Annual report of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum for the insane : For the year 1853.

  • Royal Edinburgh Asylum.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum for the insane : For the year 1853. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    35/40 (page 35)
    All the means of cure, medical and moral, in operation in former Treatment, times, have continued to be pursued with increased activity and effi¬ ciency during the past year. Of these the most beneficial as a means of cure is undoubtedly Occupation, active occupation in the open air. The garden, farm, and pleasure grounds have afforded ample opportunities of this kind to the male portion of the inmates of the Western House during the past year. In addition to the ordinary cropping and gardening operations, ex¬ tensive undertakings in the way of levelling, trenching, extending the lawn in front, forming new roads, laying down new fences, transplanting trees, and other works have been in constant progress ; and have afforded occupation to all the able-bodied, from the most intelligent and docile, down to the most imbecile or unmanageable, capable only of wheeling stones in a barrow. The average number employed under the Gardener in this way was, during the summer months, above 100. The females have also frequently afforded bands of cheerful and active workers at weeding, picking, and various other suitable out-door occupations. For them, however, the washing-house, and green, and laundry, and the cleaning opera¬ tions in constant progress, constitute the chief sources of active occupation. It is with extreme gratification on this occasion that I refer to Work Execut the statement of work done during the past year by the various tradesmen, drawn up by the Master of Works. It presents the de¬ tails with sufficient minuteness to enable every one to judge of the very great amount of work which has been executed, and to shew that the charges made for it, by which alone in former statements of this kind its extent and value could be estimated, are so reason¬ able, as to offer no exaggerated idea, to say the least of it, of the activity and industry of those employed. It may be stated in general terms that no hired tradesman has been employed in the house during the year, but that all our clothing has been made, our house painted and repaired; all our printing, glazing, carpenter work, and upholstery, our gasfittings, and smith and plumber work, plaster and slater and mason-work carried on by ourselves. A great part of the clothing of the officers, attendants, and servants, and that of their families, has been made in the house, in addition