Twentieth annual report of the Somerset County Pauper Lunatic Asylum : from the 1st of January to the end of the year 1867.

  • Somerset County Pauper Lunatic Asylum
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Twentieth annual report of the Somerset County Pauper Lunatic Asylum : from the 1st of January to the end of the year 1867. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    hospital in the event of any epidemic which might spread to both sexes. The existing one is preferred by many patients, to the main building, being more domestic and home . like, . and the change to it seems to hasten and establish their recovery. The new west wing for 70 male patients is not entirely fit for occupation. The two attics for about 30 patients and an attendant’s room are quite ready, as well as the second floor which will accommodate a similar number. The six single rooms on the ground floor in the corridor which communicates with No. 3 of the old building are being laid, and there are also two large rooms, on the same floor, as well as bath rooms, lavatory, and closets, still in the hands of the workmen. One of these rooms could be conveniently turned into a day and dining room, and the other into a kitchen, if the Visitors would consent to appropriate the new wing to a class of patients above paupers, at a charge of a pound or a guinea a week. By the profits so accruing the building fund might be increased, and the expense of the new chapel repaid. The conversion of the vacant space in the roof into dor¬ mitories which has been approved of on the female side, could be carried out in the same way on the male side, and ad¬ ditional room for 186 patients be thus made at a small cost, so that the new west wing might be used for a middle class of patients above the rank of paupers, and yet not suffi¬ ciently rich to be sent to private asylums. If the proposed attics or dormitories should not prove sufficient for the pauper lunatics of the county, there now remains the raising of the two back, or north wings only one story high, by which room for 90 more, 45 of each sex, 16 in single rooms, and 74 in dormitories, with two day rooms may be made at a little cost The asylum -would then be sufficient for about 800 pauper lunatics; the number at present 523, 186 in dormitories in the attics and 90 by raising the north wing to the same height as the rest of the building, and about 140 of a
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