Thirty-fourth annual report by the directors of James Murray's Royal Asylum for Lunatics, near Perth. June, 1861.

  • James Murray's Royal Asylum for Lunatics
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Thirty-fourth annual report by the directors of James Murray's Royal Asylum for Lunatics, near Perth. June, 1861. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    41/108 (page 41)
    granulations, The posterior cerebral lobes appeared of large size, as contrasted with the others. There were slight sub-arachnoid effusion and local adhesions of the Dura to the Pia-mater. The calvarium was of irregular thickness, being very thin in some places. Regarded in the light of the remarks of the Registrar General of Births, Deaths, and Marriages, on the mortality of the popu¬ lation of Scotland in connection with the meteorology of 1860 [and already quoted, page 25 hereof], we cannot but consider our our mortality during the past year as very small. A small mor¬ tality is generally regarded as necessarily indicative of a most favourable sanitary condition—a most satisfactory state of the general health of a community. But that this is not always or sequentially the case, we think is pro tanto proved by the general health of our population during the past year. Never during our official connection with the Institution—a period now of nearly 7 years, and, so far as we can gather, never since the Institu¬ tion was opened, some 35 years ago,—has there been so marked a deterioration in the general health of our inmates—-never so low or weak a vitality-—so many cases in our Infirmaries—so many patients confined to bed—so many minor operations in surgery— so great a demand for purely medicinal or surgical aid. Consider¬ ing the very large number ot feeble or broken down constitutions we have to deal with—of the aged and infirm—such a state of things is not to us a matter of surprise, but rather that it is not of more frequent occurrence—of occurrence, indeed, everv winter. In the general population, under circumstances in many respects parallel, we find a similar deterioration in health every winter less or more, while with us such deterioration, to a marked extent at least, has been quite exceptional. On comparing “ Notes of the influence of the recent cold on Hospital practice in London,” * we find precisely the same classes of ailments affecting our community as affect the London poor—precisely the same experience recorded. But, in circumstances which may be held more nearly to resemble our own, in large public institutions of various kinds, we have reason to believe experience has been similar in reference to last winter, though there are many obvious reasons why the details should not be made public or dwelt upon, and why, therefore, we have not the same means of comparison. The precise forms in which the deterioration in the general health of our community Mortality as the key to the sani¬ tary condition of a community. General sani¬ tary condition during 1860-1. Prevalence of Minor Ailments Parallelism of London Hos¬ pital Practice, &c. } * “Medical Times,” Feb. 16,1861, p. 174.