Twenty-fourth annual report of the Trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital at Northampton, for the year ending September 30, 1879.

  • State Lunatic Hospital (Northampton, Mass.)
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Twenty-fourth annual report of the Trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital at Northampton, for the year ending September 30, 1879. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    incurably insane (they will undoubtedly die so), and one has died at home, who “was never well [sane] but a few months at a time.” It is no exaggeration of the unpleasant aspect of these results to say that they are no more favorable than Dr. Thur- nam’s formula represents. Their near approximation to that formula is somewhat remarkable. 2. Can our statisticians, philanthropists, and statesmen longer be surprised that the hospitals do not put a stop to the increase of insanity? Alcoholic Insanity in the Hospitals. — Mr. Henry W. Lord, Secretary of the Michigan State Board of Charities and Cor¬ rection, has recently published a pamphlet, entitled “ Hospi¬ tals and Asylums for the Insane,” in which, for the purpose of illustration, he introduces a hypothetical institution for six hundred patients. Supposing it to be fully occupied, he proceeds to estimate the number of patients suffering under each of che several forms of insanity who will be found within its walls. This estimate is undoubtedly based upon the knowledge of the subject which he has derived from ob¬ servation of the hospitals of Michigan, and, perhaps, of other States in that section of the country. Among the six hun¬ dred patients of his supposed hospital, he says, — “ There will be found from 30 to 50 whose malady is eu¬ phoniously called dipsomania, many of whom though wildly, often violently or dangerously insane, when committed to the institution, are cured within twenty-four hours, — and per¬ manently cured, if permanently restrained ; but they rarely stay long before means are taken to enlarge them, and they, in a few weeks or months, are discharged cured,—some of them perhaps several times each,— and their cases go to make up the averages of recoveries in official reports.” Admitting this as an approximately accurate representation of the actual condition of the Western hospitals in respect to patients, the cause of whose disease is intemperance in the use of intoxicating liquors, it is no longer difficult to account for the high percentage of recoveries in some of those insti¬ tutions. In an examination of their official reports, I have more than once come to the conclusion that, among their pa¬ tients, there must be a large number, either of those whose