Ninety-sixth annual report of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum for the insane : For the year 1908.
- Royal Edinburgh Asylum
- Date:
- [1909]
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Ninety-sixth annual report of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum for the insane : For the year 1908. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![THE WEST HOUSE. Three Hospital Nurses appointed. A Nurses’ Home a great boon. It increases efficiency and attracts a good ■class of nurse. Laboratory ■extended m I •equipped with apparatus. At tire West House the question of Hospital Accommodation is being considered, and three fully trained hospital nurses, who likewise hold the Certificate for Proficiency in Mental Nursing, have been appointed to the Staff. The Managers have also taken a very important step in the interests of the nursing staff by their decision to convert an entire ward, with bedrooms, dormitories, bathrooms, etc., attached to it, occupying half of the top floor of the female side, into a Nurses’ Home. This will be a great boon to the nurses, for they will have quarters where, when they are ofi‘ duty or when their day’s work is done, they will have a sense of freedom from the responsibilities and cares connected with their calling which they could not possibly have with bedrooms ofi' the ward in which they worked, and with their patients ever about them. It is a measure also which will increase efficiency, and which will attract and help to retain the services of the best class of nurse. As the qualifications of head and heart required of a mental nurse in the management of a patient ■suffering from mental disease are infinitely higher than those ealled for in ordinary sick nursing, we must do everything in* «our power to attract as good a class of probationer as enters our General Hospitals. THE ASYLUM LABORATORY. The opportunities for scientific research afforded by the vast field of clinical material at the West House have not been neglected in the past. Some of the most brilliant theories, especially those dealing with the causation of General Paralysis «of the Insane, have been formulated as the result of labours conducted there. Last year was signalised by two events of special importance as regards research. The Managers realising the great value of the aid afforded by Laboratory work in the diagnosis and modern treatment of disease authorised a great •extension of the accommodation formerly provided; this has been ecpiipped with the apparatus necessary for bacteriological work, and the whole now forms an exce{)tiona]lv fine Asylum](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30304581_0056.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
