The report of the Committee of Visitors and Medical Superintendent of the Devon County Lunatic Asylum.

  • Devon County Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
[1856?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The report of the Committee of Visitors and Medical Superintendent of the Devon County Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in which. Patients have contrived to strangle themselves in the sleeves of their strait waistcoats. The entire prevention of self-destruction among the Insane must, I fear, be regarded as hopeless. Much inconvenience has been felt in the Female Wards in conse¬ quence of the great number of Patients contained in them. This Asylum was originally built to contain 400 Patients; and, as the two sides are symetrical, the half of this number would be the proper quota for the Female Wards. Forty-eight Female Patients are how¬ ever accommodated in two Cottages which were built for the residence of Officers. In this manner the proper accommodation of 248 Female Patients is accounted for; but, during the past year, as many as 285 Female Patients have been placed in these Wards at one time. Thirty- seven Patients have therefore been distributed among six Female Wards in excess of the numbers they were constructed to accommodate. The inconvenience experienced by this excessive number of Female Patients is constantly felt. When a Patient is admitted it is often needful to make changes in several Wards, to provide room for the new comer. The nature of the case often renders it essential that the Patient shall be placed in some particular Ward which is quite full: ..a Patient must therefore be removed and sent to another Ward which may be also full, necessitating another change.—These changes are often injurious to the Patients. The increase of sleeping accommo¬ dation has been provided by adding to the number of beds in the large dormitories.—These are now much crowded; and it is clearly impracticable to make any further addition. A few beds ought always to be retained vacant to meet emergencies; but in the present state of the Female Wards this precaution is impossible. But the sleeping accommodation, the amount of which forms the practical limit to the capacity of an Asylum, is not the only point where the pressure of numbers is inconveniently felt. Perhaps even to a greater extent it is felt in the day-rooms and galleries. The rooms in which the Patients live during the day are the galleries leading to the dormitories and the day-rooms in which the meals are taken. These afe of the same size on the men’s and women’s sides, and were