The twenty-ninth report of the Committee of Visitors of the County Lunatic Asylum at Hanwell : January quarter session, 1874 / [Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum].

  • Middlesex Lunatic Asylum at Hanwell.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The twenty-ninth report of the Committee of Visitors of the County Lunatic Asylum at Hanwell : January quarter session, 1874 / [Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Inquests have been held upon 5 Patients who have died during the year. The first was a case of suicide, in which an old woman, aged 71, and who was quite blind, and had only been admitted into the Asylum some three weeks previously, managed, whilst out in the Airing Court, to find and secrete a bonnet string; this she hid in her bed wdien retiring for the night. At 5 a.m. the Night Nurse, who every hour during the night had visited the Associated Dormitory in wdiich the Patient was sleeping', found her lying com¬ fortably in bed and asleep; half an hour afterwards she found that the old woman had tied the bonnet string tightly round her throat, and had strangled herself. She was lying in bed on her back, and the bedding was hardly disturbed. 2. A woman died suddenly from fatty degeneration of the heart. She] had been quarrelling with another Patient in the Airing Court, and had worked herself into a state of great excitement; in the struggle she received a kick from the other Patient, and soon after fell down dead. At the post-mortem examination the only cause that would account for death was that the muscular structure of the heart had undergone extreme fatty degeneration. Verdict of jury, “ Death from natural causes.” 3. A melancholic Patient, who had been refusing food for some time, was brought from St. Pancras in a most exhausted and enfeebled condition, so much so that the Relieving Officer thought she would die on the journey. When admitted she was unable to swallow, and in 3 days she died. The following verdict was returned by the jury, u That the deceased died from exhaustion caused by want u of sufficient food,” and they added a rider to the effect “ that in future the certificate of fitness for removal would “ be more appropriately taken from the Surgeon in daily