Sixth annual report of the Cumberland and Westmorland Lunatic Asylum : 1867.

  • Cumberland and Westmorland Lunatic Asylum
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sixth annual report of the Cumberland and Westmorland Lunatic Asylum : 1867. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/58 page 11
    MEDICAL SUPERINTENDENT’S REPORT. TO THE CHAIRMAN AND VISITORS OF THE CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORLAND ASYLUM. Gentlemen, I beg to submit to you tbe following Report of the Cumberland and Westmorland Asylum for the year 1867. At the beginning of the year there were 278 patients in the Asylum ; there were 314 on the 31st of December. There were 97 admissions during the year, of whom 59 were males and 38 females. There were 30 discharges, of whom 17 were males and 13 females. There were 31 deaths, of whom 22 were males and 9 females. The average number of patients resident during the year was 172 males and 130 females, in all 302. In the accompanying tables I have given the usual statistical information in regard to the admissions, discharges, and deaths. ADMISSIONS. The number of patients admitted into this Asylum has been steadily increasing every year since 1863. The admissions in 1864 were 47, in 1865 were 54, in 1866 were 74, and in 1867 they were 97. Adding to the actual admissions in those years the number of cases refused admission through want of accommodation, the numbers are 64 for 1864, 76 for 1865, 80 for 1866, and 97 for 1867, no cases having been refused admission in the past year. This is an average increase of 13 per cent, every year in the numbers who would have been admitted had there been room, and an increase of 26 per cent, every year in the actual admissions. The only way in which I can throw any light on this increase is to analyze the cases that have been admitted into the Asylum during the past five years, examining carefully the forms and the duration of the insanity, the ages of the patients, and their state and condition before becoming insane, and then to compare the different years with each other. The Asylum has now been open for six years ; but I shall not include the first year in my inquiry, on account of the number
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