatic asylums, their organisation and management / by Charles Mercier. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    12/360 page viii
    Vlll PREFACE. amplitude of these material comforts must not blind us to the fact that in spite of them a large proportion of our patients are wretched. They are wretched because they are deprived of that most precious of all possessions—their liberty. That they are unfit to have complete liberty is manifest from the fact that the legal formalities necessary for their detention in an asylum have been complied with; but it by no means follows that they all, at all times, need the severe restriction which is the common rule in all asylums; and the direction in which improvement in the management of the insane will in the future be effected, will be in the more careful study and attention given to individual cases, and the greater elasticity introduced into the system of control. The times and seasons when greater liberty can be given will be watched for and taken advantage of, and the times when restrictions must be reimposed will be recognised. All the arrangements of the asylum will be made with special reference to the individuality of the patients, and will be rendered modifiable and adaptable to suit their individual needs. Management of patients by the gross will give way to management of the individual, and the object of the management will be to approximate the life of the insane to the life of the sane, as far as the approximation is possible. This is the direction in which the management of the insane is tending, and it is in recognition of this tendency, and to help it forward, that this book has been written. That there is much here set forth that will be derided by the present managers of asylums as impracticable, the author does not doubt; but he has faith in the efficacy of the erection of an ideal as an object to be striven for, not doubting that, even if it be not attained, much advantage will result from every exertion towards it, however partially successful. It is presumed throughout the book that the reader is familiar with the principles of sanitary science, and with the modern appliances necessary to carry those principles into effect. All that is here described is the modification of these appliances which is rendered necessary in lunatic asylums by the peculiarities of their inmates. Similarly with respect to other matters. General principles are supposed to be known, and the special applications only of these principles that are required in asylums are here described. C. M. London, March, 1894.
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