Total abolition of personal restraint in the treatment of the insane. A lecture on the management of lunatic asylums, and the treatment of the insane; delivered at the Mechanics' Institution, Lincoln, on the 21st of June, 1838; with statistical tables, ... / by Robert Gardiner Hill.

Date:
[1839]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Total abolition of personal restraint in the treatment of the insane. A lecture on the management of lunatic asylums, and the treatment of the insane; delivered at the Mechanics' Institution, Lincoln, on the 21st of June, 1838; with statistical tables, ... / by Robert Gardiner Hill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    at present appear to interfere too much with the business of the keepers. Number of Patients—Males 37, Females 13. (Signed) Geo. Mark, [Visitor.] Extract from the Physician''s Iteggort. 1832, J%ly 31.—I have had occasion to remark in this month upon the case of a patient kept under continual Restraint on account of the insecurity of the inner Male court. This inconvenience has been met, it is hoped ef- fectually, by a slight alteration of the windows of the adjoining Gallery, which had afforded a passage to the roof. An order has been made by the Board to procure “ strong Dresses” for patients disposed to tear their clothes. The intention is, by the use of these and the ordinary “ Belt,” to obviate the necessity of the “ Muff,” an instrument of re- straint against which several serious objections exist. A principal defect is that it prevents the wearer from attending to the common calls of nature, occasioning not only much present suffering, but often entailing incurable disease and the most loathsome habits. The Board has also ordered a substitute for the “Hobbles” employed to confine the feet of very violent patients during the night. The straps and buckles forming this instrument, were found to cause severe and injurious pressure under the unrelaxing strain which such patients will frequently exert, regardless or insensible of the injurious consequences. It should be a fixed principle in the construction of all instruments of restraint, to prevent as much as possible the capability of the patients to effect any injurious change of their position, or otherwise to increase their severity. An insane patient will act, while under a paroxysm, not only as if he were Insensible of pain, but even as if he preferred a state M
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