Report of the Committee of Visitors and of the medical superintendent of the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum, for the year 1871.

  • West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee of Visitors and of the medical superintendent of the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum, for the year 1871. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    NewLaundpy Tlie New Laundry Building, for which the necessary Buildings. funds were granted at the last Spring Sessions, has not yet been erected, as the Commissioners in Lunacy did not approve of its proposed site, and suggested for the consideration of the Visiting Justices another scheme, which possessed many advantages, but appeared im- practicable in the peculiar circumstances in which the West Eiding Asylum is placed. The matter is now receiving the careful attention of your Committee and of the Commissioners in Lunacy, and it is expected that the extension of this department, which is so urgently required, will be proceeded with early in the Spring. Enlargement Some additions to the Gas Works, which are much of Gas works. too small for the increased wants of the establishment, will have to be effected during the Summer months. Recoveries. Of the 218 Patients reported as discharged, 203 have recovered under treatment at the Asylum, nine had been relieved, and six were sent out unimproved to Work- houses or the care of their friends. The recoveries have been at the extraordinarily high rate of 50.24 per cent, of the admissions. This fact is an evidence that the Institution is ably fulfilling the most important object of its existence, viz., the restoration to reason of the insane poor : and it is the more remarkable, when it is borne in mind that the admissions have been restricted during the year, with the inevitable effect of shutting out the mildest and most curable cases of insanity, and of filling the Wards with Patients of an unpromising type. A large proportion of idiots, of persons in a state of senile fatuity, of chronic lunatics and epileptics, who have been so for many years, is admitted annually to the limitation of curative treatment.