Seventeenth annual report of the managers of the Buffalo State Asylum for Insane for the year 1887.

  • Buffalo State Hospital
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Seventeenth annual report of the managers of the Buffalo State Asylum for Insane for the year 1887. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    use and the filling exposed. More must be done in this direction during the coming year. The lawn has been improved by setting out shade trees and groups of shrubbery in accordance with the original plan adopted for laying out the grounds. It is the design of the managers to make these improvements yearly so far as they can be done with economy and with the means and material at hand. The past year has been prolific in attacks upon asylums and their management. The public press has devoted columns to the sensational recital of alleged abuses, and charged the most serious crimes against the authorities and employes of institutions for the insane. In some cases the occasion has been found in the accidents incident to the care of violent and dangerous lunatics. This asylum has been subjected to a most unjust attack, based upon a death which occurred within its walls. The facts in brief are as follows: A man sixty years of age, thin in flesh, of slight physique, was admitted to the asylum on the twenty- first day of March, with a history of having been insane for about six months, with exalted delusions of his own power, and such a degree of restlessness and disturbance as led to his being restrained, while at home, by a strap about the body, to a chair. He was in the habit of beating his breast with his hands, asserting his perfect health and ! great strength. After admission to the asylum he continued restless, I moving rapidly about the ward, sometimes with his eyes closed and ; coat drawn over his head, shouting religious phrases, running against : chairs and other furniture of the ward, and throwing himself upon the floor without regard to the consequences of his acts. During the week of his stay in the asylum he lost in flesh and strength, from refusal I to take a full amount of nourishment. At night he was frequently c noisy and about his room; to protect him from injury he was placed to sleep in a single room without furniture, with a bed made upon the iJ floor. Although thus disturbed he was readily controlled and was not I' violent toward other patients, though annoying to them from his habit ' of putting his hands on and interfering with them, and at no time was 1 there anv record of a contest or struggle with the attendants. Late in the afternoon preceding his death he was secluded during the sup]3er > hour in a room where the bedstead was fastened to the floor, and when i visited by the physician, was seen sitting on the floor with feet braced I against the baseboard of the room and the back of his neck against the foot roll of the bedstead. Upon the morning of his death he was found ; by the attendant, whose duty it was to care for him, in a weak and i! feeble condition. Assistance was summoned and he was bathed and [Senate, No. 10.] 2