The eighth annual report of the state of the United Lunatic Asylum for the county and borough of Nottingham, and the fifty-third of the original institution, formerly the General Lunatic Asylum, 1863.

  • Nottingham United Lunatic Asylum at Snenton.
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The eighth annual report of the state of the United Lunatic Asylum for the county and borough of Nottingham, and the fifty-third of the original institution, formerly the General Lunatic Asylum, 1863. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    * i may, therefore, be inferred that the artificial increase in the numbers i received into the Asylum occasioned by various statutory enactments 6 has already reached the maximum, or at least been checked; and it i seems probable that the accumulation of lunatics in the establishment r will in future take place at a slower rate, and that the number of s new cases brought for treatment will not be so relatively dispropor- d tionate to the increase of the general population as it has been . hitherto. The recoveries amount to 36, or 41.37 per cent, on the I admissions. The deaths are 38, or 9.47 on the number under treat- > ment, and 11.8 on the mean resident population. The deaths and discharges have not kept pace with the J admissions, and there is consequently an excess of three patients t remaining at the end of the year. The death rate is below the average of the preceding five years, i but upon the whole has risen since the Asylum ceased to receive | patients of the middle class. This is in accordance with the ; experience of other institutions. The indigent poor are sent in for ] treatment in a far more exhausted state of bodily health than the : classes above them, and many, owing to the distressed circumstances of the friends who are unable to provide for them are brought in to be i nursed and to die. The increasing practice of confining aged persons, I who from imbecility of mind have become troublesome to manage, : and others suffering from the effects of acute diseases of the brain, such as delirium tremens, phrenitis, and the delirium of fever, has also contributed to raise the death rate. There have been no epidemics or disorders that could be con¬ sidered preventable. There are, however, many aged and paralysed cases which have accumulated during the long series of years that the Asylum has been in operation. Some individuals have been inmates upwards of thirty years. No suicide or fatal accident has taken place in the Asylum, but one man died from the effect of a cut throat inflicted before his