Sixteenth annual report of the Suffolk Lunatic Asylum : December, 1853.

  • Suffolk Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sixteenth annual report of the Suffolk Lunatic Asylum : December, 1853. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The more necessary and consequently the more valuable occupations can never be reduced to mere calculations of profit and loss. They magnify themselves into one great medium of exchange, the exchange of feeling, affection, and duty. The bodily labour in the field aids in promoting the moral culture of the mind, which, notwithstanding its cloudy veils, may be found to possess many discoverable and distinct chambers, which may be well cultivated and well stored. This known fact renders a suggestion of the Commissioners in Lunacy in their last report, of value for consideration. They strongly urge the cultivation of more land by the spade, and certainly if four or five acres more (we have now seven and a quarter) could be taken from the present pasturage or hired in an adjacent field, they might be in every respect pro¬ fitably worked. Nothing compensates for the lack of labour, Jield labour; all the amusements that can be thought of, sink before it. A patient himself was known to suggest as some¬ thing new in husbandry, the erection of a thrashing machine to be worked by the feet, having played as he said at bagatelle and billiards, till he was sick of the sight of the tables. Another valuable suggestion which can be adopted by home labour at very little cost, is the conversion of the third story of the Building entirely into sleeping apartments. This will certainly remove one great inconvenience which is always felt in a three storied house. It will spare the labour and difficulty of carrying necessaries and provisions to so great a height (nearly 30 feet) and it will make room by additional bedsteads for the number of our present inmates, who are now provided for at great inconvenience. It should however be remembered, that it will not do more than this, it will not give more than the required accommodation for the present number of inmates in the House. If, as suggested by the same authorities, the idea is encouraged of receiving the