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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    patients from the Boroughs of the County, a proper place must he built for them, whether it he joined to our present House or not. There is yet one remaining suggestion of the Commiss¬ ioners, which we cannot so strongly recommend for adoption. It is, not only that some of the boundary walls should be lowered still more, but that the ivhole of the division walls be removed. We would here suggest to the Committee, that it may be one thing to conform, but quite another to approve. Our experience has led us to place great value on a proper sub-division and classification of the patients, and we cannot help hazarding the expression of a fear, lest some untoward event should follow from over crowding ; and the compulsory association of the more violent and refractory patients, in the same airing court; with the old, the imbecile, and the infrm. Larger space may be afforded by some additional removals, to which no possible objection can arise, and they can be carried on as the weather permits the patients to work at them, but beyond this, it is certainly a question if it is desirable to go. It would be much more satisfactory if this report on the present state and future condition of the Asylum went no further, but there are pressing requirements which demand immediate notice; the whole of the wash-house and its ad¬ jacent departments have got from length of time and service, into a state of complete dilapidation. We have worked on as well as we could with all their imperfections, till they can be worked no longer. The coppers, the pipes, the taps, and the cocks are all out of order, they have been in daily use for twenty-five years and more, and are literally worn out. The position of these buildings has never been altered, nor their capacity improved, since they were first in use for a household of a hundred and fifty persons; the number is now nearly
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