Third annual report of the Argyll District Asylum for the Insane : 1866.

  • Argyll District Asylum for the Insane
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Third annual report of the Argyll District Asylum for the Insane : 1866. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    10/24 page 10
    Probable increase. Escape of Patient. decrease in the numbers for last year is probably caused by the encouragement given by the General Board of Lunacy to the practice of boarding in private houses. In Edinburgh, where this plan appears to be regarded very favourably, the propor¬ tion of the insane confined in establishments, which was 86 per cent, the previous year, had decreased last year to 70 per cent. In Argyll 45 per cent, are now in the Asylum, which is 15 per cent, below the average in Scotland. The great prevalence of pauperism and insanity in Argyllshire is probably due, in a great measure, to emigration and other tem¬ porary causes. But it must necessarily be a considerable time before the results of these causes disappear, and probably not so soon as to be of much importance in the present consideration. It is probable that in some districts an unnecessarily large propor¬ tion of the insane are confined in asylums and similar institutions; but, in regard to Argyll, the statistics appear to show that there will probably be an increase rather than a decrease in the number of patients who will require to be so placed. It will, therefore, be necessary that there should be available additional accommoda¬ tion either in licensed wards of poorhouses, as mentioned by the Commissioners in Lunacy, or, in some other manner, as may seem best to the Board. The extent to which this will be necessary, a3 far as can be judged from the particulars given above, need not be expected to exceed provision for fifteen or twenty, equally divided between males and females. During the past year the working of the Asylum has been carried on satisfactorily. No cause of more than ordinary annoyance has occurred except the escape of a male patient, a whose absence was for more than a fortnight the source of consi¬ derable anxiety. He was not suspected of any desire to leave, and he does not appear to have definitely formed any such inten¬ tion. When working in the grounds he seems to have been taken by a sudden caprice, and wandered across the Asylum boundary without being observed by the attendant in charge. Unfortun¬ ately he cannot give a coherent account of where he went, but it is supposed that he wandered heedlessly over the hills towards Inveraray, and when he got upon the high road he followed it northward, without attracting particular notice, until he reached
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