Annual report of the managers of the State Lunatic Asylum : made to the Legislature, January 31, 1845 / New York State Lunatic Asylum at Utica.
- New York (State). State Lunatic Asylum
- Date:
- 1845
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Annual report of the managers of the State Lunatic Asylum : made to the Legislature, January 31, 1845 / New York State Lunatic Asylum at Utica. Source: Wellcome Collection.
25/54 page 25
![The cause of insanity is often obscure. In some cases after the most patient investigation, we have not been able to determine it satis* factorily to our own minds. The foregoing table, therefore, must not be considered as accurate. Sometimes we have probably assigned only one of the remote causes, and in others that which appeared to excite the disease in those already predisposed to it. We, however, dwelt upon this subject at such length in our last re¬ port, that we shall not treat of it in this ; neither shall we introduce into this any thing that does not relate to the management of the Asy¬ lum. Remarks in an annual report on the nature and probable causes of insanity—on the medical jurisprudence of the disease, and its medi¬ cal treatment, prevention, &c., are, no doubt, often useful and inter¬ esting to many, though such subjects cannot be dwelt upon in such a document to an extent that their merits deserve. We, therefore, en¬ tirely omit them, and the more readily from the fact, that we have recently commenced issuing from this Asylum a Quarterly Journal of Insanity, in which we propose to embody, from time to time, our views in relation to these important and deeply interesting subjects. Our principal object in this report will be to enable the people of this State, and especially all those who have friends at this Asylum, or are proposing to commit insane relatives to our care, to know in what manner such unfortunate persons are here treated. We fear that many have erroneous views respecting the manage¬ ment of lunatic asylums. Some still believe that at such places the inmates are often cruelly treated, and that there is much relating to their management concealed from the public. It will be our object to do away this impression, so far as we are able, by briefly, yet dis¬ tinctly stating the particulars relating to the management of the in¬ sane at this establishment; and we undertake this the more cheerfully from the fact that no such charge has, to our knowledge, been brought against us. From the wise arrangements made by law when the Asylum was organized by the Legislature, it is rendered quite improbable that cruelty or bad management should exist without detection. In the first place, the Managers, five of whom live within a short distance of the Asylum, receive no pay for their services, and no one of them has the least pecuniary interest in the management of the [Assembly No. 29.] 4](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30304702_0025.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
