The evidence taken before a committee of the House of Commons respecting the asylum at York : with observations and notes, and a letter to the committee &c. &c. &c. / by Godfrey Higgins.

Godfrey Higgins

Date:: 1816

Credit: The evidence taken before a committee of the House of Commons respecting the asylum at York : with observations and notes, and a letter to the committee &c. &c. &c. / by Godfrey Higgins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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$If any attention be due to those letters, they prove that there was one kind of bread for the poor, and another for the rich. It is impossible to raise a doubt as to what the Pontefract witnesses said respecting the bad bread. Dr. Best seems to deny that there were anj/ abuses in the Asylum ; if so, a great act of in- justice must have been committed in August, 1815, when all the officers and servants were displaced, on my motion, for miscon- duct, except himself, whose duty it was to correct any thing- that was amiss, &c. 'The accusation of my having received a fee improperl}', in a parti- cular case, mentioned at page 12, was brought before the Committee of Inquiry at York, by Mr. Miggins, in August last, with extremely aggra- vating circumstances, and was by that Committee rejected as undeserving of notice; my written reply to the charges, presented to the Governors, I beg leave to lay before the Committee. ' [It was-read, as follows;] To the Governors of the York Lunatic Asylum. My Lords and Gentlemen, An accusation having been this day brought forward against me, by Mr. Higgins, of having charged five guineas for myself, and two guineas or 2l. for the apothecary, for extra attendance on one of my private patients at the Asylum about three years ago, the friends of the patient having been informed by me that he had broken his leg, when no such accident had in reality befallen him; I beg leave to observe, that I have witnesses at hand, who, should it be the pleasure of this court, will im- mediately appear, and as I believe, will prove in the most satisfactory manner, that the patient alluded to did break his leg, and that he more- over buffered a long and distressing bodily illness not connected with the accident. In regard to my recommendation of a remuneration to the apothe- cary for extra attendance, though I cannot speak with any accuracy as to the fact, at the present period, the circumstances being alleged to have taken place three years ago; I think it highly probable that I may have recommended it in the instance under consideration, as I have the recol- lection of having done so in one or more other instances of casual illness Requiring special medical or surgical attendance. In regard to myself, tliough it is perfectly possible that I may have expressed myself as entitled to extra remuneration for extra attendance in the case alluded to, I have no recollection whatever of having done so in this or in any other instance. I can, however, if it shall be re- quired of me, bring forward satisfactory evidence of having declined such remuueration in other cases, when strongly pressed upon me, not indeed from conceiving that I had no right to receive it, but because I believed that the circumstances of the patient's family rendered it inconvenient to them to incur such expence. Upon this subject I beg leave farther to remark, that the pecuniary arrangements made between the friends of what are called private patients, in the Asylum, and the physician, having been alv.'ays consi-$