Thirty-fifth annual report of the county and city of Worcester Pauper Lunatic Asylum for the year 1887.

  • Worcester Pauper Lunatic Asylum
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Thirty-fifth annual report of the county and city of Worcester Pauper Lunatic Asylum for the year 1887. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    [Copy.] REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS IN LUNACY. Worcester County and City Lunatic Asylum, July 20th, 1887. Th is Asylum was last visited by Commissioners on tbe 4th November, 1886. A summary of the matters we always enquire into is as follows:—876 patients on the books; of whom 380 are males, 496 are females. Of the former 12, of the latter 31 are private patients. Absent on leave 7 paupers, 1 with an allowance. The paupers chargeable to out-county Unions are 25 men, 30 women ; all from Essex. The weekly rate of maintenance for home paupers is 7s. 7d.; for out-county 13s. to 14s. The charges for private patients range from 7s. 7d. to 15s. weekly. The admissions of paupers have been 119, the discharges 39, the deaths 53; of private patients 9, 4, and 7 respectively. The discharges include 39 recoveries. The rate of mortality during the last twelve months has been 8'5; the post-mortem examinations have been 56. There has been no unusual cause of death, and no epidemic outbreak, diarrhoea, or infectious case, except one nurse attacked by typhoid fever, probably contracted outside the Asylum, and she made a good recovery. There have been but two inquests; one resulted in a verdict of syncope, due to weakness of heart and general debility, with brain disease; the other in a verdict of rupture of the heart. The more serious casualties have been 5 cases of fractures, 2 of them resulting from the conduct of fellow-patients of the sufferers in struggles, 3 from falls, one of the 3 in an attempt to escape over a wall n the Airing Court. The patients in bed on the first day of our inspection were 23; one woman described her ailment as Jubilee fever ” ; nearly all were aged persons. There are reported to be 18 general paralytics, 60 cases actively suicidal, 165 epileptics, and in the Infirmaries of each division 49 patients. The individuals registered as being under medical treatment are 36 males, 52 females. No mechanical restraint has been found necessary.