State of the Lincoln Lunatic Asylum (instituted November 4, 1819) : [fifteenth report].

  • Lincoln Lunatic Asylum (Lincoln, England)
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: State of the Lincoln Lunatic Asylum (instituted November 4, 1819) : [fifteenth report]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    modate habits, which the use of Instruments confining the fingers had too often induced; while others were sitting locked in massive Chairs with lime strewed underneath, or were secluded in solitary Cells;—and these cruel substitutes for a steady system of Watchfulness, but a prelude to the still greater miseries of nights to be spent under the same wretched system of restraints, painfully sacrificing the freedom and ease of the Patients to the leisure, or misemploy ment, or inadequate number of the Attend¬ ants. Such treatment has gradually given way, as a slowly acquired experience of the tractability of the Insane under a milder management, gave confidence and courage. At last Severity of every kind has disappeared, through the zealous co-operation* of the present House Surgeon, w7ho by an honest and deter¬ mined application of the means placed at his disposal, has carried out the system of mitigation to the unhoped for result of an actual abolitionf of the practice of personal restraint; not any * “ We hope the time is near, when the conviction will be more strongly felt than it has hitherto been, that the ultimate success of an institution in which human beings are assembled together, whether for instruction, support, correction, or physical cure, must depend almost if not entirely, on the strength of character and moral fitness for the situation, of the indivi¬ dual who is placed at its head. Whether it be a school, a work-house, an Asylum, or aprison, no committee of managers, or set of visitors, can ever hope to be able to bring it into a thoroughly prosperous state, unless their intentions are seconded and carried into execution by the individual, who is in reality the executive head of the whole”. Monthly Chronicle, February, 1839, page J83. “ VVithout efficient Officers, honestly and zealously willing to co-operate with the Author¬ ities, no superintendance, no Rules can be of any permanent use. An unwilling Officer can thwart the best arranged plans, without subjecting himself to any specific charge: he can con¬ trive that an improved system shall not answer, or can arrange that any convenient plan of his own shall become necessary, or can affect to misunderstand: or can distress Officers who are honest in their duty, or can countenance a faction of an opposite character, or can raise difficulties, and may always avoid offering expedients.” Reports on prisons, transmitted to the Secretary of State, in 1827. [Lincoln Castle.'] + In order to become personally assured of the effect produced upon the Disorderly Patients by the S ubstitution of a system of Watchfulness instead of Restraints, the House Surgeon spent 3 hours daily for 38 out of 40 successive days in the Months of March aud April of the present year among these particular Patients and their attendants : and had the satisfaction to witness good order preserved, without either violence or intimidation on the part of the latter, through¬ out the whole period.