Reports of the County Lunatic Asylum at Prestwich : presented to the Court of Adjourned Annual Session holden at Preston, 26th December, 1878, with the accounts of the receipts and payments of the treasurer of the said asylum.

Lancaster County Lunatic Asylum at Prestwich

Date:: 1879

Credit: Reports of the County Lunatic Asylum at Prestwich : presented to the Court of Adjourned Annual Session holden at Preston, 26th December, 1878, with the accounts of the receipts and payments of the treasurer of the said asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$Eight Patients were brought to the Asylum in a moribund condition; two of them died within 24 hours, and six died within a week of their admission. In addition to these, several others were admitted in the last stages of physical disease. A fair pro¬ portion of those who died had attained to considerable age. By reference to the Table of Deaths, it will be observed that among the males the largest number died from General Paralysis, and other organic Brain diseases. Next in frequency to General Paralysis is Disease of the Lungs and Heart. Among the females Pulmonary Phthisis and Lung Disease were the chief causes of mortality. Two inquests have been held, one on a woman who died shortly after admission from Pneumonia, due to fractured rib. The injury, however, was inflicted previous to the Patient’s admission into the Asylum. The other inquest was held upon a man who was admitted in a comatose condition, and who died in a few minutes after admission from Serous Apoplexy. Post-mortem examinations have been made in 78 out of the 74 deaths recorded during the year. Among the Statistical Tables appended to this Report is one arranged at the request of the Commissioners in Lunacy, showing the causes of the insanity in the admissions of the past year. This table has been prepared as carefully as circumstances would permit. Nearly every case has been separately investigated, and the con¬ clusions arrived at have been based on enquiries made from different members of the Patients’ families, and checked by careful and independent observation. The large number of cases reported as unascertained, evidences not only the difficulty of the investiga¬ tion, but also the difficulty there is in tracing the disease in some instances to any assignable cause. In some few cases the origin is manifest, and cannot be mistaken, but in the majority of instances the agencies which have conduced to the development of insanity have been multiple in their nature, gradual in their operation, and$