The report of the Committee of Visitors and Medical Superintendent of the Devon County Lunatic Asylum.
- Devon County Lunatic Asylum
- Date:
- 1866
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The report of the Committee of Visitors and Medical Superintendent of the Devon County Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.
11/42 page 11
![which have visited neighbouring districts, and there has also been a comparative absence of acute disease. The rate of mortality has been 2 per cent, below that of the previous year. The following is a summary of the principal causes of death, as detailed in the Obituary Table : General Paralysis, 13 ; Phthisis, 16 ; Old age and natural decay, ] 3 ; Apoplexy, Epilepsy, &c., 8; Disease of heart and lungs, 12; Other causes, 11. The greatest difficulty encountered during the year has been occasioned by the overcrowded state of the wards, and the anxiety naturally attendant upon making temporary accom¬ modation for the great number of patients seeking admission within our walls, when the Asylum was already full; and indeed the numbers had far exceeded their proper limit. Originally the Asylum was constructed to contain 400 patients, but by appropriating the cottages formerly intended for the Chaplain and Engineer, accommodation was provided for 450 ; more recently, the detached new houses were built for the reception of 100 women and 50 men, which, with some alterations in the old building, made by raising the cottages an additional story have increased the total accommodation in the Asylum to 650. Still the present ac¬ commodation is insufficient for the present and prospective requirements of our steadily increasing population. The maximum number of patients was reached on the 5th of December, at which time there were 713 patients on the Asylum books, and it became the duty of your Superintendent to report this to the Visitors at their Monthly Meeting in December, and to suggest the expediency of exercising their statutory powers, and to declare the Asylum full, which was accordingly done, and Patients are admitted as vacancies, by death or discharge, occur. If the average number resident in the Asylum at different periods be compared, it will be seen that the numbers have gradually increased; thus the average number resident in 1857 were 395 ; in 1855, 478 ; in I860, 592 ; and in 1865, the numbers had risen to 690. From a comparison of the admissions in the same quin-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30301075_0013.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
