Nineteenth annual report of the New York Asylum for Idiots : transmitted to the Legislature Jan. 19, 1870 / New York State Asylum for Idiots.

  • New York State Asylum for Idiots.
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Nineteenth annual report of the New York Asylum for Idiots : transmitted to the Legislature Jan. 19, 1870 / New York State Asylum for Idiots. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    EEPOET OF THE SUPEEINTENDENT. To the Trustees of the New Yorh Asylum for Idiots: Gentlemen—I submit the following as my report of the affairs of this institution for the past year. There have been in the asylum during the school year terminating September 1st, 1869,149 different pupils. The actual average attendance for the school year of eleven months was 140. In other words, the full capacity of the asylum has been occupied. In fact, such is the relation of our limited accom¬ modations to the number of teachable idiots in the State, that there would never be a vacancy for a week, except that it is expected of the officers of the asylum to keep each judicial district in the State prop¬ erly represented among the pupils. This cannot always be done. In the remoter districts, less is known of the peculiar work of the insti¬ tution, and fewer applications are therefore received for admission to its benefits. This institution has now been so long established, it does its work so quietly from year to year, that the only modes of extend¬ ing a knowledge of its scope and function is through the annual reports to the Legislature, and by direct communication from the friends of pupils in the immediate localities from which they come. It thus happens that most of our applications for admission now come either from members of the Legislature, in behalf of some one in their districts, or from those who, in their applications, refer to some case now or at some former time an inmate of the asylum. During the year and in the annual vacation twenty-one pupils have been dismissed, and two have died. The dismissals were for various reasons. Most of these were pupils whose term of residence had expired. Three were removed on account of sickness. Five of the number because they proved to be unteachable. These last need a home in such a custodial institution as wTas recommended in the annual report of a year ago. There has been little sickness in the institution for the year past. The two deaths that occurred were from disease of the brain super¬ vening after slight attacks of other disease. In each case there had evidently been, at some earlier period, organic disease of the brain that had produced the original idiocy. It may be mentioned, in passing, that death, in the case of idiots, usually results from one of two causes. Where the idiocy has origi¬ nated in disease of the nervous centers, in infancy, death comes, at last, by a renewal of disease in the organ or part originally affected, no matter what the character of the final sickness, at the outset. Again, where there is a congenital defect or infirmity of the brain or general nervous system, the case succumbs at last by the failure of vital power at critical periods in the life of the individual. The annual cost of maintenance and instruction of the pupils, both paying and State pupils, including all items of expenditure for addi- [Assem. No. 26.] 2