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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    % constructed for the convenient accommodation of 33 Patients in each Ward. But some of the Female Wards contain 45 Patients,—a number for which thq day, or meal rooms especially, are found incon¬ veniently small. They contain only a superficial area of 560ft., or a space little exceeding 4ft. by 3ft. for each Patient. The area for day occupation, or foot space as it has been technically termed, is by no means so large in this as in most other County Asylums, if only the originally-intended numbers are estimated: the galleries in parti¬ cular being narrow. But when the number of the Patients has in some of the Wards been increased by a third, the crowding is decidedly disadvantageous to the comfort and well-being of the Patients: they interfere with each other, and become restless and noisy. One evil arising from the want of accommodation in the Female Wards is, that in consequence thereof it has sometimes been impera¬ tively necessary to discharge the Patients before their recovery has been firmly and satisfactorily established. The above considerations relate to the existing accommodation only. It is right, however, to anticipate the difficulties which must arise from any influx of new Patients. The past experience of this, and of all other County Asylums, abundantly proves the law of increase under which they exist. The new Statute does, indeed, enable the Visitors to declare any Asylum full, and to refuse admission to new cases. The Visitors of the Asylum at Hanwell have availed themselves of this power, and refuse admission to all cases which are not recent, and probably curable. But, independently of the doubt whether any Asylum can be legally declared full as against chronic cases, and not full as against curable ones, it is believed that the Visitors of this Institution will not feel disposed to refuse its benefits to any proper object. It may, therefore, be considered highly probable, if not certain, that Female Patients will be brought for admission during the ensuing year for whom there is absolutely no accommodation. Upon these considerations it is that I have brought under your notice the pro¬ priety of at once providing additional accommodation for Female Patients.