Medical report to the managers of the Lunatic Asylum of Aberdeen, for the year ending 30th April, 1850 : read at the general meeting held at the asylum, 11th July, 1850.

  • Lunatic Asylum of Aberdeen (Aberdeen, Scotland)
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical report to the managers of the Lunatic Asylum of Aberdeen, for the year ending 30th April, 1850 : read at the general meeting held at the asylum, 11th July, 1850. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Table IV. states their social condition, 40 having been described as single, 30 as married, and 11 as widowed—a result which is borne out by the corresponding Tables contained in previous Reports, that of last year being, however, an exception. Table V. is an enumeration of their occupations or stations in society. Table VI. exhibits the various forms under which the disease manifested itself. In 43, out of the 81 admissions, being in the proportion of 53’09 per cent., this was Mania, that is to say, in them excitement, more or less violent, was the most constant and prominent symptom; in 16 or 19’75 per cent., it was Melan¬ cholia, where depression, mental and physical, is the charac¬ teristic feature of the complaint; in 12 or 14*81 per cent.. Mo¬ nomania, in which there exists a well-marked and constant delu¬ sion, on some particular subject or class of subjects, unattended with an^ great degree of either excitement or depression. 7 or 8’64 per cent, are included under the head of Dementia, or decay of the mental powers, varying in extent from that degree of imbecility which disqualifies the patient from properly taking care of his person and property when at large, downwards to the most abject fatuity, in which he cannot even feed himself or make known his wants. Three patients (3’7 per cent,) were affected with Amentia, or original deficiency of the mental powers, and were admitted merely on the plea of being dangerous and unmanageable at home. These last-named cases, although they may be to a cer¬ tain extent benefited by careful training, and regular diet, hold out no prospect of recovery, and are not therefore desirable inmates in an institution specially devoted to the cure or relief of insanity. There have been in the course of the past year, a smaller num¬ ber, of an acute nature and recent date, than in those which preceded it, which is probably one reason why our list of reco¬ veries is not so large as last year, when they were unusually nu¬ merous. There was one, however, of only ta few days’ standing, in which the excitement was so great, that death, from exhaustion, ensued in about ten days; and another, in which the patient, after narrowly escaping the like fatal result, made a complete recovery. The latter event is by far the most frequent in such cases; for however alarming these may appear to persons unacquainted with the special treatment of Insanity, on account at first of the extreme violence displayed, and at a later stage the great prostration that ensues, our experience has led us to look upon them as being, under proper treat-
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