The Middlesex County Lunatic Asylums, and their reports for 1855 and 1856.

  • Arlidge, J. T. (John Thomas), 1822-1899.
Date:
[1857?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Middlesex County Lunatic Asylums, and their reports for 1855 and 1856. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    We shall more particularly limit our observations to the latter question ; how are the unprovided for lunatics to be best dealt with ? But we must first say a few words relative to the number of cases made chargeable to the county ; and although on the point to which we wished to direct atten- tion, we are anticipated by the contents of the letter sent in reply to the Commissioners’ queries, published in the Colney Hatch report, yet our notice of it, and the confirma- tion which we can lend to it, will possibly aid in making it better known. “ It has repeatedly (says the letter referred to,) come to the knowledge of the committee, that patients sent here as paupers, are not so in the strict sense of the word. Some of them partially reimburse the parishes for their maintenance ; and in one recent instance, by collusion with the parish officers, a patient was sent here, the whole of whose maintenance was paid by his friends. This is so notorious, that parish officers now use the phrase “ pure paupers,” to distinguish them from those who are only par- tially so. Admissions of this kind are probably of more frequent occurrence than becomes known to the committee of visitors; nor have they indeed much power of pi'eventing them. It is, however, a manifest injustice towards the really indigent, and it tends moreover, to exhibit an amount of pauper lunacy which is really in excess of the truth. ' Instances of the kind mentioned are, we know, of very frequent occurrence ; agreements are entered into between parochial authorities and the friends of lunatics, for not only the partial, but for the entire and even for more than the average cost of their maintenance, as charged to the parishes. A positive evasion of the law is committed by transferring the lunatic for one night to the workhouse to give him the required pauper qualification. By this trick, parties capable of paying the cost of maintenance, even in a private asylum, escape the charge, and saddle the rate payers at large with much of the expenses incurred on their unfortunate relative’s account. Assuredly, indeed, no cases are more pitiable and deser- ving of relief, than those of heads of families, on whom the support of the whole household depends, and others, as professional men, even when single, seized with madness and without means either to have proper provision made for them, according to their previous condition in life, or able only to obtain it at the cost of pauperizing their families. It is truly hard and almost impossible to deny to such the advantages of a pauper asylum : nevertheless their admission