Refutation of the assertions made by the writer of the article in the Quarterly Review : for October, 1844, entitled Report of the Metropolitan Commissioners in Lunacy, pp. 436-441, as far as they relate to the conduct and practice of the Warneford Asylum on Headington Hill, near Oxford : and also an appeal to Parliament on behalf of the non-chargeable poor when visited by lunacy, and for the encouragement of charitable asylums for their reception, relief, and cure ; being the substance of the Chairman's observations at the weekly meeting of the Committee of Management, Tuesday, Nov. 12, Tuesday, Nov. 19, and Tuesday, Nov. 26, 1844.

Vaughan Thomas

Date:: [1844]

Credit: Refutation of the assertions made by the writer of the article in the Quarterly Review : for October, 1844, entitled Report of the Metropolitan Commissioners in Lunacy, pp. 436-441, as far as they relate to the conduct and practice of the Warneford Asylum on Headington Hill, near Oxford : and also an appeal to Parliament on behalf of the non-chargeable poor when visited by lunacy, and for the encouragement of charitable asylums for their reception, relief, and cure ; being the substance of the Chairman's observations at the weekly meeting of the Committee of Management, Tuesday, Nov. 12, Tuesday, Nov. 19, and Tuesday, Nov. 26, 1844. 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.

19/60 page 13

To which Letter the Chairman returned the fol- lowing Answer. Oxford, Feb. 10, 1832. Dear Sir, I perceive that the clause of exemption in favour of charitable Asylums in the revived and altered Lunatic Act, p. 24, materially differs from the clause of exemption which those houses obtained on their behalf in 1828, upon Petition to the House of Lords; see old Act, §. 51. I perceive that we are now to be exempted from the opera- tion of this new Act in respect of Certificates of Admission. Whether this exemption be intended, or whether it be an error in the print, 1 do not know ; but surely it would not be right to exempt even houses of charity from the neces- sity of attending to the provisions of this new Act in respect of Certificates, both upon the admission of supe- rior and inferior Patients; that is to say, both in respect of Patients, whose rank in life makes it fit to have two Medical Certificates, and those other Patients in humble life, whose insanity is sufficiently certificated by one Medical man. Speaking as one of the Asylum Com- mittee, I think it would be desirable to continue, subject to the obligation of attending to the matter of the two Certificates, both in respect of superior and inferior Patients. Let the sentence stand as it did before. The fact is, we have our printed Forms of admission upon Certificates, all drawn out according to the last Act; one set of double Certificates for superior Patients, and one set of single Certificates for inferior Patients. It cost us so much trouble to obtain that clause of exemption, as it now stands, by means of our Petition to the House of Lords, that I look with a very jealous eye

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