The fifth annual report of the North Wales Lunatic Asylum, Denbigh : for the year m.dccc.liii.

  • North Wales Counties Lunatic Asylum
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The fifth annual report of the North Wales Lunatic Asylum, Denbigh : for the year m.dccc.liii. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    poor fellow would probably have ended his days in a state of unmerited incarceration and hopeless misery. The Commissioners in Lunacy applied to the Lord Chancellor for an order to visit the farmer’s wife mentioned in one of our former reports, as having been tied to her bed by a cart rope, and her hands secured by a muff. She was accordingly visited, and a report upon her case sent to the Commissioners, who directed an enquiry to be made with a view of her re¬ moval to an asylum. The family obtained information of this investigation, and considerable amendment in the treatment of the lunatic took place before the Justices and the Medical Officer appointed to visit her arrived, and no order for her removal was made. We have reason to know that that poor creature is still under restraint, and her hands being secured, she is strapped to a chair, which is fastened to the leg of a strong table. “ North Wales Asylum, Denbigh, June 2nd, 1853. “Since the last visit of the Commissioners on the 30th of July last, 52 patients appear to have been admitted, 25 to have been discharged, and 18 to have died •—the deaths being ascribed to general paralysis, exhaustion, phthisis, and other causes. There are now 179 patients in the Asylum, of whom 11 males and 5 females are private patients, and 78 males and 85 females are paupers. Of these, 11 are registered as being under medical treatment, and one as having being recently placed in seclusion. We have seen the patients, who were generally tranquil at the time of our visit, and have inspected the wards, which are clean and in good order. There appears to be nothing new to recoid respecting employment, amuse¬ ment, or religious exercises. We learn on enquiry that about 60 patients attend the church service, and that about two-thirds of each sex are employed in various ways. Upon the whole, the establishment appears to us to be in a very satis¬ factory state. “ Signed, “B. W. PROCTER,) Commissioners “J. R. HUME, ] in LunacyC “North Wales Asylum, Denbigh, October 24th, 1853. “ There are now 185 patients in this Asylum :—viz., 8 males and 6 females who are private, and 78 males and 93 females who are pauper patients: we have seen and spoken to the whole of them, and inspected every part of the building. The patients were for the most part tranquil and comfortable, and no one was in seclusion. Mechanical restraint is never employed. Several patients were in bed, and some of them in a feeble state, but no disease of any epidemic character prevails, and the general health of the patients is good. We observe, since the
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