Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Colonial hospitals and lunatic asylums. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![rf ■ 3fev > •1 ■ f ' . ^ /, Colonial Hospitals and Lunatic Asylums. 1. A CIRCULAR despatch of January 1st, 1863, addressed to the Governors of colonies, after reciting that certain evils and defects which had recently been disclosed in the public hospital at Kingston in Jamaica, and flagrant abuses and cruelties of long standing which had been detected in the lunatic asylum at the same place, had suggested the expediency of making inquiry into the state of similar institutions in other colonies, proceeded to request information on topics set forth in one series of interrogatories relating to public hospitals ; and in a second, relating to lunatic asylums. Answers to these interrogatories have, up to the present time, been received from thirty-three colonies, comprising accounts of the condition of thirty-nine hospitals and twenty-eight asylums.* 2. The following minute comprises :— I. Such an account as these answers supply of the general condition of the hospitals and asylums of the colonies, in each of the four groups respec- tively forming four divisions of the Colonial Office; the materials being arranged in each group under the five heads of,— (a.) Endowment and funds. (b.) Structure and sanitary arrangements (site, sewerage, rainage, water, space, ventilation). (c.) Internal economy (doctors, attendants, diet, restraint, employment, religious services). (d.) Government or constitution. And (e.) Provisions for supervision, and reports. II. A summary of the classes of defects most generally prevailing. III. Suggestions for the cure of such defects ; and IV. A list of all the institutions, with the particular defects found to exist in them severally.! 3. It must be preliminarily observed that the information furnished by the returns is generally speaking insufficient, and that more especially in the case of the worst institutions. There is enough stated to show that in many instances the present arrangements are compatible with the unchecked existence of the grossest abuses, and that gross abuses very commonly do exist; but there is a general absence of exact information as to their extent, and as to the facts which are requisite to form the ground of specific suggestions for their cure. There seems to prevail in the large majority of cases an almost incredible igno- rance of the necessary conditions of efficiency, and it frequently happens that arrangements are described with complacency which are totally at variance with the most elementary principles. Still more frequently a general statement of satisfaction is substituted for any precise description. Yet, how far such general and unverified statements may be from representing the actual condition of things is to be understood from the instance of Antigua. In October 1863, it ♦ A list of those Colonies which have not yet replied is appended, Note 1, p. 35. Five of those which have replied maintain no public hospitals or lunatic asylums, viz., Tobago, Nevis, Gold Coast, Heligoland, and Labuan. t Statements of the condition of the hospitals and asylums are to be taken to apply to the condition in which such hospitals or asylums were at the time of the writing of the answers in each case. The dates of the despatches inclosing the answers are given with the particular accounts of the several institutions in Part IV. [102] B](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28038459_0001.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
