Thirty-fifth report of the Derbyshire County Pauper Lunatic Asylum : for the year 1886.

  • Derbyshire County Pauper Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
[1887?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Thirty-fifth report of the Derbyshire County Pauper Lunatic Asylum : for the year 1886. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    There is a very prevalent opinion on the part of Asylum Officials throughout the Country that such is the effect of the Capitation Grant, the experience of this County contributing to support that opinion. Three of those admitted during the past year and discharged Not Insane” were inmates of and sent direct from Workhouses. With reference to the subject of the Capitation Grant, and in connection with proposed legislation on County Government and Local Taxation, it may not be inappropriate here to allude to a Report issued in December 1882 by a sub-committee of the Medico- Psychological Association, and signed by the chairman, Dr. Lockhart Robertson (one of the Lord Chancellor’s Visitors in Lunacy), making suggestions, in the event of the establishment of County Financial Boards, for re-adjusting this grant and placing the expenditure of it on a surer and more satisfactory footing. The Report says “ At present as you are aware the Treasury pay 4s. a week to the several Unions for every Pauper Lunatic maintained in Asylums. There is a general concurrence of opinion with the Committee of Visitors and their Medical Officers (as shown in their several Annual Reports to Quarter Sessions) that the present distribution of this grant leads directly to a needless increase in the admissions to the Asylums of aged lunatics, harmless imbeciles, chronic cases, and idiot children, who formerly were, and can with great economy and equal benefit, be kept under proper arrangements in the Workhouse Wards.” The importance of re-adjusting the grant, and the scheme of re¬ adjustment suggested are shown in the following extract from this able Report:— “ We think we have said enough to forcibly direct your attention to the importance of re-adjusting this grant, so that instead of leading as now] to wasteful expenditure, and adding by the required increase in Asylums to the County Rate, it may be made, as was intended by its author, the means of relieving the local expenditure on the accommodation and maintenance of pauper lunatics.”