Report on lunatic asylums / by Fredc. Norton Manning.

  • Manning, Frederick Norton, 1839-1903.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on lunatic asylums / by Fredc. Norton Manning. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    C.—Close Asylums. By tar the most common mode of providiuj? for the iusune Ls in the Close Asylum— the '• Asile I'^erme of Preuch writers—and uuderthisdesiji^mitioueomo all 8tate, Provincial, District, County, and Borough Asylums ; all Hospitals for the Insane, and Proprietary Houses, as generally constituted, as well as Parochial Asylums and Special Wards in Poorhouses. The principle in all cases is the same. The asylum is arranged to accom- modate a given number of insane, who are kept, more or less, undei-lock and key ; isolated from the world and the ordinary life thereof; subjected to such medical or other treat- ment as is thought beneficial; made to conform to the routine necessary for the working of the machinery of asylum government; and superintended, watched, and ministered to by a stafi'of paid officers and servants. These asylums, alike in the main principle, differ in the form of government, in their structure and organization, and in various details of arrangement. A very large number of the more chronic class of the indigent insane are accommo- dated in the poor-houses of the parishes and unions to which they belong; in England, Scot- hiiul, and the United States, separate wards, are, as a ride, set apart for their use, and these wards have, in some cases, grown into distinct asylums. In Scotland, the parochial asylums ai-e simply a development of the poor-house ward ; and the large asylums which e.xist in tlie cities of New York, Postou, and Philadelphia, are of the sanie character, and are under the innnediate management and control of the parochial or town authorities. The poor- liouso wards for lunatics in England have been for many years, in only too many cases, modified prison.^. The authorities have been content to maintain the unfortunate lunatics in security ; their food has been of the poorest, their lodging of the roughest: whilst a minimum of cleanliness only was possible, and means of recreation and employment nlmost unknown. In the disclosures recently made by the Lancet Commission, the crying evils of the entire poor-house system were laid bare, and the condition of the lunatic, as well as that of his sane brother, revealed. It is true that the lunatic wards, being under the nominal supervision and the occasional visitation of the Commissioners of Lunacv, were, in most cases, much better in every particular than those occupied by the other inmates; but much was then, and still is, to be desired. It Avoiild be wrong not to add that, in a few of the English poor-houses, all the requirements of the insane have been attended to, and the ari-augements have met with the approval of the Board of Lunacy. The lunatic wards in the Scotch poor-houses are in most respects much better appointed than tho.se further south. The wards at Dundee contrast most favourably with those of the lunatic asylum of the same town ; those at Perth are in almost all respects excellent; and at Edinburgh, even in the Old Darien House, there is cleanliness and comfort.' Means are taken in most of the poor-houses in Scotland to give the insane such small amount of recreation as can be afl:orded by a few newspa])ers, and an occasional walk bevond the bounds of the airing-yard ; and some employment is found for the majority of the inmates; hut the juvantia of a well-organized asylum are wanting. The condition of the lunatic wards in the poor-houses of the LTnited States mav be judged of from the following extracts from Dr. Willard's Report, on this subiect to the Legislature of the State of New York :— _ The in\ estigation shoA\-s gross want of provision for the common ueces^ities ol pJiysical health and comfort, in a large majority of poor-houses where panj)er lunatics are kept, tleaulmess and ablution are not enforced ; in a few instances the insane are not washed at aU, and are unapproachably filthy, disgusting, and repulsive. In some of these buildings the insane are kept in cages and cells, dark and prison-like, as if they were convicts mstead of the life-weary deprived of reason. They are, in numerous instances.' left to sleep on straw, like animals, without other bedding '-Those confined in cells are extremely filthy, most of them not using vessels; and their excrements are mixed with the straw on which they lie Thei? straw 'xl nor.!l wn!5 U'' ^ ;/nd those lunatics, besmeared with their own excrement, are no alkmed to come dailv to the open air. eat in the same filthy npartments and are not washed from one year s end to another. '
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