Annual report of the General Board of Commissioners in Lunacy for Scotland : 42nd 1900

  • Great Britain. General Board of Commissioners in Lunacy for Scotland.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the General Board of Commissioners in Lunacy for Scotland : 42nd 1900. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    16/260
    Lunacy for the year 1899. (2) Admissions by Transfer, Xiv Forty-second Report of the General Board of : The number of pauper patients transferred was, as it always is, larger in proportion to the total admissions than the number of private patients transferred. This is due to the fact that private patients are usually placed at once in the asylums in which it is intended they should stay during their whole term of asylum residence; while pauper patients are frequently placed, in the first instance, in the asylums of the districts in which they are resi- dent, and are afterwards removed to the asylums of the districts to which they belong. The following tabular statement shows the (3) Admission of Voluntary Patients to Kstablish- ments. To I To ti To Royal and To Private Paro- hte District Asylums, Asylums. chial oe Total Transfers. Removed from Asylums.r + ouses, Private. | Pauper. | Private.| Pauper. | Pauper. | Pauper. } Private.| Pauper. Mey} Fy MD aes) I ee St a ee Royal and District Asylums, | 20 | 11 |118 |158 | 1 16| 7 | 57} 48 32 399 Private Asylums. . 4) 6 | sae | ave EE ip To bo (aeogleory Beye 11 ees Parochial Asylume, TO aye lh isee: | a ad Geen el Beare 9 Lunatic Wards of Poor- houses, . k P Ay fae 1S Ue-Aid b Aber eee Cece || iooad b Gos ah conf ook 1 42 TOTALS, . 24 | 17 (140 186 |} 1; 1 16 | 7 | 57 | 44 43 450 (3) Admission of Voluntary Patients. Voluntary patients are persons who, with the sanction of the Board, granted on a simple application signed by the patient, voluntarily enter asylums for treatment of mental disorder, but whose mental condition is not such as to render it legal to grant certificates of insanity in their case. They cannot be detained for more than three days after giving notice of their intention or desire to leave. They are not registered as lunatics, but a record is made of their names and other particulars regarding them. The whole number of such persons admitted into asylums in 1899 was 74. The average number admitted for the ten years 1890-99 was 82. The number resident at 1st January 1900 was 65. We have for many years been able to state that nothing has occurred to indicate any difficulty or disadvantage traceable to the presence of this class of patients in asylums; and we continue to be of opinion that it is a useful provision of the law which permits persons who desire to place themselves under care in an asylum to do so in a way which is not attended with troublesome or disagreeable formalities. At the visits of the Medical Commis- sioners to asylums all voluntary inmates are seen, and they have then an opportunity of making statements in regard to their position, should they desire to make any. When there is reason to suppose that they in any way fail to understand the conditions of their residence, these conditions are explained to them.