The construction and government of lunatic asylums and hospitals for the insane / by John Conolly ; with plans.
- John Conolly
- Date:
- 1847
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The construction and government of lunatic asylums and hospitals for the insane / by John Conolly ; with plans. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.
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![well-conducted county asylum is easily to be ascertained by inspection. According to tbe Act of Parliament abeady alluded to, all plans for tbe contemplated asylums must be submitted to tbe Commissioners in Lunacy for their approval. It most unfor- tunately happens that the Commissioners have adopted an opinion that it is practicable and safe to provide for chronic cases, or for incurable lunatics, at much less expense than for recent and curable cases. “ The great expenses,” they say, “ of a lunatic hospital are unnecessary for incurable patients : the medical staif, the number of attendants, the minute classi- fication, and the other requisites of an hospital for the cure of disease, are not requhed to the same extent. An establishment, therefore, upon a much less expensive scale would be suffi- cient.” (Report, p. 92.) This conclusion may at first sight appear reasonable to those not famihar with the insane; but I believe that by all who have lived in asylums it will be pronounced to be falla- cious, and not unattended with danger. The views of the Commissioners in this and other respects have already led to the sus]iension of what appeared to me to be the best plans ever proposed for asylums ; and will, I fear, lead to the com- mitting of great errors in several which ai’e in preparation. These consequences, and the sanction given to attach lunatic asylums to workhouses, wiU go far to undo the good which has been sloudy and with much difficulty effected since the Parliamentary Inquiry into the state of asylums in 1815. Not to dwell on the impracticabihty of the absolute division of the incurable from the curable patients in any asylum; or on the cruelty of condemning the inciu'able to what would appear to them to be a hopeless prison; or on the possi- bility of sometimes including curable patients in this condem- nation—I cannot but remark, that, in expressing the opinion which I have quoted, the Commissioners in Lunacy seem to have forgotten that a large proportion of the incurable among the insane are even more sensible to all surrounding circum-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21439138_0016.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
